The William Henry Letters

It isn't likely I shall write to you again very soon. Cousin Joe and his accordion are coming, and he'll bring his sisters, and the young folks about here know them, and I expect there'll be nothing but frolicking. Then there'll be some of your Uncle J.'s folks after that, so you see we'll be all in a hubbub and I shall have to be the very hub of the hubbub, I suppose. Lucy Maria says, "Tell William Henry to send us a charade, or something to amuse the company with." Write when you can.

With a great deal of love, your affectionate

Aunt Phebe.

P. S. Take good care of your finger. A finger-joint would be a great loss. I think cold water is as good as anything. Grandmother wishes you had some of her carrot salve. Let us hear from you in some way. Grandmother wants to know if the Two Betseys don't make carrot salve.

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I must add here that Lucy Maria was not the girl to give up those pictures in "two oval frames." For by perseverance, and partly with my assistance, the thing was secretly managed, and managed so well that Uncle Jacob actually carried them out home himself, in a bundle to Lucy Maria, without knowing it! And they now hang in triumph over the fireplace in the "girls' chamber."

Lucy Maria to William Henry

Dear Billy, —

'T is a pity about that forefinger. Pray get it well enough to handle a pen, 't is so long since you've written. So you want home matters reported. Eatable matters of course will be most interesting. Milk and butter, plenty. Gingerbread (plain), ditto. Gingerbread (fancy), scarce. Cookies, quiet. Plum-cake, in demand. Snaps, lively. Brown-bread, firm. White-bread (sliced), dull. Biscuits (hot), brisk. Custard, unsteady. Preserves not in the market.

What do we do, and what do we talk about? Why, we talk about our cousin William Henry, and what we do can't be told within the bounds of one letter. Think of seven cows' milk to churn into butter, besides a cheese now and then, and besides working for the extra hands we hire this time o' year! I should have written to you before, when we first heard of your accident, if I could have got the time. Hannah Jane is away, and we've let Mattie go with Susie Snow to Grandma Snow's again for a few days. Grandma Snow likes to have Mattie come with Susie, for 't is rather a still, dull place. So you must think we are quite lonesome here now, and we are, especially mother. Father tells her she'd better advertise for a companion. I've a good mind to advertise to be a companion. What do companions do? The old lady might be cross, or the old gentleman, but that wouldn't hurt me, so long as I kept clever myself. Don't doubt I'd get fun out of it some way. There's fun in about everything I think.

I've been trying to get father and mother to go to Aunt Lucy's and stay all night. But father thinks there wouldn't be anybody to shut the barn-door, and mother thinks there wouldn't be anybody to do anything, though I've promised to scald the pans, and do up the starched things, and keep Tommy out of the sugar-bowl. He takes a lump every chance he can get. Takes after his father. Father puts sugar on sweetened puddings, if mother isn't looking! We've made some verses to plague Tommy, and when Mattie gets her piano, they're going to be set to music.

SONGA Sweet TommyAs turns the needle to the pole,So Tommy to the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!Tommy always takes a tollGoing by the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!Were Tommy blind as any mole,He'd always find the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!

He's a funny talking fellow. We took him into town last night, to see the illumination. This morning we heard him and Frankie Snow telling Benny Joyce about it. Father and I were listening behind the blinds. Made father's eyes twinkle. Don't you know how they twinkle when he's tickled?

"You didn't see the rumination and we did!" we heard Tommy say.

"Rumination? What's a rumination?" asked Benny.

"O hoo! hoo!" cried Tommy. "Denno what a rumination is!"

"Why," said Frankie, "don't you know the publicans? Wal, that's it."

"O poh!" said Benny. "Publicans and sinners! I knew they's coming!"

"And soldiers!" said Frankie. "O my! All a marching together!"

"O poh!" said Benny. "I see 'em go by. Paint-pots on their heads, and brushes in 'em! I wasn't goin' to chase!"

"Guess nobody wouldn't let ye?" said Frankie.

"Didn't either!" cried Tommy, "didn't have paint-pots!"

"Did!" said Benny. "Guess my great brother knows!"

"Guess we know," said Frankie, "when we went!"

"And the town was all celebrated," said Tommy. And the houses all gloomed up! And horses! O my!

