DICK HARDIN AWAY AT SCHOOL.

By Lucy J. Rider.

September 9th, 1877.

Dear Mother: I don’t feel very well. I want to come home. I am very sick. I could not eat any supper. My throat aches pretty bad. I think I had better come home. The boy that sleeps with me says most all boys feels so at first; but may be I shall die. I want to come home. I will study good at home. So good-by.—Your son,

P. S.—I want to come home. Dick.

October 26, 1877.

Dear Mother: Me and the boy that sleeps with me put a peace of paper on the door, and that made me feel better. I got the ten cents and your letter. I had to buy some pop-corn. All the boys buy pop-corn. A man has pop-corn to sell. Jim gave me some pop-corn that time my throat had a lump in it, and it felt better. It was red, and all sticky together. I think that was why.

It’s a buster of a house here, and it’s got a bell on top of it. A boy rings it. It comes right down in his closet. It comes through a little round hole, and he pulls it, and he let me pull it once, and that makes it ring. There’s lots of boys here, and some girls. There is doves living up where the bell is. I went up there. They kind of groan, and that is coon, when they coo. I like the doves, but I don’t like their coon. Every boy writes their names up there. Sometimes they cuts their names, but Mr. Wiseman says you mustn’t any more. Mr. Wiseman is the Principle, and he has got whiskers, and every boy has to mind him.

He points and he says, “Go to your rooms!” and we go. Some boy sent him a paper, and it made him hoppin’ mad. It was about a clock. It said:

“Half way up the stairs he stands, And points and beckons with his hands.”

Jimmy has a room, and he sweeps it sometimes. I sleep with Jimmy. There isn’t any woman to make up the bedclothes. We fix ’em. It isn’t very hard. You just pull them up and tuck them down. There is a gong, and that makes you get up and eat breakfast. The breakfast is good. It is a round thing, and a girl pounds it. You put five tea-spoons of sugar in your tea-cup. A girl sits on the other side. There is lots of tables, and they make a noise. By and by, one gets through and walks out. There is a lock on the door, and that makes you hurry up or you can’t have any breakfast. You can’t get in. The ten cents is ’most gone. I hope you will write me again pretty soon.—Your son, Dickerson H.

P. S.—The peace of paper has got the days on it, and we scratch them off every night. There is sixty-one more to scratch off, and that will make it vacation.D. H.

November 3, 1877.

Dear Mother: There is ’bout ten pianos here, and folks play on them all the while. It sounds pretty. You can’t tell what tune they play ’most always. Mr. Wiseman has an noffice, and that’s where you have to go when you want to do things. Sometimes you have to go when you don’t want to do things. He sits in a chair and his legs go under the table. There’s a square hole where his legs go. It has a slate on it, and he writes your name on it. It don’t feel good. You ought to have seen Jim one day. He fell into the river, but he got out. There is a river. He had the cookies in his pocket. They were just as good, except the soap. He had some soap too, and that wasn’t very good. Jim didn’t get dry pretty soon, and he had the neuraligy or the toothache. The side of his cheek swelled out as big as a foot-ball. He went to the office. He was sicker. I made up the bed for a week, and he felt better. We went in swimming five times yesterday. We have to treat. All men have to treat. It’s molasses-candy and it’s pop-corn. To treat is to pay for what a nother feller eats. The button come off of my shirt. I lost it, but I sewed on one of the black ones like the ones on my jacket. The place to sew it on came out too, but I sewed it one side. It made my thumb bleed.—Your son, Dickerson Hardin.

November 17, 1877.

Dear Mother: Jim has got a box. His mother sent it to him. The other boys have boxes. We have to have boxes, ’cause they have hash that is made out of boots. It is not good to eat. The soup tastes like a tooth-pick. The butter is a thousand years old. A girl said so. If I should have a box, I think it would be good for me. Put in some cookies and some apples and cake and cheese and chicken-pie and a neck-tie and apple-pie and fruit-cake and that other kind of jelly-cake and some cookies and stockings and cans of fruit and fish-hooks and pop-corn and molasses and cookies. Jim found a half a dollar in his box, down to the bottom. It was for his neuraligy. My throat is not quite well yet.

I take drawing. There is a nice lady to teach it. She wears a white sack with red pockets, and a blue bow. She pulls her hair down over her head. She says we must draw things, when we look at them. I drew a dog, but it came out a lamb. I can make a very nice bird. Jim put the feathers on to the tail.

Mr. Wiseman has got some snakes in some bottles, and a frog and a toad. He has got some grasshoppers with a pin stuck through them, and a spider and some potato-bugs. It is the museum. He thinks a great deal of them.

There is a foot-ball, and we play it. It is as big as a pumpkin, but you kick it. Then you get kicked and knocked down and your leg hurt; but you don’t cry. You never cry except when Jim’s asleep in the night, and your throat aches pretty bad.

There is twenty-four more days on the peace of paper.

Give my love to Tooty. How is the baby?—Your son, D. Hardin.

December 2, 1877.

Dear Mother: It is not a very big town. There is one store where you treat. It is Jerry’s. You walk right in. Jerry has molasses-candy and pop-corn and pea-nuts and string and oranges and canes and brooms and raisins and ginger-snaps and apples and fish-hooks and pise. Jim bought a pie once. It was wet, and you had to bite hard to bite it. He got it for the lock-jaw. A lock-jaw is a supper, but Mr. Wiseman don’t catch us. It is at night. We had a chicken, but I promised I would not tell where it came from. I will die before I will tell. All the boys will die before they will tell. It was the big boys, and they put a blanket up to the window and made a fire and roasted it. We had some salt and a jack-knife. John Simms roasted it. He’s a big boy. He knows how. He always roasts things. You just stick a sharp stick through it and roast it. It is good, but it makes your stummuck feel funny in the morning. There is a nother store, where the girls get things, and there is a place to get your shoes mended, and a depot, and a place for horse-shoes, and a church.

The box was very good. So good-by. D.

P. S.—Mr. Wiseman said you’d feel bad about these three demerits in my report, but you needn’t. Jim has got about ten demerits. All the boys gets demerits. One was a old bottle I threw in the hall, ’cause I didn’t want it on the table, and one was some water I threw out the window, and a boy was walking under. I had just washed me, and he got wet, and one was a noise. You make it with a tin tomato can and a string. I’ll fix one for you when I get home. The bottom has come out of my bank. And my trousers, the gray ones. How is the baby? Hardin.

P. S.—All the boys say Hardin.

a full stop.