Bertie County NcArchives History - Letters .....Urquhart, Richard To Kate Fenner Ltrs 1 1912-1913
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Mollie Urquhart murquhar@bellsouth.net January 9, 2010, 11:09 am

Letters between Richard Alexander Urquhart (1889-1947)  and Kate Nelson Fenner
(1890-1956)

September 4, 1912
Halifax
My dear Alex –
That does sound a whole heap better.  Doesn’t it?  Especially when it’s been
"Alex" behind your back all the time.
Child.  I’m all excitement tonight.  I am going to a wedding in a few minutes
(or a wedding rehearsal) and I’m to be the bride.  I shall be one for the first
time but let us pray that it won’t be for the last.  I am surely going to take
on to everything for I shall never have the nerve to go to my own.
Your card and letter came.  Of course I didn’t say that you had gone to a stag
barbecue.  Didn’t you say you weren’t and didn’t we both decide that you were
truthful?  We’ll let things go at that till you prove you are not and for
gracious sake stop calling me such a "Doubting Thomas."  Just because I keep my
eyes open is no sign (not a sure one at least) that I am such a doubter.
Your sister was mighty sweet to say that she was glad that we were coming to her
barbecue but I’m afraid that she thinks we might at least wait till she said
something about it before we made too many plans to go.
Were you joking about telling your brother to write Fletcher Gregory to go?  I
had a nice letter from Evie and Little Sister had one from Emily and they both
very kindly insisted upon our coming to the barbecue.  I hope we can go.
Has John gotten back from Norfolk yet?  I know he and Mr. Spruill had a time.  I
had a real cute card from Mr. Spruill and I sent him one.  Don’t know whether he
got it or not.
Evie told me you were really going to stop smoking for Cousin Kate’s sake.  Now
that is just simply fine and it won’t be long before you write that you are
going to join the Ministry – or to speak in the language of an Episcopalian –
follow the calling of the King.
That master stroke letter was a master stroke sure enough and I shall have to
acknowledge that I am not at all surprised at the outcome of it.  I didn’t hold
out much hope to Evie because I didn’t know the man but I did tell her that it
would make him show his hand in plain view.  I just imagined he was getting
kinder like warm and if there was any jilting to be done it was up to her to do
it.  If you and she really think it’s the thing to do then I shall have to agree
with you and go down and join you in our duet anytime she sets.  We had planned
for it to come off here Xmas after I had been down there but I, of course, don’t
know the latest plans.
Tell her I’ll help her out all I can but I do not want to make the home folks
mad.  I think if she were to get him after the old man she could win him over, I
don’t know.  Tell Evie I say not to play dunce and tell Buffet that I wrote that
letter for that would make her show in an ugly light.  I know he’ll never have
any use for me.
Are you going to have him to the barbecue?  I know old Evie would be crazy then,
sure enough.  She says he is sweeter and cuter than he ever was.
I am distressed over the deer head but I shall patiently wait for another.  The
thing I’m interested in more than anything else is the prayer rug.  Honestly a
hole is coming in my carpet by my bed, I’m praying so much lately.
I’ve told Evie to tell you I was going to write when I had waited as long to
answer your letter as you did to answer mine.  My time is up tomorrow night but
I’ll be busy all tomorrow and shall be away till late tomorrow night, so I’m
being a little better than you men and write now.  Tell "Little Billie" if he
doesn’t send me some messages I’m not going to Chapel Hill and make fudge for
him.  Sorry you couldn’t get me over the phone, but such is life.  Give lots of
love to the girls and be real good.
