The William Henry Letters

Dorry said, "Poh, that wasn't much of a pick!" Says he, "Now I'll tell you a huckleberry story that's worth something." Then all the boys began to hit elbows, for they knew Dorry would make up some funny thing. Says he: "I went a huckleberrying once to Wakonok Swamp, and I carried a fourteen-quart tin pail, and a great covered basket, besides a good many quart and pint things. You'd better believe they hung thick in that swamp! I found a thick spot, and I slung my fourteen-quart tin pail round my waist, and picked with both hands, and ate off the bushes with my mouth all the while. I got all my things full without stirring two yards from the spot, and then I didn't know what to do. But I'll tell you what I did. I took off my jacket, and cut my fishing-line, and tied up the bottom ends of my jacket sleeves and picked them both full. And then I didn't know what to do next. But I'll tell you what I did. I took off my overalls, and tied up the bottoms of their legs, and picked them so full you wouldn't know but there was a boy standing up in 'em!" Then the boys all clapped.

"Well," Old Wonder Boy said, "how did you get them home?"

"O, got them home easy enough," Dorry said. "First I put the overalls over my shoulders, like a boy going pussy-back. I slung all the quart and pint things round my waist, and hung the covered basket on one arm, and took the fourteen-quart tin pail in that same hand. Then I tied my jacket to the end of my fishing-pole, and held it up straight in my other hand like – like a flag in a dead calm!"

O, you ought to 've seen the boys, – how they winked at one another and puffed out their cheeks; and some of 'em rolled over and over down hill to keep from laughing! Bubby Short got behind the fence, and put his face between two bars, and called out, "S – e – double l!" But Dorry says they don't know what a "s – e – double l" is down in Jersey. But I don't believe that W. B. believes Dorry's stories; for I looked him in the face, and he had a mighty sly look when he asked Dorry how it was he got his huckleberries home.

To-day they got a talking about potatoes. Old Wonder Boy said that down in Jersey they grow so big you have to pry 'em up out of the hill, and it don't take much more than two to make a peck. Dorry told him that down in Maine you could stand on top the potato-hills and look all round the country, they were so high; and he asked W. B. how they planted 'em in Jersey, with their eyes up or down? He said he didn't know which way they did turn their eyes. Then Dorry told him the Yankees always planted potatoes eyes up, so they could see which way to grow. Said he planted a hill of potatoes in his father's garden, last summer, with their eyes all down, and waited and waited, but they didn't come up. And when he had waited a spell longer, he raked off the top of that hill of potatoes, and all he saw was some roots sticking up. And he began to dig down. And he kept digging. Followed their stems. But he never got to the potato-tops; and says he, "I never did get to those potato-tops!" O, you ought to 've heard the boys!

Old Wonder Boy wanted to know where Dorry thought they'd gone to. Dorry thought to himself a minute, and looked just as sober, and then says he, just like a school-teacher, "The earth, in the middle, is afire. I think when they got deep enough to feel the warm, they guessed 't was the sun, and so kept heading that way."

Is the world afire in the middle? Dorry told me that part of his story was really true. How Uncle Jacob would laugh to sit down and hear Dorry and Old Wonder Boy tell about whales. W. B. calls 'em wales. His uncle is a ship-captain, he says, and once he saw a wale, and the wale was making for his ship, and it chased 'em. And, no matter how they steered, that wale would chase. And by and by, in a calm day, he got under the vessel and boosted her up out of water, when all the crew gave a yell, – such a horrid yell that the wale let 'em down so sudden that the waves splashed up to the tops of the masts, and they thought they were all drowned.

"O, poh!" Dorry cried out. "My uncle was a regular whaler, and went a whaling for his living. And once he was cruising about the whaling-grounds and 't was in a place where the days were so short that the nights lasted almost all day. And they got chased by a whale. And he kept chasing them. Night and day. And there came up a gale of wind that lasted three days and nights; and the ship went like lightning, night and day, the whale after them. And, when the wind went down, the whale was so tuckered that he couldn't swim a stroke. So he floated. Then the cap'n sang out to 'em to lower a boat. And they did. And the cap'n got in and took a couple of his men to row him. The whale was rather longer than a liberty-pole. About as long as a liberty-pole and a half. He was asleep, and they steered for the tail end. A whale's head is about as big as the Two Betseys' shop, and 't is filled with clear oil, without any trying out. The cap'n landed on the whale's tail, and went along up on tiptoe, and the men rowed the boat alongside, and kept even with him; and, when he got towards her ears, he took off his shoes, and threw 'em to the men to catch. After a while he got to the tip-top of her head. Now I'll tell you what he had in his hand. He had a great junk of cable as big round as the trunk of a tree, and not quite a yard long. In one end of it there was a point of a harpoon stuck in, and the other end of it was lighted. He told the men to stand ready. Then he took hold of the cable with both hands, and with one mighty blow he stuck that pointed end deep in the whale's head, and then gave one jump into the boat, and he cried out to the men, 'Row! row for your lives! To the tail end! If you want to live, row!' And before that whale could turn round they were safe aboard the ship! But now I'll tell you the best part of the whole story. They didn't have any more long dark nights after that. They kept throwing over bait to keep her chasing, and the great lamp blazed, and as fast as the oil got hot it tried out more blubber, and that whale burned as long as there was a bit of the inside of him left. Flared up, and lighted up the sea, and drew the fishes, and they drew more whales; and they got deep loaded, and might have loaded twenty more ships. And when they left they took a couple in tow, – of whales, – and knocked out their teeth for ivory, and then sold their carcasses to an empty whaler."

