s, and caught on
the cow-catcher, and get lost, and be run away with, and even struck by
lightning, I shouldn't wonder. And now if you go in to-morrow's train
you'll catch the small-pox and the measles and the scarlet fever and the
yellow fever, and all the colors-in-the-rainbow fever, and go into a
consumption and have the pleurisy, and the jaundice and the tooth-ache
and the headache, and, above all, the conscience-ache. And you never ate
any of our corn or our beans! You never so much as asked the receipt for
our ironclads! You haven't seen our cow. You haven't been down cellar.
You haven't fished in our brook. You haven't been here at all, now I
come to think of it. I dreamed you flew through, but it was nothing
_but_ a dream. And the houses have a habit of burning down, and ours is
going to do as the rest do, and then how'll you feel in your minds? And
when folks set themselves up against us, and won't let us have our own
way, why then "I tell my daughter

What _makes_ folks do as they'd oughter not,
And why _don't_ they do as they'd oughter?"

And we all pine away and die like the babes in the woods, and nobody's
left to cover us up with leaves. Send all these arguments home by
telegram, and your folks will shoot you if you dare to go. I could write
another sheet if it would do any good. Now do lay my words to heart, and
come right back.

_To Miss Morse, Dorset, Oct. 7, 1872._

I sent home my servants a month ago, and they have been getting the
parsonage to rights, while I have in their places two dear old souls who
came to live with me twenty years ago. One stayed ten years and then got
married, the other I parted with when my children died because I did
not need her. It has been a green spot in the summer to have these
affectionate, devoted creatures in the house. We have had only one
slight frost, but the woods have been gradually changing, and are in
spots very beautiful. We (you know what that word means) have been off
gathering bright leaves for ourselves and the servants, who care for
pretty things just as we do. Yet not a flower has gone; we have had a
host of verbenas and gladioli, some Japanese lilies, and so on, and have
been able to give some pleasure to those who have not time to cultivate
them for themselves. It has been a dreadful season for sickness here,
and flowers have been wanted in many a sick-room, and at some funerals.

Since I wrote you last "we" have been to Williamstown. I wanted