Sincerely yours,
Kate

Tuesday Night
[before September 8, 1912]
[Lewiston]
My dear Cousin Kate –
I hope you and Little Sister reached home safely and dryly, ate enough supper to
regain your lost avoirdupois, and enjoyed the dance.  We got about a mile out of
Kelford and had one of those short-circuits you hear chauffeurs talk about and
there we sat until eight o’clock in the wettest rain that ever fell.  Finally it
got so dark that we couldn’t work on the car anymore so we had to walk to town
and get a buggy and drive over.  While we were trying to fix the machine and
just after I had told Old Dame Fortune in very eloquent language what I thought
of her for sending such luck upon us, all the lightening in the heavens struck
in about six inches of the automobile.  John and I each happened to have our
hands on some brass when it struck and each got about sixteen hundred volts of
electricity in our systems (– if buckshot, lightening and cigarettes won’t kill
a man, somebody must by praying for him –).  However the worst part of the trip
was that when I got back to Lewiston wet as a rat and asked ten men for a drink
and each one said Coca Cola was the best he could do.  And then too it was such
a disappointment to be too late to take Evie to the show.  I know that the
reason we broke down was on account of cutting her out of the ride to Kelford. 
Now I shall always believe in retribution on earth.
I saw Evie this morning and after we had cried an hour over your departure her
first question was did you have my Frat pin?  Since she had so much curiosity I
wouldn’t tell
[remainder of letter missing …]

[September 8, 1912]
[Lewiston]
My dear Kate,
Please don’t wait three whole days before you write for although I have waited
that long to answer your nicest of letters it was not because I didn’t try to
write – I made twenty five attempts and every time some one would come for me to
do something.  Burges has been in Norfolk and we’ve had company and I have had
everything to do.  And then my sister’s (Lou)  four year old boy (Charles, Jr.)
is here and it takes all my time and money too keeping him supplied in candy and
fixing his toys.  So you see I am excusable and I hope you won’t deny me the
pleasure of a letter real soon, for your letters are the only pleasure I have to
look forward to now.
My sister Margaret has gotten home at last but now she is sick so it looks like
there will be no barbecue.  She has been nursing my other sister, Mrs.
Whitehead, for about three weeks and now Margaret is completely broken down and
sick too.  She wants to have the barbecue anyhow but Mama declares that she just
can’t have it now and must go to Panacea Springs and rest for a while.  I have
never been so disappointed in my life for I have never looked forward to
anything with so much pleasure as your coming over.  I have been the bluest
mortal on earth for the last two days.  I feel like a child when some one has
promised to bring him something and then forgotten to get it.  I broke the sad
news to Evie this morning and she too was very much grieved.  Evie thinks lots
of you and it’s not only on account of the master stroke letter (for which she
is only thankful) but because you’re so doggone nice.
Emily leaves Wednesday for Raleigh to enter Peace Institute (if she can enter)
and Billie leaves for the Hill tomorrow.  He and I are both counting on your
visit to the Hill next commencement and maybe by then he or I one will know how
to dance.  How many dances have you been to since you were here?  There is a
dancing master from Norfolk giving lessons in Windsor now.  As soon as he
finishes there we are going to try to get him over here.  Do you think there’s
any chance for me to learn?
So Evie told you I was going to stop smoking for your sake.  Well I don’t know
anyone that could have made me think about stopping as much as you and I
actually wouldn’t be surprised to find myself a non-smoker sometime soon.  I
don’t smoke half as much as I did and if I could believe that you really cared I
know I could stop.  I am thinking of going down on the farm soon and going to
work.  I am still corresponding with the dynamite people about planting the
pecan trees and as soon as I get a little experience I am coming over to plant
your trees.  I can see us now spinning down 5th Avenue in a rose scented
limousine, rich on our pecan crop.
Kate now I don’t think it will be fair if you wait a whole long time to write to
me just because I was late in answering your letter.  If I don’t get a letter
mighty soon I am going to kick the Lewiston Post Master and you are too much of
a philanthropist to want that to happen.  So send me a letter as soon as possible.
I remain –
Most sincerely –
Alex

September 12, 1912
Halifax
My dear Alex –
Honestly I didn’t intend waiting longer than three days anyway to write but I
did, and all excuses I might give would only be excuses and wouldn’t alter
things at all.  My brother has been ill for the past week and of course we all
have been standing on our heads and busy nursing him.  He is the only boy and of
course we idolize him.