Dorry says some parts of this story are true. But he didn't say which parts. Said I must look in the whale-book and find out.

Your affectionate grandchild,William Henry.

P. S. I wish you would please to send me a silver three-cent piece or five-cent. Two squaws have got a tent a little ways off, and the boys are going to have their fortunes taken. But you have to cross the squaws' hands with silver.

W. H.

Georgianna's Letter to William Henry

My dear Brother Billy, —

O Billy, my pretty, darling little bird is dead! My kitty did it, and O, I don't know what I shall do, for I love my kitty if she did kill my birdie; but I don't forget about it, and I keep thinking of my birdie every time my kitty comes in the room. I was putting some seeds in the glass, and my birdie looked so cunning; and I held a lump of white sugar in my lips, and let him peck it. And while I was thinking what a dear little bird he was, I forgot he could fly out; but he could, for the door was open, and he flew to the window. I didn't think anything about kitty. It flew up to that bracket you made, and then it went away up in the corner just as high as it could, on a wooden peg that was there. I didn't know what made it flutter its wings and tremble so, but grandmother pointed her finger down to the corner, on the floor, and there was my kitty stretching out and looking up at my bird. And that was what made poor birdie tremble so. And it dropped right down. Before we could run across to catch kitty, he dropped right down into her mouth. I never thought she could get him. I didn't know what made grandmother hurry. I didn't know that kitties could charm birds, but they do. She didn't have him a minute in her teeth, and I thought it couldn't be dead. But, O Billy, my dear birdie never breathed again! I warmed him in my hands, and tried to make him stir his wings, but he never breathed again. Now the tears are coming again. I thought I wasn't going to cry any more. But they come themselves; when I don't know it, they come; and O, it was such a good birdie! When I came home from school I used to run to the cage, and he would sing to meet me. And I put chickweed over his cage.

Grandmother has put away that empty cage now. She's sorry, too. Did you think a grandmother would be sorry about a little bird as that? But she'd rather give a good deal. When she put the plates on the table, and rattled spoons, he used to sing louder and louder. And in the morning he used to wake me up, singing away so loud! Now, when I first wake up, I listen. But O, it is so still now! Then in a minute I remember all about it. Sometimes kitty jumps up on the bed, and puts her nose close down, and purrs. But I say, "No, kitty. Get down. You killed little birdie. I don't want to see you." But she don't know what I mean. She rubs her head on my face, and purrs loud, and wants me to stroke her back, and don't seem as if she had been bad. She used to be such a dear little kitty. And so she is. She's pretty as a pigeon. Aunt Phebe says she never saw such a pretty little gray and white kitty as she is. I was going to have her drowned. But then I should cry for kitty too. Then I should think how she looked all drowned, down at the bottom, just the same way I do now how my birdie looked when it couldn't stir its little wings, and its eyes couldn't move. My father says that kitty didn't know any better. I hope so. I took off that pretty chain she had round her neck. But grandmother thinks I had better put it on again. Aunt Phebe's little Tommy says, "Don't kye, Dordie, I'll bung dat tat. I'll take a tick and bung dat tat!" He calls me Dordie, I guess I rather have kitty alive than let her be drowned, don't you? Grandmother wants you not to catch cold and be sick.

From your affectionate sister,Georgianna.

P. S. Grandmother showed me how to write this letter.

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A caged bird is never a very interesting object to me. But this little canary of Georgie's was really a beautiful creature, and very intelligent. They used to think that he listened for her step at noon and night; for no sooner was it heard in the entry than he peeped out with his little bright eyes, and tuned up, and sang away, as if to say, "Glad! glad! glad you've come! glad you've come!"

