Part 21 (1/2)

My dear Mrs. Sampson,

I am so glad to know that you have completely recovered from your recent illness.

I trust you will soon be able to resume your wonted activities. We all have missed you--at bridge and tennis particularly.

Sincerely yours, Mary E. Wells.

July 18, 1923

My dear Mr. Baines,

I have just heard of your success in getting your book published. I have always had a great admiration for you and your work, and I am sending this little note to a.s.sure you of my regard, and to wish you still further successes.

Yours very sincerely, Madeleine Strickland.

March 10, 1923

My dear Miss Gwynne,

I am very sorry that I was out when you called. I hope you will come again soon for I do so much want to see you.

Sincerely yours, Katherine G. Evans.

February 16, 1923

It may be of pa.s.sing interest to read a letter or two from distinguished persons to their boyhood friends. Here is one[14] from the late John Burroughs:

Esopus, N. Y., June 1, 1883.

Dear Tom Brown:

I have been a-fis.h.i.+ng or I should have answered your letter before. I always go a-fis.h.i.+ng about this time of year, after speckled trout, and I always catch some, too. But dog-fighting I have nothing to do with, unless it be to help some little dog whip some saucy big cur. Game birds are all right in their season, but I seldom hunt them. Yet this is about the best way to study them.

You want to know how I felt as a boy. Very much as I do now, only more so. I loved fis.h.i.+ng, and tramping, and swimming more than I do these late years. But I had not so tender a heart. I was not so merciful to the birds and animals as I am now.

Much of what I have put in my books was gathered while a boy on the farm. I am interested in what you tell me of your Band of Mercy, and should like much to see you all, and all the autographs in that pink covered book. Well, youth is the time to cultivate habits of mercy, and all other good habits. The bees will soon be storing their clover honey, and I trust you boys and girls are laying away that which will by and by prove choicest possessions.

Sincerely your friend, John Burroughs.

[14] From ”John Burroughs, Boy and Man,” by Dr. Clara Barrus. Copyright, 1920, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

The following letter[15] was written when J. J. Hill--perhaps the greatest railroading genius America has ever produced--was twenty years of age. It is one of the few letters written by him at this time of his life that have been preserved:

Saint Paul, February 11, 1858.

Dear William:

Your epistle bearing date of seventeenth ult. came to hand on good time and your fertile imagination can scarcely conceive what an amount of pleasure I derived from it, as it was the first epistle of William to James at St. Paul for a ”long back.” My surprise at receiving your letter was only surpa.s.sed by my surprise at not receiving one from you after you left St. Paul, or sometime during the ensuing season. Still, a good thing is never too late or ”done too often.” It gave me much pleasure to hear that you were all well and enjoying yourselves in the good and pious (as I learn) little town of Rockwood. I did intend to go to Canada this winter, but it is such a long winter trip I thought I should defer it until summer, when I hope to be able to get away, as I intend to go on the river this summer if all goes as well as I expect.