"O poh!" said Benny. "When I grow up, I'm goin' to have a span!"

If mother does go, she'll take Tommy, for she wouldn't sleep a wink away from him over night. Father pretends he'd go if he had a handsome span. Says he hasn't got a horse in the barn good enough to take mother out riding. When Mammy Sarah was here washing, she told him how he could get a good span. You know he's always joking about taking summer boarders. Says Mammy Sarah, "Now 't is a wonder to me you don't do it, for summer boarders is as good as a gold-mine. Money runs right out of their pockets, and all you have to do is to catch it." She says we could make enough out of a couple of them, in a month's time, to buy a handsome span, and she isn't sure but the harness.

I think we begin to be a little in earnest about summer boarders. For we have rooms enough, in both houses together, and milk and vegetables, and mother's a splendid cook. Mammy Sarah says, "They ain't diffikilt, and after they've been in the country couple of weeks, they don't eat so very much more than other folks."

Father says he wants to take them more for the entertainment than the money. He wants rich ones, but not the sensible kind, that know money isn't the only thing worth having. Says what he wants is that silly, stuck-up kind, that put on airs, and make fools of themselves, they'd be so amusing! Thinks the best sort for our use would be specimens that went up quite sudden from poor to rich, like balloons, all filled with gas. I believe there'd be lots of fun to be made out of them. I've seen one or two. Gracious! You'd think they weren't born on the same planet with poor folks. Mother'd rather have the really well-informed, sensible kind, that we may learn something from them. A couple of each would be just the thing. How do you like mother's picture? We don't feel at all satisfied with it. If she could only be taken at home! Then she'd look natural. Father says the world is going ahead so fast, he believes the time will come when every family will have its own picture-machine, much as it has its own frying-pan. Then when folks have on their best expressions, why, clap it right before them. Then they'll look homish. Says what he wants is to have mother's face when she's just made a batch of uncommon light biscuits, or when Tommy's said something smart. Won't there be funny pictures when we can hold up a machine before anybody any minute, like a frying-pan, and catch faces glad, or mad, or sad, or any way? I made believe take Tommy's and then showed them to him on a piece of paper. Guess I'll put them in the letter. They'll do to amuse you. I draw an hour or so every day. First, I have to make my hour. Sometimes I have to make more. For I will read a little, if the world stops because of it. But about the faces. First one is when he was crying because he couldn't have sugar on his potatoes. Next one is when he was spunky at Frankie Snow for bursting his little red balloon. The pleased-looking face is when father brought him home a little ship all rigged, and the laughing one is when the cow put her head in the window. We tell him we'll have them framed and hung up so he can see just how he looks. Mother says 't is all very well to laugh at Tommy, but she guesses some older ones' pictures wouldn't always look smiling and pleasant, take them the year through!

As soon as your finger is itself again do write, for we miss your letters. We expect to have gay times here this summer. Company coming, but we sha' n't make company of them. Except to have splendid times. What shall we do evenings? If you go anywhere where there is anything going on, do write us about it, so we can go on the same way. When are you coming? Write me a good long letter when you can.

Your affectionate Cousin,Lucy Maria.

Your father is going to write you a letter. Quite wonderful for him. O William Henry, you don't know how much I think of your father, and what a good man he is! I guess you'd better write to your grandmother before you do me; she's so pleased to have you write to her.

Father wants to know when that ball hit you if you bawled.

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Lucy Maria's "picture-taker" made a great deal of fun for them, and possibly did some good. She constructed a queer long-handled affair, and, at the most unexpected moments, this would be thrust before the faces of different members of the family, more especially Tommy, Matilda, or Georgiana, and their "pictures" would be sure to appear to them soon after, "glad, or mad, or sad, or any way."

And the plan of "summer boarders" also furnished entertainment. The talk on this subject was quite amusing, particularly when it touched the subject of "advertising." Lucy Maria suggested this ending: —

"None but the silly, or the really well-informed need apply." But Mr. Carver thought such a notice would fail of bringing a single boarder. For silly people did not know they were silly, and the really well-informed were the very last ones to think themselves so.

