Father and
mother went to Warren, and were almost lost in the snowdrifts.
"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind howled, and the
house rocked just as our old Litchfield house used to. The cold has
been so intense that the children have kept begging to get up from
table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves
warm all but the floor,---heat your head and keep your feet freezing.
If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in
my bedroom and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold. I am
projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities of liberated
blacks to take care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much
Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any
items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in Cincinnati? . . .
When I have a headache and feel sick, as I do to-day, there is
actually not a place in the house where I can lie down and take a nap
without being disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the
dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. If I lock
my door and lie down some one is sure to be rattling the latch before
fifteen minutes have passed. . . . There is no doubt in my mind that
our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars, if not three,
beyond our salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstanding;
but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have
this.
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