Then she would go to the cage and talk to him, and let him take sugar from her mouth, and would hang fresh chickweed about its cage. Mornings she used to sing, from her bed, and the bird would answer. Indeed, he really seemed quite a companion for her.

At the time the accident happened I had been staying for a few weeks at the hotel, a mile or two off, and called at the farm that very day. Lucy Maria told me, as I stopped at their door, what the kitten had done, and how Georgianna had cried and mourned and could not be comforted.

I found her sitting on the doorstep. She had placed the bird in a small round basket, lined with cotton-wool, and was bending over, and stroking it. I had always noticed the bird a great deal, used to play with it, and whistle to make it sing louder and louder. The sight of me brought all this back to her mind, and she burst into tears again, sobbing out, "O, he never – will sing – any more! Dear little birdie! He had to fall down! He couldn't – help it!"

I talked with her awhile, in a cheerful way, and when she had become quite calm I held out my hand and said, "Come, Georgie, don't you want to go with me and find a pretty place where we can put birdie away, under the soft grass? And we will plant a flower there."

The idea of the soft grass and the flower seemed to please her. She took my hand, and we went to look about.

We thought the garden not a very good place, because it was dug up every year, and the field would be mowed and trampled upon. But just over the fence, back of the garden, we came upon some uneven ground, where the old summer-sweeting trees grew. In one place there was a sudden pitch downwards, into a little hollow, which grass and plantain leaves made almost forever green. For here was what they called the Boiling Spring. The water bubbled out of the ground on the slope of the bank, and in former times, before the well was dug, had been used in the family. Several trees grew about there, – wild cherry, damson, and poplar, – and a profusion of yellow flowers, wild ones. Some of these grandmother called "Ladies' Slipper"; the others, "Sullendine." The spring had once been stoned up and boxed over. But the boards were now rotting away, the stones falling in, and our little hollow had quite a deserted look. The water trickled out and ran away around the curve of the bank.

Grandmother came with us, and Georgie's teacher, and Matilda and Tommy. We hollowed out a little place under the wild-cherry tree, wrapped the birdie in cotton-wool, lay him in, and covered him over with the green sod. I then went down by the stone wall, where sweetbriers were growing, dug up a very pretty little one, and set it out close by, so that it might lean against the cherry-tree. Tommy kept very sober, and scarcely spoke a word, till it was all over. He then said to me, in a very earnest tone, "Mr. Fwy, now will another birdie grow up there?" I suppose he was thinking of his father's planting corn and more corn growing.

William Henry to his Sister

My dear Little Sister, —

I'm sorry your little birdie's dead! He was a nice singing birdie! But I wouldn't cry. Maybe you'll have another one some time, if you're a good little girl. Maybe father'll go to Boston and buy you one, or maybe Cousin Joe will send one home to you, in a vessel, or maybe I'll catch one, or maybe a man will come along with birds to sell, or maybe Aunt Phebe's bird will lay an egg and hatch one out. I wouldn't feel bad about it. It isn't any use to feel bad about it. Maybe, if he hadn't been killed, he'd 'a' died. Dorry says, "Tell her, 'Don't you cry,' and I'll give her something, catch her a rabbit or a squirrel!" Says he'll tease his sister for her white mice. Says he'll tease her with the tears in his eyes, – or else her banties.

How do you like your teacher? Do you learn any lessons at school? You must try to get up above all the other ones. We've got two new teachers this year. One is clever, and we like that one, but the other one isn't very. We call the good one Wedding Cake, and we call the other one Brown Bread. Did grandmother tell you about the Fortune Tellers? We went to-day and she told mine true. She said my father was a very kind man, and said I was quick to get mad, and said I had just got something I'd wanted a long time (watch, you know), and said I should have something else that I wanted, but didn't say when. I wonder how she knew I wanted a gun. I thought perhaps somebody told her, and laid it to Old Wonder Boy, for we two had been talking about guns. But he flared up just like a flash of powder. "There. Now you needn't blame that on to me!" says he. "You fellers always do blame everything on to me!" Sometimes when somebody touches him he hollers out, "Leave me loose! Leave me loose!" Dorry says that's the way fellers talk down in Jersey. The Fortune Teller told W. B. that he came from a long way off, and that he wanted to be a soldier, but he'd better give up that, for he wouldn't dare to go to war, without he went behind to sell pies. All of us laughed to hear that, for Old Wonder Boy is quick to get scared. But he is always straightening himself up, and looking big, and talking about his native land, and what he would do for his native land, and how he would fight for his native land, and how he would die for his native land. He says that why she told him that kind of a fortune was because he gave her pennies and not silver money. His uncle that goes cap'n of a vessel has sent him a letter, and in the letter it said that he had a sailor aboard his ship that used to come to this school.

