Morning journal and courier., 1888-04-20
A Fathar,s Letfar.

A Fathers Letter.
 My Dear Son:-We got your last letter some three days ago. It found US all moderately well, though not frisky.
 Your letters nowadays are getting quite pretty as regards penmanship. You are cer. tainly going to develop into a fine penman. your mother thinks. She says that if you improve as fast in your writing next year as you have last you will soon be writing for the papers.
 In my minds eye I can see you there in your room practising for long time on spiral spring which you make with your pen. believe you call it the whole arm movement. I think you got the idea from me. You remember I used to have whole-arm movement that I in- troduced into our family in the summer of 1869. You was at that time learn ing to swim. Once or twice the neighbors brought you home with your lungs full of river water and your ears full of coarse sand.
 We pumped you dry several times, but it did not weaR you from the river, so I introduced the whole-arm movement one day and used it from that on in what you would call our eurric kulum. It worked .sry well.
 Your letters are now very attractive from scientific standpoint. The letters all have curly tails on them, and though you do not always spell them according to Gunter, the capital letters are as pretty as a picture. never SAW such round o as you make when you hang your tongue out and begin to swing yourself.
 Your mother says that your great-uncle on her side was good writer too. He could draw off turtle dove without taking his pen from the paper, and most everybody would know as soon as they looked at it that it was a turtle dove or some such bird as that
 He could also draw deer with coil-spring horns on him and barbed-wire fence border to it, and scalloped tail, and it looked as much like deer as anything else you could think of.
 He was fine penman and wrote 8 good deal for the papers. Your mother has got 8 lot of his pieces in the house yet, which the papers sent back because they were busy and crowded full of other stuff. Tread some of these letters, and anyone can see that it was great sacrifice for the editors to send the pieces back. but they have got used to it, and conquered their own personal feel ings, and sent them back because they
 were too good for their plain, untutered readers.
 One editor said that he did not want to print the enclosed pieces because he thought it would be @ pity to place such pretty writ ing in the soiled hands of the practical prin- ter. He said that the manuscript looked so pretty, just as it was, that he hadn't the heart to send it to the composing room. So the day may not be far away, Henry, when you can write for the press, your mother thinks. don't care so much about it my self, but she has set her heart on it. Your mother thinks you are great man, though have not detected any symptoms of it yet.
 She has got that last pen-scrou work of yours in the Bible, where she can look at it every day. It is the picture of a hen set- ting in nest of curly-eues made of r1d ink, over woven-wire mattress of dew-dads in blue, and some tall grass in violet ink Your mother says that this fowl is al so turtle dove, but l think that she if wrong. She says the werld has always got warm place for one who can make such beautiful picture without taking his pen off the paper Perhaps she is right. hope that you will not take mo for an example, for I am no wri ter at all. My parents couldn't give me any advantages when I was young. When ought to have been learning how to make ( red-ink bird eff paradise sweeping down on { violet-ink butterfly with green horns I wal frittcring away my time trying to keep my misguided parents out of the poorhouse.
 tell you, Henry, there was mighty little
 fluff and bloom and funny business in my young life. While you are acquiring the m ailments af Long Dennis and polo and pen manship, and storing your mind with useful knowledge with which to paralyze your pa rents when you come home, do not forget, Henry, that your old away-baek father never had opportunities for soaking his system full of useful knowledge which you now enjoy When was your age was helping to jerk the smutty logs off 8 new farm with Q pail of red and restless steers, in the interests oi your grandfather.
 But do not repine. I just simply cal your attertion to your privileges. Could you hare 8 summer in the heart of 8 prime val forest, thrown in contact with pair oi high strung steers and large number ot black flies of the most malignant type
 ''snaking" half-burnt logs across yourself and fighting flies from early dawn till set o1 sun, you will be willing, nay tickled, to go back to your monotouous round of baseball Suffolk jackets and pesshouse cigarettes. We rather expected you home some time ago, but you said you needed sea air and change of scene, so you will not be home very likely till the latter part of the month We will be glad to see you at any time Henry, and we will try to make it as pleas ant as we can for you. Your mother got ms to fill the big straw-tick on your bed again so you would have nice, tall place to sleep and so that you could live high, as the fellel said.
 I tried on the old veloeipede pants you sent home last week. They are too short fol me with the style of legs I am using this summer. Youa bathing pants are also toe 1 short for me, so gave them to poor old woman here who is trying to ameliorate the condition of her sex.
 I send you our love and nine dollars 1T money. We will sell the other calf as SCOT as it is ripe. Chintz bugs are rather more robust than last year and the mortgage or | our place looks as if it might mature prema 1 turely. We had lecture on phrenology 8 the school house Tuesday night, during whicl | four of our this spaing's roan turkeys wan | dered so far away from home that they los l their bearings and never came back again So goodbye for this time. Your father, BILL ME.