“Papa is well and is still writing that piece with a hard name, I can’t remember what. Mamma is well, and don’t laugh any more than she used to. Catherine goes on just as she always did, making fun for everybody. George is as usual. Harriet makes just as many wry faces, is just as odd, and loves to be laughed at just as much as ever. Henry does not improve much in talking, but speaks very thick. Charles is the most mischievous little fellow I ever knew. He seems to do it for the very love of it; is punished and punished again, but it has no effect. He is the same honest little boy, and I love him dearly.” It must have been about this time that Henry had the experience which he thus describes: “When I was a lad I was ambitious to ride, but never was permitted to ride except behind an elder brother; but one fair morning, as the horse was brought out to be watered, I bestrode him and took the reins in my hand. He made for the brook with considerable celerity; but though he was nimble I was willing, and I succeeded in holding on and getting back without any accident. So elated was I with my first attempt at horseback-riding that I felt that I was the horseman of the neighborhood. The next morning I repeated the ride, but with a variation; for, being unaccustomed to some of the phases of horseback-riding, I was not prepared for what occurred. The horse did not perform just as I wanted him to, so I laid the whip on him, and he darted forward, and when he reached the edge of the brook he suddenly stopped and I went on!” They are a merry lot of children, getting up little impromptu concerts, charades, and games of all kinds, at one time going so far as to dramatize a favorite story. They “curtain off the end of the parlor,” and “complete the entertainment amid thunders of applause.” Animal life is regarded, and the absent members of the family are kept duly informed of the well-being of their favorites: “Old Puss is very well and sends her respects to you. And Mr. Black Trip has come out of the barn to live, and says if you ever come into the kitchen he will jump up and lick your hands and pull your frock, just as he serves the rest of us. Henry and Charles love to play with him very much.” Little events in the family are noted and immortalized in verse, of which the following letter is a sample: “... Apropos, last week was interred Tom, Junior, with funeral honors, by the side of old Tom of happy memory. What a fatal mortality there is among the cats of the parsonage! Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals. She asked for what she called an _epethet_ for the grave-stone of Tom, Junior, which I gave as follows: “‘Here died our Kit, Who had a fit And acted queer. Shot with a gun, Her race is run, And she lies here.’”