I was going to tell you a funny story about W. B.'s getting scared, but Dorry he keeps teasing me to go somewhere. I made these joggly letters when he tickled my ears with his paint-brush. Has your pullet begun to lay yet? I hope my rooster won't be killed. Tell them not to. Benjie says he had a grand great rooster. It was white and had green and purple tail feathers, O, very long tail feathers, and stood 'most as high as a barrel of flour, with great yellow legs, and had a beautiful crow, and could drive away every other one that showed his head, and he set his eyes by that rooster, but when he got home they had killed him for broth, and when he asked 'em where his rooster was they brought out the wish-bone and two tail feathers, and that was all there was left of him. I wouldn't have poor little kitty drowned way down in the deep water 'cause to drown a kitty couldn't make a birdie alive again. Have your flowers bloomed out yet? You must be a good little girl, and try to please your grandmother all you can.

From your affectionate brother,William Henry.

P. S. Now Dorry's run to head off a loose horse, and I'll tell you about Old Wonder Boy's getting scared. It was one night when – Now there comes Dorry back again! But next time I will.

W. H.

William Henry to his Sister, about Old Wonder Boy's Fright

My dear Sister, —

I will put that little story I am going to tell you right at the beginning, before Dorry and Bubby Short get back. I mean about W. B.'s getting scared. But don't you be scared, for after all 't was – no, I mean after all 't wasn't – but wait and you'll know by and by, when I tell you. 'T was one night when Dorry and I and some more fellers were a sitting here together, and we all of us heard some thick boots coming-a hurrying up the stairs, and the door came a banging open, and W. B. pitched in, just as pale as a sheet, and couldn't but just breathe. And he tried to speak, but couldn't, only one word at once, and catching his breath between, just so, – "Shut – the – door! – Do! – Do! – shut – the door!" Then we shut up the door, and Bubby Short stood his back up against it because 't wouldn't quite latch, and now I will tell you what it was that scared him. Not at the first of it, but I shall tell it just the same way we found it out.

Says he, "I was making a box, and when I got it done 't was dark, but I went to carry the carpenter's tools back to him, because I promised to. And going along," says he, "I thought I heard a funny noise behind me, but I didn't think very much about it, but I heard it again, and I looked over my shoulder, and I saw something white behind me, a chasing me. I went faster, and then that went faster. Then I went slower, and then that went slower. And then I got scared and ran as fast as I could, and looked over my shoulder and 't was keeping up. But it didn't run with feet, nor with legs, for then I shouldn't 'a' been scared. But it came – O, I don't know how it came, without anything to go on."

Dorry asked him, "How did it look?"

"O, – white. All over white," says W. B.

"How big was it?" Bubby Short asked him.

"O, – I don't know," says W. B. "First it looked about as big as a pigeon, but every time I looked round it seemed to grow bigger and bigger."

"Maybe 't was a pigeon," says Dorry. "Did it have any wings?"

"Not a wing," says W. B.

"Maybe 't was a white cat," says Mr. Augustus.

"O, poh, cat!" says W. B.

"Or a poodle dog," says Benjie.

"Nonsense, poodle dog!" says W. B.

"Or a rabbit," says Bubby Short.

"O, go 'way with your rabbit!" says W. B. "Didn't I tell you it hadn't any feet or legs to go with?"

"Then how could it go?" Mr. Augustus asked him.

"That's the very thing," said W. B.

"Snakes do," says Bubby Short.

"But a snake wouldn't look white," says Benjie.

"Without 't was scared," says Dorry.

I said I guessed I knew. Like enough 't was a ghost of something.

I said like enough of a robin or some kind of bird.

"Of what?" then they all asked me.

"That he'd stolen the eggs of," says Dorry.

"O yes!" says Old Wonder Boy. "It's easy enough to laugh, in the light here, but I guess you'd 'a' been scared, seeing something chasing you in the dark, and going up and down, and going tick, tick, tick, every time it touched ground, and sometimes it touched my side too."

"For goodness gracious!" says Dorry. "Can't you tell what it seemed most like?"

"I tell you it didn't seem most like anything. It didn't run, nor walk, nor fly, nor creep, nor glide along. And when I got to the Great Elm-Tree, I cut round that tree, and ran this way, and that did too."

"Where is it now?" Dorry asked him.

"O, don't!" says W. B. "Don't open the door. 'T is out there."

"Come, fellers," Dorry said, "let's go find it."

