The William Henry Letters

    Georgianna.

P. S. Grandmother showed me how to write this letter.

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A caged bird is never a very interesting object to me. But this little canary of Georgie's was really a beautiful creature, and very intelligent. They used to think that he listened for her step at noon and night; for no sooner was it heard in the entry than he peeped out with his little bright eyes, and tuned up, and sang away, as if to say, "Glad! glad! glad you've come! glad you've come!"

Then she would go to the cage and talk to him, and let him take sugar from her mouth, and would hang fresh chickweed about its cage. Mornings she used to sing, from her bed, and the bird would answer. Indeed, he really seemed quite a companion for her.

At the time the accident happened I had been staying for a few weeks at the hotel, a mile or two off, and called at the farm that very day. Lucy Maria told me, as I stopped at their door, what the kitten had done, and how Georgianna had cried and mourned and could not be comforted.

I found her sitting on the doorstep. She had placed the bird in a small round basket, lined with cotton-wool, and was bending over, and stroking it. I had always noticed the bird a great deal, used to play with it, and whistle to make it sing louder and louder. The sight of me brought all this back to her mind, and she burst into tears again, sobbing out, "O, he never – will sing – any more! Dear little birdie! He had to fall down! He couldn't – help it!"

I talked with her awhile, in a cheerful way, and when she had become quite calm I held out my hand and said, "Come, Georgie, don't you want to go with me and find a pretty place where we can put birdie away, under the soft grass? And we will plant a flower there."

The idea of the soft grass and the flower seemed to please her. She took my hand, and we went to look about.

We thought the garden not a very good place, because it was dug up every year, and the field would be mowed and trampled upon. But just over the fence, back of the garden, we came upon some uneven ground, where the old summer-sweeting trees grew. In one place there was a sudden pitch downwards, into a little hollow, which grass and plantain leaves made almost forever green. For here was what they called the Boiling Spring. The water bubbled out of the ground on the slope of the bank, and in former times, before the well was dug, had been used in the family. Several trees grew about there, – wild cherry, damson, and poplar, – and a profusion of yellow flowers, wild ones. Some of these grandmother called "Ladies' Slipper"; the others, "Sullendine." The spring had once been stoned up and boxed over. But the boards were now rotting away, the stones falling in, and our little hollow had quite a deserted look. The water trickled out and ran away around the curve of the bank.

Grandmother came with us, and Georgie's teacher, and Matilda and Tommy. We hollowed out a little place under the wild-cherry tree, wrapped the birdie in cotton-wool, lay him in, and covered him over with the green sod. I then went down by the stone wall, where sweetbriers were growing, dug up a very pretty little one, and set it out close by, so that it might lean against the cherry-tree. Tommy kept very sober, and scarcely spoke a word, till it was all over. He then said to me, in a very earnest tone, "Mr. Fwy, now will another birdie grow up there?" I suppose he was thinking of his father's planting corn and more corn growing.

William Henry to his Sister

My dear Little Sister, —

I'm sorry your little birdie's dead! He was a nice singing birdie! But I wouldn't cry. Maybe you'll have another one some time, if you're a good little girl. Maybe father'll go to Boston and buy you one, or maybe Cousin Joe will send one home to you, in a vessel, or maybe I'll catch one, or maybe a man will come along with birds to sell, or maybe Aunt Phebe's bird will lay an egg and hatch one out. I wouldn't feel bad about it. It isn't any use to feel bad about it. Maybe, if he hadn't been killed, he'd 'a' died. Dorry says, "Tell her, 'Don't you cry,' and I'll give her something, catch her a rabbit or a squirrel!" Says he'll tease his sister for her white mice. Says he'll tease her with the tears in his eyes, – or else her banties.

How do you like your teacher? Do you learn any lessons at school? You must try to get up above all the other ones. We've got two new teachers this year. One is clever, and we like that one, but the other one isn't very. We call the good one Wedding Cake, and we call the other one Brown Bread. Did grandmother tell you about the Fortune Tellers? We went to-day and she told mine true. She said my father was a very kind man, and said I was quick to get mad, and said I had just got something I'd wanted a long time (watch, you know), and said I should have something else that I wanted, but didn't say when. I wonder how she knew I wanted a gun. I thought perhaps somebody told her, and laid it to Old Wonder Boy, for we two had been talking about guns. But he flared up just like a flash of powder. "There. Now you needn't blame that on to me!" says he. "You fellers always do blame everything on to me!" Sometimes when somebody touches him he hollers out, "Leave me loose! Leave me loose!" Dorry says that's the way fellers talk down in Jersey. The Fortune Teller told W. B. that he came from a long way off, and that he wanted to be a soldier, but he'd better give up that, for he wouldn't dare to go to war, without he went behind to sell pies. All of us laughed to hear that, for Old Wonder Boy is quick to get scared. But he is always straightening himself up, and looking big, and talking about his native land, and what he would do for his native land, and how he would fight for his native land, and how he would die for his native land. He says that why she told him that kind of a fortune was because he gave her pennies and not silver money. His uncle that goes cap'n of a vessel has sent him a letter, and in the letter it said that he had a sailor aboard his ship that used to come to this school.