We wanted him to go off to school this fall but now he will have to wait till
the spring or next fall.  It is all right, though, I suppose, as is everything
else, for he is just seventeen and right at the age to take in everything mean.
He had a terrible spell while we were down there and was getting better when he
got up and smoked one of those "coffin tacks" and was thrown right back again.
He acknowledges this to himself, too.
Wish you were here to get him to give you a lecture.  He says he is done – for
his own sake – not Cousin Kate’s or Sister Kate’s either.
Boys never listen to their sisters, as you well know.
And the number you are smoking is on the decrease.
Well I’m delighted (you see I do care really) and if my caring will have any
effect then cigarettes will have to kiss Alex Urquhart farewell.  It will take
you some time to quit dropping off one or two a day as you say you are, judging
from the number a day you smoked while I was there, but when you get through
you’ll be through.
I am so sorry about the barbecue and that you are so disappointed and more than
sorry that your sister is sick.  I hope she will soon be well.  You might have
known when you invited me to go that it wouldn’t come off for I am a perfect Jonah.
Tell your sister that the Panacea Springs Hotel closes Monday but that she can
board at the hotel in Littleton and get water from the springs.
Panacea is just a good ride in an auto from here but I have never been but once.
 I am going next summer though if I learn to dance in the mean time for they say
the floor up there is fine.  Of course you can learn to dance and I am crazy for
you to.  I am still trying if our friend Miss Renfrow did say  …
[page missing …]
…whole lot but for Chapel Hill.  My sister may not be there but her sister will
if there’s a hotel open and you all don’t forget I’m in the land of the living
in the mean time.
All of our clubs start up this month and I am almost tired already thinking
about them.  I am to entertain the U.D.C.’s this month and as president of the
club get that in working order the fourth Wed., then read a paper before the
Daughters of the American Revolution the fourth Thursday just a mile and a half
in length, saying nothing of teaching school (to begin next week) and my church
duties.  I am tempted to go off in the woods way down on the farm away from
civilization, saying nothing of society.
If I just had those pecan trees I’d have a dandy excuse to go and look after
them.  I want you to hurry and see about them too for I want my rose scented
limousine before I am a thousand years old.
Don’t let your brother go to Norfolk too often and work you to death.  It’s a
good place to go though, and I don’t much blame him.  My nose is pointed that
way for Thanksgiving day but I am afraid to plan too far ahead.  Tell old Evie I
say her week has gone and her letter hasn’t come.  It was our bargain to write
to each other every week, if nothing but a post card.
By the way, I got a card from the city of Bellhaven this morning.  Do I hear
anybody’s heart go pit pat?
I didn’t know I was going to write such a lengthy epistle tonight but it seems
that I got started and couldn’t stop.  You can read it on the installment plan,
though, if you  get tired before you finish.
The town clock is striking one and I am downstairs all by myself just as skeered
as I can be.
Write real soon and tell me all the news.
Sincerely yours,

Kate Thursday

One A.M.
I forgot to thank you for what I suppose you meant to be a little piece of
flattery, but please tell me how nice is "doggone" nice?  If anybody is
"doggone" nice in their Sunday manners what must they be in everyday garb?     
        Kate

[September 16, 1912]
[Lewiston]
My dear Kate,
I had already made up my mind to try my best to get mad because you were waiting
a century to write but when your letter finally came (the best letter I have
ever gotten in all my life) with the lovely picture I was so pleased that I
haven’t stopped smiling since and have almost attempted to sing – you know under
ordinary circumstances it takes a quart to make me sing.  The letter was so good
that I am actually ashamed to write to one who writes so well – my only
objection was that it was twenty pages too short.  And the picture.  Lord knows
you couldn’t have sent me anything that would have received so warm a welcome. 