William Henry to Aunt Phebe

Dear Aunt Phebe, —

I thank you for taking your time to write to me, when you have so much work to do. My forefinger has about recovered the use of itself. The middle one did go lame a spell, but now 't is very well, I thank you. Mrs. Wedding Cake did them up for me. I think she's a very kind woman. Dorry says he'd put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, or lay down his life, if she wanted him to, or anything else, for the only woman he knows that will smile on boys' mud and on boys' noise.

Ten of us went on an excursion with the teacher, half-price, to Boston, and had a long ride in the cars, over forty miles. We went everywhere, and saw lots of things. Went into the Natural History building. You can go in for nothing. You stand on the floor, at the bottom and look way up to the top. All round inside are galleries running round, with alcoves letting out of them, where they keep all sorts of unknown beasts and birds and bugs and snakes. Some of those great birds are regular smashers! 'Most dazzles your eyes to look at their feathers, they're such bright red! I'd just give a guess how tall they were, but don't believe I'd come within a foot or two. Also butterflies of every kind, besides skeletons of monkeys and children and minerals and all kinds of grasses and seeds, and nuts there such as you never cracked or thought of! They are there because they are seeds, not because they are nuts. And there's a cast of a great ugly monster, big as several elephants, that used to walk round the earth before any men lived in it. If he wasn't a ripper! Could leave his hind feet on the ground and put his fore paws up in the trees and eat the tops off! They call him a Megotharium! I hope he's spelt right, though he ought not to expect it, and I don't know as it makes much difference, seeing he lived thousands of years before the flood, and lucky he did, Dorry says, for the old ark couldn't have floated with many of that sort aboard. He wasn't named till long after he was dead and buried. Patient waiter is no loser, Dorry says, for he's got more name than the ones that live now, and is taken more notice of. We saw a cannon-ball on the side of Brattle Street Church, where 't was fired in the Revolution, and we went to the top of the State House. Made our knees ache going up so many steps, but it pays. For you can look all over the harbor, and all round the country, and see the white towns, and steeples, for miles and miles. Boston was built on three hills and the State House is on one of them. I can't write any more, now.

W. B. has left school, because his father got a place for him in New York. His father thought he was old enough to begin. He's a good deal older than I am.

From your affectionate Nephew,William Henry.

How do you like this picture of that great Mego – I won't try to spell him again – eating off the tree-tops? The leaves on the trees then were different from the ones we have now. Dorry made the leaves, and I made the creature.

A Letter to William Henry from his Father

My dear Son, —

Perhaps you have thought that because I am rather a silent man, and do not very often write you a letter, that I have not very much feeling and do not take interest in you. But no one knows how closely I am watching my boy as Time is bringing him up from boyhood to manhood.

Sometimes your grandmother worries about your being where there may be bad boys; but I tell her that among so many there must be both good and bad, and if you choose the bad you show very poor judgment. I think if a boy picks out bad companions it shows there is something bad in himself.

She says I ought to keep giving you good advice, now you are just starting in life, and charge you to be honest and truthful and so forth. I tell her that would be something as it would be if you were just starting on a pleasant journey, and I should say, "Now, William Henry, don't put out your own eyes at the beginning, or cut the cords of your legs!" Do you see what I mean? A boy that is not honest and truthful puts out his own eyes and cripples himself at the very beginning.

There is a good deal said about arriving at honor and distinction. I don't want you to think about arriving at honor. I want you to take honor to start with. And as for distinction, a man, in the long run, is never distinguished for anything but what he really is. So make up your mind just what you want to pass for, and be it. For you will pass for what you are, not what you try to appear. Go into the woods and see how easily you can tell one tree from another. You see oak leaves on one, and you know that is oak all the way through. You see pine needles on another, and you know that is pine all the way through. A pine-tree may want to look like an oak, and try to look like an oak, and think it does look like an oak, as it can't see itself. But nobody is cheated. So a rascally fellow may want to appear fair and honest, and try to appear fair and honest, and think he does appear fair and honest, as he can't see himself. But, in the long run, nobody is cheated. For you can read a man's character about as easy as you can the leaves on the trees. Sometimes I sit down in a grocery store and hear the neighbors talked about, and 't is curious to find how well everybody is known. It seems as if every man walked round, labelled, as you may say, same as preserve jars are labelled, currant, quince, &c. Only he don't know what his label is. Just as likely as not a man may think his label is Quince Marmelade, when 't is only Pickled String Beans!

