 | Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
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LETTER FROM IKE, IN THE COUNTRY.
[Description: 677EAF. Page 176. In-line Illustration. Image of two boys poking a frog with a stick.]DEAR Bob — I wish you
was up here, and the
way we would train you
would n't be slow. There
is boys enough up here,
but they don't know
nothing. When I first
come they did n't know
how to play jack-stones!
But you 'd better believe
I soon made 'em
fly round. I 've found
enough to do since I 've been here. We 've got a boat,
and we go out swimming every day. The boat tips over
ever so easy, and don't you think, the other day,
when we were out with the girls, we tipped over right
where the water was overhead, and we all had to get
onto her bottom. I was n't at all skeered, though everybody
said they knowed I did it on purpose. But you
know I would n't.
We 've had some prime fun out a gunning. We did n't
kill anything only some tame pigeons; but we put some
green beans into the gun and shot the dog, and he ki-hi'd
just as if he did n't like it. I can fire at a mark first-rate.
I wish you could see the goose I made with wheel-grease
of holes. There 's lots of apples and peaches, and if you
was here we 'd be in among 'em. There 's some over
there in the pasture just like some in our garden, but
them in the pasture is best, and they belong to the old
captain, and he 's a cross old fellow, and I should like to
fix him, cause he set his dog on me t' other day, because
I fired an apple at one of his hens, and broke a square of
glass. He 's a real cross old chap, and has n't got no
friends.
There 's some fine ponds here, and lots of mud turtles,
but all that is humbug about their leaving their shell
when you put a coal of fire onto their backs, because
I 've tried it. It makes 'em go it, though, I tell you.
Our dog is first-rate for catching of 'em, and I got a
dozen of 'em t' other day to bring home, and put 'em in
a barrel, and forgot all about 'em, and there they stayed
for ten days. I put 'em in the water again, and away
they went. Don't you think, Bob, I caught a big bull
paddock and harnessed him the other day, and you should
have seen him kick when I let him go.
I don't like the oxen they have here, because they
don't laugh, and when they are hauling anything they
seem to do it unwilling like, and look surly and cross.
Reasoning with 'em don't do no good. I ride the horse
to water and drive the geese out of the corn. Up in the
corn yesterday I found what I thought was a great big
water-melon, and when I got over the wall and cut it
it turned out to be a green punkin.
They have begun to make sweet cider, and I don't see
is so nice.
I s'pose school begins soon, and the old woman will
want me to come home; but I don't want to a mite.
Tell Jim Jones I 've swapped my jackknife, and got
a bran-new hawkey that I cut myself in the bushes.
Good-by, Bob. Write to me if you 've had any fun
this summer, and I am yours in clover.
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