Although no picture could in half way reproduce your face in my eyes, still it
is so ravishingly beautiful that I have done little else than gaze at it since
it came.  And aside from its qualities of beauty, to look at you often makes you
seem so much nearer.  Some old philosopher has said "consider that day lost in
which you have not made some one happy" (or words to that effect).  Well, you’ve
made me happy for many a day with the picture.
I was real sorry to hear that your brother had been sick and know it was a
disappointment to him not to be able to enter college this Fall.  If he is only
seventeen, though, I don’t guess it will hurt him to wait a year.  I entered the
University at that tender age.   I know you saw in the papers about the horrible
accident at Chapel Hill the other night.  It was the saddest thing I’ve heard of
in a long time.  Besides the sorrow it will bring to so many, I am afraid it
will do the University a good deal of harm.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fall
dances and all the other gaieties were called off now.  Emily’s Smithfield beau
was the other Freshman the boys had out that night.  I know Lowry wishes he had
been the victim.
Lewiston Society was aroused from its slumber the other night by a big reception
at Margie Spivey’s in honor of some visiting girls.  I had to go but I’ll tell
you it was mighty lonesome without you.  Evie was there and rendered several
vocal solos and talked about Buffet the rest of the time.  He is in Hamilton now
teaching school and if Miss Manson, his assistant, doesn’t steal his heart away,
I think there’ll be a wedding Xmas.  I wrote to Buffet today and asked him to
come over to see me some Friday night and stay till Sunday.  If old Zeke knew
that I guess he would want to kill me.
I am very sorry to hear that all those clubs of yours are going to start up now
for I am afraid you won’t take time to write to me with so much to do.  Is that
long paper you are to read one of your own composition?  Would certainly like to
hear you read it.  You must look very dignified and imposing and make a gesture
with every emphatic statement.  If the paper is to be original please send me a
copy.
It is certainly smart in you to undertake the teaching business again and as
Buffet says "sacrifice your life for the advancements of young minds."  Make all
the children call you Miss, and don’t let the boys smoke cigarettes, and don’t
get wet or cold going to and from school.
You say you are thinking of going to Norfolk over Thanksgiving.  Well – I  had
rather see Carolina play Virginia in Richmond but guess I’ll have to go to
Norfolk if you’ll be there.
Who was the guy sending you a post card from Bellhaven?  I haven’t heard from
there in so long I had forgotten there was such a place.  By the way that
reminds me of a certain set formula by which you promised to begin and end your
letters to me.  I know you had forgotten the promise or you would have kept it.
You say you really care about the smoking proposition so I must stop but I
didn’t mean the universal "care" of a philanthropist for mankind as a whole but
the individual "care" for my personal self.  Of course out of the kindness of
your heart you would hate to see any fool killing himself smoking but the point
I was trying to get at was that, aside from the fact that I was a fool and one
of the human race, did you care because it was I?  If that be so then I no
longer worship at the shrine of the Goddess Nicotine.
You wanted to know if you were "doggone" nice today (Sunday), how nice would you
be tomorrow.  Well the superlative of "doggone" is that word which you (or I
rather) would first say in case I were driving a nail with a hammer and instead
of hitting the nail would hit my finger.  That’s how nice I think you are every
day in the week and Sunday too.
I must stop now.  Do write real soon and tell me all about yourself.
Most sincerely yours –
Alex

[September 19, 1912]
[Halifax, NC]
My dear Alex –
You acted kinder decently this time about writing so I am going to do the same.
 I shall not commence a la Alice this time, however.
You remember that I told you I would commence mine as she did before I saw hers
(taking your word for it that you were mere friends), but when I saw all of
those pronouns in the possessive case in the beginning and in the end, I thought
I had better take a back seat if I wrote at all, be very guarded then too.  I
had already heard lots of tales about the diamond studded Frat pin and how crazy
you were about her, etc, etc. (none of which I had anything to do with) so of
course when I saw the letter, I simply bowed in humble submission to the young
lady – whoever she may be.
Some one slandered her though, for in trying to comfort me, they said I was
‘most as good looking as she is.
