“The other night a few of the boys (Henry and I included) were playing ‘blind man’s buff’ in the kitchen, and I was it and one of the boys got a hand full of pepper and doused it in Henry’s eyes. of course Henry cried some, but you couldn’t get him to tell Mr. Gunn and at last one of the boys Daniel B. Gunn told Mr. Gunn and he called him in there and sent all the other boys to bed. When I was just getting in bed, a knock came at my door and I opened it and there stood ‘Henry’ with a handkerchief up to his face a crying he kissed me good night and went in his room. Pretty soon after I went in his room and he was still crying and told him not to mind it but keep a wet handkerchief to it and it wouldn’t ache much, so he did so and he felt quite comfortable. I told Ralph (which was the boy that did it) if he ever did another thing of the kind to my brother, I would knock him down, and I think I ought to. If I had only seen Ralph do it I would have knocked him down on the spot and teach him to mind his own business. “According to Mr. Gunn’s rules ‘Stick up for your Brother’ and I mean to do it. “With love to all, I remain your aff. son. “WILLIE.” Other letters written in these delightful school-days show him at the time when the boy-mind begins to realize the importance of dress and of personal adornment. The episode of the diamond pin is told with characteristic frankness and vivacity. But another paragraph from the letter shows a most commendable fondness for his old hat--a marked evidence of the genuine sentiment of the boy’s nature. The description of the football field and its unfailing perils carries a contemporaneous interest; and a boy’s account of his studies is always fascinating reading. The brief story of the prayer-meeting in “Willie Beecher’s” room and his confidence in the leader who “can explain about any passage in the Bible” must close these glimpses into the real heart of an unspoiled and ingenuous boy. They are a key to his nature,--its frankness, heartiness, enjoyment of simple things, a self-confidence that was destined to help him touch the goal of a great success, singularly combined with a humility which kept him always open to reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. They show his warm and affectionate nature, which never changed but to deepen and sweeten as he matured. They reveal his earnestness and sincerity; traits which underlie all his qualities like the bedrock of the continent, and on which his fun and frolic grew as naturally as grass and foliage out of the soil which masks and clothes the granite: “WASHINGTON, CONN., _May 21, 1864_. “DEAR MOTHER: