of lightning and knows the speling
book right through but has no thoughts of any kind. She is in the Third
Reader but does not like stories in books. I am in the Sixth Reader but
just because I cannot say the seven multiplication Table Miss Dearborn
threttens to put me in the baby primer class with Elijah and Elisha
Simpson little twins.

Sore is my heart and bent my stubborn pride,
With Lijah and with Lisha am I tied,
My soul recoyles like Cora Doctor's Wife,
Like her I feer I cannot bare this life.

I am going to try for the speling prize but fear I cannot get it. I
would not care but wrong speling looks dreadful in poetry. Last Sunday
when I found seraphim in the dictionary I was ashamed I had made it
serrafim but seraphim is not a word you can guess at like another long
one, outlandish, in this letter which spells itself. Miss Dearborn says
use the words you can spell and if you cant spell seraphim make angel
do but angels are not just the same as seraphims. Seraphims are
brighter whiter and have bigger wings and I think are older and longer
dead than angels which are just freshly dead and after a long time in
heaven around the great white throne grow to be seraphims.

I sew on brown gingham dresses every afternoon when Emma Jane and the
Simpsons are playing house or running on the Logs when their mothers do
not know it. Their mothers are afraid they will drown and aunt M. is
afraid I will wet my clothes so will not let me either. I can play from
half past four to supper and after supper a little bit and Saturday
afternoons. I am glad our cow has a calf and it is spotted. It is going
to be a good year for apples and hay so you and John will be glad and
we can pay a little more morgage. Miss Dearborn asked us what is the
object of edducation and I said the object of mine was to help pay off
the morgage. She told Aunt M. and I had to sew extra for punishment
because she says a morgage is disgrace like stealing or smallpox and it
will be all over town that we have one on our farm. Emma Jane is not
morgaged nor Richard Carter nor Dr. Winship but the Simpsons are.

Rise my soul, strain every nerve,
Thy morgage to remove,
Gain thy mother's heartfelt thanks
Thy family's grateful love.

Pronounce family quick or it won't sound right.

Your loving little friend
REBECCA.

DEAR JOHN,--YOU remember when we tide the new dog in the barn how he
bit the rope and howled. I am just like him only the br