I know she would feel set up if she could see me. You put up some kinder pretty
chat about that poor pitiful picture and if it wasn’t for the fact that I have a
mirror and have actually looked in it once or twice, I might believe just a
little of what you said about it.  It was just by happen that I sent it.
Just as I was ending your letter, Little Sister ran in with it and told me to
send it to you.  The little rascal with me is Sister’s baby.  Isn’t he a cute
little fellow?  I am crazy about him.
There was a dance here last night but I was sick and couldn’t go.
Have been mad with everybody in town all day on that account for I am as crazy
as a haint about learning to dance.  By the way, you didn’t say anything in your
last letter about your learning to dance.  Now you know good and well that you
have just got to learn by Xmas and if you don’t take advantage of every
opportunity now you’ll not learn.
Not that I think it will take you such a long time but that you’ll not have very
many opportunities in that time to practice.
I had a nice letter from old Evie yesterday and she still wants us to go down
Xmas.  When she was here we planned that she should come up here and stay a week
and then we would go down there and stay a week, but now I don’t know just
exactly how we’ll manage.
Unless Buffet teaches right up to Xmas like we are going to do and then give two
weeks after Xmas.
She was out of the notion of getting married when I was there and we didn’t
think so much about having so little time to visit in.
I’d love to see her and have a long confidential chat with her.  She said when
she was here that they would be married in January or just before his school
started after Xmas but I don’t know what their plans are now.
I am going to write to her tomorrow or the next day and send her some kodak
pictures of myself that she wants.
I am waiting for Foister to send them from Chapel Hill.  If they are any good at
all I’m going to send one or two extra ones and you can have them if you want
them, with the understanding that you will destroy the grinning one I sent you.
 I think a laughing picture looks so simple.
It will be just dandy if you do go to Norfolk Thanksgiving.  I, like you, much
prefer going to Richmond, but it is so hard to get a chaperone that Little
Sister and I decided to go to Norfolk and get a married friend of ours to meet us.
She lives in Port Norfolk and wants us to stay with her but we haven’t made any
definite plans yet.
I think I did see the account of the hazing and think it was perfectly horrible.
 I  am glad it didn’t happen last fall when I was there for I would have gone
nearer crazy than I am.
I am as much opposed to hazing as anybody, but I do hope they won’t be too hard
on the boys who did the hazing. Their people are in enough trouble now.
I’ll bet they were mean though and I’ll bet that they actually smoked cigarettes.
I notice you didn’t say much about your smoking except to the extent of
cross-questioning me as to the extent of my caring.
Well, I’m quite sure I care beyond the philanthropic viewpoint, anyway, for if I
didn’t, I shouldn’t care very much.  If it were from that point I intended to
work I shouldn’t have spent quite all my energies on just one while there were
so many more nice boys (none of which quite so nice as the one I worked on, I’ll
admit) going to the bad with nobody, apparently, working on them.  Had I been
working for the poor human beings I should [have] given them all a lecture.  I
believe I did give one on Craps the night of Evie’s party.  I really believe if
Alice prayed a whole long time every night for you like I do that we two would
soon bring about a big reformation – or a reformation, I should say.  Big would
lead anyone to believe that you were very bad, when as a matter of fact we don’t
think so at all.  Do we?
Miss Bettie Clarke said a whole lot of nice things about you the other day (not
even knowing that I met you too) but I am going to wait till I see you so I can
hold you hat on.  I know your head will swell.
I know you are not going to write that this is twenty pages too short.  I really
didn’t know I had written quite so much.
Now write real soon ‘cause I am sick and down and out.  School started Monday
and I am almost tired now.  I really am sick, sure enough, but there is no
immediate danger of a funeral.
With every good wish.
I am,
Yours most sincerely,
Kate

Wednesday night
[September 23, 1912]
[Lewiston]
My dear Kate –
Your letter brought its usual joy but I say again it was far too short.  Since
we can’t be together, I wish that all you had to do was to write to me.
