There are now
great talkings, and congresses and consultations of the allied powers,
and already rumors are afloat that perhaps all will unite their forces
and dine at one table, especially as Harriet and little Hattie are
coming, and there is no knowing what might come out in the papers if
there should be anything a little odd.
Mother is very well, thin as a hatchet and smart as a steel trap; Aunt
Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for since the sink is mended, and no
longer leaks and rots the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch
it, and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no longer drinks
rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of worriment.
Uncle Ike has had a little touch of palsy and is rather feeble. He
says that his legs and arms have rather gi'n out, but his head and
pluck are as good as they ever were. I told him that our sister Kate
was very much in the same fix, whereat he was considerably affected,
and opened the crack in his great pumpkin of a face, displaying the
same two rows of great white ivories which have been my admiration
from my youth up. He is sixty-five years of age, and has never lost a
tooth, and was never in his life more than fifteen miles from the spot
where he was born, except once, in the ever-memorable year 1819, when
I was at Bradford Academy.
In a sudden glow of adventurous rashness he undertook to go after me
and bring me home for vacation; and he actually performed the whole
journey of thirty miles with his horse and wagon, and slept at a
tavern a whole night, a feat of bravery on which he has never since
ceased to plume himself.
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