Benjie said, "Let's take something to hit it with!" And he took an umbrella and I took the bootjack, and Bubby Short took the towel horse, and Mr. Augustus took a hair-brush, and Dorry took his boot with his arm run down in it, and first we opened the door a crack and didn't go out, but peeped out, but didn't see anything there. Then we went out a little ways, and then we didn't see anything. And pretty soon, going along towards the stairs, Bubby Short stepped on something. "What's that?" says he. And he jumped, and we all flung our things at it. "Hold the light!" Dorry cried out.

Then W. B. brought out the light, and there wasn't anything there but a carpenter's reel, with a chalk line wound up on it, and they picked it up and began to wind up, and when they came to the end of it – where do you s'pose the other end was? In W. B.'s pocket! and his ball and some more things held it fast there, and that chalk-line reel was what went bobbing up and down behind Old Wonder Boy every step he took, – bob, bob, bobbing up and down, for there was a hitch in the line and it couldn't unwind any more, and the line under the door was why 't wouldn't latch, and O, but you ought to 've heard the fellers how they roared! and Bubby Short rolled over on the floor, and Dorry he tumbled heels over head on all the beds, and we all shouted and hurrahed so the other fellers came running to see what was up, and then the teachers came to see who was flinging things round so up here, and to see what was the matter, but there couldn't anybody tell what the matter was for laughing, and W. B. he looked so sheepish! O, if it wasn't gay! How do you like this story? That part where it touched his side was when that reel caught on something and so jerked the string some. Now I must study my lesson.

Your affectionate brother,William Henry.

P.S. When you send a box don't send very many clothes in it, but send goodies. I tell you things taste good when a feller's away from his folks. Dorry's father had a picture taken of Dorry's little dog and sent it to him, and it looks just as natural as some boys. Tell Aunt Phebe's little Tommy he may sail my boat once. 'T is put away up garret in that corner where I keep things, side of that great long-handled thing, grandmother's warming-pan. I mean that little sloop boat I had when I's a little feller.

W. H.

Georgianna's Letter to William Henry

My Dear Brother Billy, —

Kitty isn't drowned. I've got ever so many new dolls. My grandmother went to town, not the same day my kitty did that, but the next day, and she brought me home a new doll, and that same day she went there my father went to Boston, and he brought me home a very big one, – no, not very, but quite big, – and Aunt Phebe went a visiting to somebody's house that very day, and she brought me home a doll, and while she was gone away Hannah Jane dressed over one of Matilda's old ones new, and none of the folks knew that the others were going to give me a doll, and then Uncle J. said that if it was the family custom to give Georgianna a doll, he would give Georgianna a doll, and he went to the field and catched the colt, and tackled him up into the riding wagon on purpose, and then he started off to town, and when he rode up to our back door there was a great dolly, the biggest one I had, and she was sitting down on the seat, just like a live one. And she had a waterfall, and she had things to take off and on. Then Uncle J. asked me what I should do with my old dollies that were 'most worn out. And I said I didn't know what I should. And then Uncle J. said that he would take the lot, for twenty-five cents a head, to put up in his garden, for scarecrows, and he asked me if I would sell, and I said I would. And he put the little ones on little poles and the big ones on tall poles, with their arms stretched out, and the one with a long veil looked the funniest, and so did the one dressed up like a sailor boy, but one arm was broke off of him, and a good many of their noses too. The one that had on old woman's clothes Uncle J. put a pipe in her mouth. And the one that had a pink gauze dress, but 't is all faded out now, and a long train, but the train was torn very much, that one has a great bunch of flowers – paper – pinned on to her, and another in her hand, and the puppy he barks at 'em like everything. My pullet lays, little ones, you know. I hope she won't do like Lucy Maria's Leghorn hen. That one flies into the bedroom window every morning, and lays eggs on the bedroom bed. For maybe 't would come in before I got up. My class has begun to learn geography, and my father has bought me a new geography. But I guess I sha' n't like to learn it very much if the backside is hard as the foreside is. Uncle J. says no need to worry your mind any about that old fowl, for he's so tough he couldn't be killed. I wish you would tell me how long he could live if it wasn't killed, for Uncle J. says they grow tougher every year, and if you should let one live too long, then he can't die. But I guess he's funning, do you? Our hens scratched and scratched up some of my flowers, and so did the rain wash some up that night it came down so hard, but one pretty one bloomed out this morning, but it has budded back again now. Aunt Phebe says she sends her love to you, tied up with this pretty piece of blue ribbon. She says, if you want to, you can take the ribbon and wear it for a neck bow. Grandmother says how do you know but that sailor that went to your school in Old Wonder Boy's uncle's vessel is that big boy, that bad one that ran away, you called Tom Cush?