I have been afraid since I got your letter that you were really sicker than you
would admit in the letter.  I sincerely hope that by now you are entirely
restored to your usual good spirits and health.  I fear you are working too hard
with your school, do like Buffet says, "Don’t take it too seriously."  This
getting sick business "ain’t no nice thing to do and you just gotta quit it."
So you say you really do "shonuff" care about the cigarette smoking – Well, I’ll
tell you, I like (or rather love) cigarettes better than any material thing on
earth but my appreciation of the knowledge that you care is so much greater than
my love for them that I know it will be easy to stop smoking them.  After
October first if anyone catches me with a cigarette in my mouth I hope he’ll
break my neck.  The duration of the pledge is to be measured only by the length
of the caring, and I hope that will be forever.
You said you were going to write to Evie and send her some pictures of yourself
and would send one or two for me.  Now Evie leaves here tomorrow for Baltimore
to go to school so you can send the pictures to me and I’ll give hers to her.
(Maybe I might spare her one when she comes home Xmas).  Now please don’t send
them to her in Baltimore for it will take several days for me to get mine and I
want them right now.  And another thing, please don’t tell me anymore that an
inanimate object like a mirror can deceive one so smart as you.  You are not to
blame because you are beautiful and you ought not to mind owning it.  I prize
the picture you sent me more than all my possessions (even if Little Sister did
have to make you send it).  Tell her I always did think she was fine and now I
know it.  I had been looking at lovely you so much that I really hadn’t noticed
the baby in the picture till you mentioned him.  Of course he’s cute, ain’t he
your nephew?
I haven’t head from Billie but once since he went to the Hill and then only a
short note.  I guess he is too busy with Frat Initiations and having arguments
and studying to write.
I have promised about twenty five boys to go to Richmond Thanksgiving with them
but if I can get out of it in any way I will certainly go to Norfolk.  Even if I
have to go to Richmond I will leave as soon as the game is over and come to
Norfolk to see you – you will have to stay in Norfolk that night as you couldn’t
see the game and then get home.  I have got to go down to that city some time in
the next two weeks.  Wish you could be there then.
It is getting so late now that I have got to stop.  Do write me as soon as
possible and as much as you can.
I am –
Yours most sincerely –
Alex

[September 28, 1912]
[Halifax]
My dear Alex –
Your good letter came Tuesday and I got it on my way to school.
You can just bet it was a most welcome one too, especially at that time of day
when I had been pulled out of my warm bed and thrown out in the cold world with
the rabble to make a living and kinder felt that I was really nobody after all.
No, that’s not the real reason that I was so especially glad to get that special
letter.
It was because you told me in it of those good resolutions you had made – and of
course, were going to keep.
But not withstanding the fact it is Leap year, I am not going to dwell on the
length and extent of my caring right here.
You just stop smoking and I’ll promise to tell you when to start.  Leave that to
me.  You’ll be so fat when I see you again that I will hardly know you.
I have fattened a little since I got back and (as poor as I am) I wouldn’t take
ten dollars for every ounce I have gained.
I am real well again but I was feeling and looking like the mischief when I
wrote you last.
You would have laughed if you could have been at our club meeting Wednesday to
have heard a girl describe how I looked the night I came from Bertie.  If I
really thought that you all had seen me looking as she said I did you would
never behold my beaming countenance again.
As you, no doubt, have already observed I am sending the lovely pictures which
just came this afternoon.
That inanimate thing, the mirror, just told me that I was really ‘most as
beautiful as they are and I don’t think I am at all vain in agreeing with her. 
I just simply will not take a decent picture.
The next time I go where there is a real good photographer I am going to get him
to make a picture of me and flatter me to the skies and then I shall be done
with pictures for good and all.
Just as soon as you possibly can I want you to please send me Evie’s address.
I suppose she is waiting for me to write but I don’t know where she is. I have
just been having a peck of fun.
Mrs. Travis is getting up a play "The Union Depot" to be played real soon and
Mama and I have been around there seeing her take off on different characters
and telling me which I should be.
