Here's the first verse: "Who is Sylvia? What is she That all the swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she, The heavens such grace did lend her That she might admired be." I advise you to invest in doublet, hose, plumed hat, and guitar, and try the effect of a serenade under our Sylvia's--beg pardon, _your_ Sylvia's window. The fellow in the play made a great hit, so there's no telling what you might accomplish. I hated leaving the Littles', for the good time I had there sure beat the good time I had on shipboard "to a frazzle"; but I soon found out that the business part of the trip was going to be a good deal more interesting and absorbing than I had imagined it would be. My interpreter, Hans Roorda, a fellow several years younger than I am, can speak five languages, all equally well, and I kept him busy talking French to me. We were in the country almost three weeks. The farmers haven't half the mechanical conveniences that we considered absolutely necessary even in our least prosperous days, but are marvels of order and efficiency, for all that. I believe one of the greatest mistakes that we New England farmers have been making is to assume that farming is a mixture of three fourths muscle and one fourth brains--I'm beginning to think it's the other way around. As you have already learned, I followed Jenkins's advice, bought a dozen head of fine cattle, and hired Peter Kuyp, the son of one of the farmers I visited, to take care of them. Of course, this meant going back to Rotterdam to see them safely off, and I managed to get a glimpse of some of the other Dutch cities as well. When I got to Amsterdam I parted from Roorda with real regret, for I feel he's one of the many good friends I've already made. I found my first American mail in Amsterdam, among other letters one from you. The news from home in it was all fine. I'm glad father has sold that old Blue Hill pasture. It was too far off from the rest of our land to be of much real use to us, and I also think he was dead right to use the money he got from it to pay off old debts. Mr. Stevens writes me that he has sold Sylvia's Long Island house for her, and that her horses, carriages, sleighs, and motor are all going up to the Homestead. Now that the Holsteins are there, too, why don't you sell the few old cows and the two horses that we rescued from the fire, and use that money in paying off more debts? If the mortgage were only out of the way, with all the other improvements you speak of well started, I should think we were headed straight for millionaires' row.