My Dear Henry--Your pensive favor of the 20th inst., asking for more
means with which to persecute your studies, and also a young man from
Ohio, is at hand and carefully noted.
I would not be ashamed to have you show the foregoing sentence to
your teacher, if it could be worked, in a quiet way, so as not to look
egotistic on my part. I think myself that it is pretty fair for a man
that never had any advantages.
But, Henry, why will you insist on fighting the young man from Ohio? It
is not only rude and wrong, but you invariably get licked. There's where
the enormity of the thing comes in.
It was this young man from Ohio, named Williams, that you hazed last
year, or at least that's what I gether from a letter sent me by your
warden. He maintains that you started in to mix Mr. Williams up with the
campus in some way, and that in some way Mr. Williams resented it and
got his fangs tangled up in the bridge of your nose.
You never wrote this to me or your mother, but I know how busy you are
with your studies, and I hope you won't ever neglect your books just to
write us.
Your warden, or whoever he is, said that Mr. Williams also hung a
hand-painted marine view over your eye and put an extra eyelid on one of
your ears.
I wish that, if you get time, you would write us about it, because, if
there's anything I can do for you in the arnica line, I would be pleased
to do so.
The president also says that in the scuffle you and Mr. Williams swapped
belts as follows, to-wit: That Williams snatched off the belt of your
little Norfolk jacket, and then gave you one in the eye.
From this I gether that the old prez, as you faseshusly call him, is an
youmorist. He is not a very good penman, however; though, so far, his
words have all been spelled correct.
I would hate to see you permanently injured, Henry, but I hope that
when you try to tramp on the toes of a good boy simply because you are a
seanyour and he is a fresh, as you frequently state, that he will arise
and rip your little pleated jacket up the back and make your spinal
colyum look like a corderoy bridge in the spring tra la. (This is from a
Japan show I was to last week.)
Why should a seanyour in a colledge tromp onto the young chaps that
come in there to learn? Have you forgot how I fatted up the old cow and
beefed her so that you could go and monkey with youclid and aigebray?
Have you forgot how the other boys pulled you through a mill pond and
made you tobogin down hill in a salt barrel with brads in it? Do you
remember how your mother went down there to nuss you for two weeks and I
stayed to home, and done my own work and the housework too and cooked my
own vittles for the whole two weeks?
And now, Henry, you call yourself a seanyour, and therefore, because you
are simply older in crime, you want to muss up Mr. Williams's features
so that his mother will have to come over and nuss him. I am glad
that your little pleated coat is ripped up the back. Henry, under the
circumstances, and I am also glad that you are wearing the belt--over
your off eye. If there's anything I can do to add to the hilarity of the
occasion, please let me know and I will tend to it.
The lop-horned heifer is a parent once more, and I am trying in my poor,
weak way to learn her wayward offspring how to drink out of a patent
pail without pushing your old father over into the hay-mow. He is a cute
little quadruped, with a wild desire to have fun at my expense. He loves
to swaller a part of my coat-tail Sunday morning, when I am dressed up,
and then return it to me in a moist condition. He seems to know that
when I address the Sabbath school the children will see the joke and
enjoy it.
Your mother is about the same, trying in her meek way to adjust herself
to a new set of teeth that are a size too large for her. She has one
large bunion in the roof of her mouth already, but is still resolved to
hold out faithful, and hopes these few lines will find you enjoying the
same great blessing.
You will find enclosed a dark-blue money order for four eighty-five. It
is money that I had set aside to pay my taxes, but there is no novelty
about paying taxes. I've done that before, so it don't thrill me as it
used to.
Give my congratulations to Mr. Williams. He has got the elements of
greatness to a wonderful degree. If I happened to be participating in
that college of yours, I would gently but firmly decline to be tromped
onto.
So good-bye for this time.