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.