Just so with boys. Grown folks notice boys a great deal, though when I was a boy, I never knew they did. The little affairs of play-time and school-time, and their home-ways are all talked over, and by the time a boy is twelve years old, it is pretty well known what sort of a man he will make.

Now don't mistake my meaning. I don't want you to be true because people will know it if you are not, but because it is right and noble to be so. I want you to be able to respect yourself. Never do anything that you like yourself any the less for doing.

A boy of your age is old enough to be looking ahead some, to see what he is aiming at. I don't suppose you want to drift, like the sea-weed, that lodges wherever the waves toss it up! Set up your mark, and a good high one. And be sure and remember that, as a general thing, there is no such thing as luck. If a man seems to be a lucky merchant, or lawyer, or anything else, 't is because he has the talent, the industry, the determined will, that make him so. People see the luck, but they don't always see the "taking pains" that's behind it. I remember you wrote us a letter once, and spoke of a nice house, with nice things inside, that you meant to have by "trying hard enough." There's a good deal in that. We've got to try hard, and try long, and try often, and try again, and keep trying. That house never'll come down to you. You've got to climb up to it, step by step. I don't know as I have anything to say about the folly of riches. On the contrary, I think 't is a very good plan to have money enough to buy books and other things worth having. I don't see why a man can't be getting knowledge and growing better, at the same time he is growing richer. Some poor folks have a prejudice against rich folks. I haven't any. Rich people have follies, but poor people copy them if they can. That is to say, we often see poor people making as big fools of themselves as they can, with the means they have. Money won't hurt you, Billy, so long as you keep common sense and a true heart.

We are all watching you and thinking of you, here at home. If you should go wrong 't would be a sad blow for both families. Perhaps I ought to tell you how I feel towards you, and how, ever since your mother's death, my heart has been bound up in you and Georgie. You would then know what a crushing thing it would be to me if you were found wanting in principle. But I am not very good, either at talking or writing, so do remember, dear boy, that even when I don't say a word, I'm thinking about you and loving you always. God bless you!

From your affectionateFather.

W. B., it seems, from his own account, set sail on the great sea of commerce with flying colors, and favorable winds, – probably the Trade-winds.

Old Wonder Boy to William Henry

Dear Friend, —

I like my place, and think it is a very excellent one. It is "Veazey & Summ's." When you get a place it is my advice that you should procure one in New York, as New York is greatly superior to Boston. Boston is a one-horse place. I wouldn't be seen riding in that slow coach. Washington Street could be put whole into Broadway, and not know it was there hardly, for you could travel both sides and all round it. Our store is a very excellent store. Some consider it greatly superior to Stewart's. All our clerks dress in very superior style and go in very good society, and so I learn to use very good language. We keep boys to do the errands, and porters. All the stylish people do their trading here. The young ladies like to trade with me very much. The New York ladies are greatly superior to any other ladies. The firm think a great deal of me, so I expect to be promoted quite fast. I am learning to smoke. I have got a very handsome pipe. The head clerk thinks it has got a very superior finish to it. We two are quite thick. How are all the fellers? Write soon. Remember me to all inquiring friends, and excuse handwriting.

Your friend,Walter Briesden.