I was going to tell you a funny story about W. B.'s getting scared, but Dorry he keeps teasing me to go somewhere. I made these joggly letters when he tickled my ears with his paint-brush. Has your pullet begun to lay yet? I hope my rooster won't be killed. Tell them not to. Benjie says he had a grand great rooster. It was white and had green and purple tail feathers, O, very long tail feathers, and stood 'most as high as a barrel of flour, with great yellow legs, and had a beautiful crow, and could drive away every other one that showed his head, and he set his eyes by that rooster, but when he got home they had killed him for broth, and when he asked 'em where his rooster was they brought out the wish-bone and two tail feathers, and that was all there was left of him. I wouldn't have poor little kitty drowned way down in the deep water 'cause to drown a kitty couldn't make a birdie alive again. Have your flowers bloomed out yet? You must be a good little girl, and try to please your grandmother all you can.

    From your affectionate brother,
    William Henry.

P. S. Now Dorry's run to head off a loose horse, and I'll tell you about Old Wonder Boy's getting scared. It was one night when – Now there comes Dorry back again! But next time I will.

    W. H.

William Henry to his Sister, about Old Wonder Boy's Fright

My dear Sister, —

I will put that little story I am going to tell you right at the beginning, before Dorry and Bubby Short get back. I mean about W. B.'s getting scared. But don't you be scared, for after all 't was – no, I mean after all 't wasn't – but wait and you'll know by and by, when I tell you. 'T was one night when Dorry and I and some more fellers were a sitting here together, and we all of us heard some thick boots coming-a hurrying up the stairs, and the door came a banging open, and W. B. pitched in, just as pale as a sheet, and couldn't but just breathe. And he tried to speak, but couldn't, only one word at once, and catching his breath between, just so, – "Shut – the – door! – Do! – Do! – shut – the door!" Then we shut up the door, and Bubby Short stood his back up against it because 't wouldn't quite latch, and now I will tell you what it was that scared him. Not at the first of it, but I shall tell it just the same way we found it out.

Says he, "I was making a box, and when I got it done 't was dark, but I went to carry the carpenter's tools back to him, because I promised to. And going along," says he, "I thought I heard a funny noise behind me, but I didn't think very much about it, but I heard it again, and I looked over my shoulder, and I saw something white behind me, a chasing me. I went faster, and then that went faster. Then I went slower, and then that went slower. And then I got scared and ran as fast as I could, and looked over my shoulder and 't was keeping up. But it didn't run with feet, nor with legs, for then I shouldn't 'a' been scared. But it came – O, I don't know how it came, without anything to go on."

Dorry asked him, "How did it look?"

"O, – white. All over white," says W. B.

"How big was it?" Bubby Short asked him.

"O, – I don't know," says W. B. "First it looked about as big as a pigeon, but every time I looked round it seemed to grow bigger and bigger."

"Maybe 't was a pigeon," says Dorry. "Did it have any wings?"

"Not a wing," says W. B.

"Maybe 't was a white cat," says Mr. Augustus.

"O, poh, cat!" says W. B.

"Or a poodle dog," says Benjie.

"Nonsense, poodle dog!" says W. B.

"Or a rabbit," says Bubby Short.

"O, go 'way with your rabbit!" says W. B. "Didn't I tell you it hadn't any feet or legs to go with?"

"Then how could it go?" Mr. Augustus asked him.

"That's the very thing," said W. B.

"Snakes do," says Bubby Short.

"But a snake wouldn't look white," says Benjie.

"Without 't was scared," says Dorry.

I said I guessed I knew. Like enough 't was a ghost of something.

I said like enough of a robin or some kind of bird.

"Of what?" then they all asked me.

"That he'd stolen the eggs of," says Dorry.

"O yes!" says Old Wonder Boy. "It's easy enough to laugh, in the light here, but I guess you'd 'a' been scared, seeing something chasing you in the dark, and going up and down, and going tick, tick, tick, every time it touched ground, and sometimes it touched my side too."

"For goodness gracious!" says Dorry. "Can't you tell what it seemed most like?"

"I tell you it didn't seem most like anything. It didn't run, nor walk, nor fly, nor creep, nor glide along. And when I got to the Great Elm-Tree, I cut round that tree, and ran this way, and that did too."

"Where is it now?" Dorry asked him.

"O, don't!" says W. B. "Don't open the door. 'T is out there."

"Come, fellers," Dorry said, "let's go find it."