William Henry to Matilda

Dear Cousin, —

Now I'm going to answer your letter, and then I sha' n't have to think about it any longer. I was sorry to hear about poor Reddie. But if it had been Tommy, then it would have been a great deal worse. Think of that. Dorry and I have been wishing 'most a week about something, and now I'll tell you what 't is about. About a party. 'T is going to be at Colonel Grey's. He lives in a large light-colored brick house, with a piazza round it, and a fountain, and bronze dogs, and everything lovely. It is Maud Grey's birthday party. Sixteen years old. Old and young are going to be invited, because her little sister's birthday comes next day to hers. Now sometimes when there's a party some of the biggest of our fellows get invited, because there are not very many young gentlemen in town, and they are glad to take some from the school. But we two never have yet. But Dorry thinks we stand a better chance now, for we've been to dancing-school, and will do to fill up sets with. Maud Grey didn't go as a scholar, but she went spectator sometimes, and took my partner's place once, when her string of beads broke. Dorry was in the same set. I never polkaed better in my life, for she took me round and made me keep time whether I wanted to or not, but I told Dorry I felt just like a little boy that had been lifted over a puddle. He's afraid she won't remember us, but I guess I'm afraid she will, and then won't invite such a bad dancer. We two thought we'd walk by the house, just for fun, and make ourselves look tall. So we held up our chins, and swung two little canes we'd cut, going along, for small chaps are plenty enough, but young gentlemen go off to college, or stores, soon's they're of any size. The blinds were all shut up, but Dorry said there was hope if the slats were turned the right way. Blind slats here move all ways. Yesterday, in school-time, I saw a colored man coming towards the school-house, and thought 't was Cicero, the one that works for Colonel Grey, coming with the invitations, and made a loud "hem!" for Dorry to look up, and a hiss, to mean Cicero, and pointed out doors. 't wasn't very loud, but that one we call Brown Bread, that has eyes in the back of his head, and ears all over him, and smells rat where there isn't any, and wears slippers, so you can't hear him, even if 'tis still enough to drop a pin, – I thought he was over the other side of the room, tending to his own affairs, but all of a sudden he was standing just back of me, and I had to lose a recess just for that. And 't wasn't Cicero after all, but the one that comes after the leavings. – (Somebody knocks.)

Afternoon.– Hurrah! We're going! The one that knocked at the door was Spicey, with our invitations. When I come home I'll bring them home to show. They came through the post-office. We expect they all came to the professor, with orders to pick out the ten tallest ones, for they are directed in his writing. I never went to such a party, and shouldn't know how to behave, if 't wasn't for Dorry. First thing you do is to go up and speak to the lady of the house and the lady of the party. I mean after you've been up stairs, and looked in the looking-glass and smoothed down your hair. Mine always comes up again. I've tried water and I've tried oil, and I've tried beef-marrow, but 't is bound to come up. Dorry says I ought to put it in a net. Don't you remember that time I had my head shaved off close, and how it looked like an orange? I'm glad 't isn't so red as it was. 'T is considerable dark now. When you come down you walk up to the lady of the house and say "How do you do?" and shake hands, and when you go home you have to bid her good-night, and say you've had a very pleasant time, and shake hands again. Not shove out your fist, as if you were shoving a croquet-ball, but slow, with the fingers about straight, and not speak it out blunt, as if you were singing out "good-night!" to the fellers, but quite softly and smiling. Dorry's been showing me beforehand. Bubby Short stood up in the floor, and had the bedspread tied round him with a cod-line, for a trail, and shavings for curls. He was the lady of the house and we walked up to him, and said, "How do you do, Mrs. Grey?" and so forth. Dorry drew this picture of us. He draws better than I do. I will write about the party.

From your Cousin,William Henry.

William Henry to his Grandmother

My dear Grandmother, —

Now if you will be a good little grandmother, and promise never to worry any more, then I'll tell you about that party. We had to wear white gloves. I'll begin at the outside. The piazzas had colored lights hanging round them, and there were colored lights hung in the trees and the gateways. 'T was a foggy night, and those colored lights lighted up the fog all around, so when you came towards the place it looked just like a great bright spot in the midst of darkness. There was a tall lady, standing in the middle of the room, with a splendid dress on, dragging way behind her, and I went right up to her, and just got my foot the way Mr. Tornero told us, and the palm of my hand right, when Dorry jerked me back by my jacket and said she wasn't the right one. You see we got belated, going back after our clean pocket-handkerchiefs, and hurried so that Dorry fell down and muddied his trousers' knees, but lucky 't was close to the Two Betseys' shop, for we went in there and got sponged up, but we had to wait for 'em to dry. Lame Betsey said she used to take care of Maud Grey when she was a little scrap, and she wanted to make her a birthday present. So they both hunted round, to see if they had anything. In the desk they found a little thin book, a funny-looking old blue-covered book, "Advice to a Young Lady," that was given to Lame Betsey when she was young. The title was on the blue cover. 'T was a funny-looking thing and it smelt snuffy. She asked me to give it to Maud, after she'd written her name in it. I tell you now Lame Betsey makes quite good letters! I didn't want to take the book, but I did, for both Betseys are clever women.