I reckon it will be right good, nothing to it, of course, but it will be worth
the money and will help up to get our lights.
A crowd of boys went out today and killed a large deer and when they got to him
they found he had been shot about a week before and was sick.  They left it in
the woods and brought head to show they had really killed one.
Don’t you know that was a sick crowd?
They are right successful here though for they kill one nearly every time they go.
I hope you will have a big time in Norfolk, if you can behave yourself and have
a big time at the same time.  I have never found out exactly what that term "big
time" means with a boy.
Be sure to teach Wayland to stop smoking those things.  At least give him one
lesson.  I’m afraid for one so new in the game to stay in the city of Norfolk
long enough to give very many lessons.
Give him my best regards.  Tell him if I should happen down there about
Thanksgiving I would have to gaze on him for a few minutes.
Now my last injunction to you is to behave while you are there.  Write real soon.
Most sincerely yours,
Kate

[October 7, 1912]
[Lewiston]
My dear Kate – Yes I do too.  I want you to care more than a week and more than
a year too and I didn’t for a moment even think of meaning anything about your
not caring any longer when I made the week proposition.  It’s this way, I was
merely asking you to be kind and merciful to a poor mortal suffering the
tortures of the damned – For one week tonight I have been absolutely crazy and
instead of getting better I am growing worse all the time.  Since last Monday
morning I have eaten six meals every day and the consequence is I have had seven
attacks of acute indigestion and have been told by the home folks to change my
boarding place.  When I stop eating long enough to do anything at all I am
generally so sleepy that I fall off to sleep only to wake up as hungry as before
– All this sleeping and eating has added about twenty-five pounds to my weight.
 You say I ought to go to work and forget myself.  Well I am just naturally too
fat and lazy to move.  I did get up energy to go to Lewiston yesterday afternoon
and three different men called me aside and begged me to stop drinking so much.
 I asked them why did they think I was drinking too much and they said look in a
glass and see how fat and bloated you are getting.  Now I am ashamed to leave
home everybody thinks I am a rummy.  Now Kate for the Lord’s sake be
compassionate.  I hate to be run away from home and I don’t want to die with
indigestion and I don’t like to be accused of drinking any more than I do and
nobody likes a fat guy anyway.  Think the matter over and try to see it from my
viewpoint.  Suppose you had to deny yourself of two of the three meals each day
– Well, I’d gladly eat only one a day if I could only have a cigarette after
that one.  Can’t you make the stopping just a month and the caring forever?  I
think that would be the nicest, grandest, sweetest, noblest act of kindness that
you could possibly do if you tried a lifetime.  Maybe I won’t die with fatty
degeneration of the heart before the month is up.  Write me that thirty days
will be long enough to stop this time and at the end of that time I’ll get a
pipe and try to cut out cigarettes for good.  Pray over the matter and ask the
good Lord to instill in you the spirit of mercy and then I know you’ll do the
right thing. You ask what is my opinion about dancing (since I went crazy and
died) – I don’t know that I have a right to an opinion as I can’t dance but I
think dancing is as harmless a pleasure as the young folks of this county enjoy.
 In my opinion a lady can be a lady wheresoever she happens to be and if a girl
desires to go astray she’ll find a way if she never sees a ballroom. I do not
approve of the public dance halls of New York and other large cities where one
dances with everybody that comes along but I think that here in the South where
the girls and boys know each other dancing is a most harmless and innocent
amusement.  I am sorry you got such a lecture on the subject, for one thing I do
not like is a lecture.  What is your final decision about the dancing? Speaking
of lectures I got the boss lecture yesterday.  The Bishop of this Diocese made
his annual visit here today and our preacher was trying to get me to be
confirmed.  He gave me some soul argument like I never heard before and I know
that there’s no hope for me now.  I believe if I hadn’t been afraid about so
many promises to do better I would have been confirmed.  I’ll tell you a man
that stops smoking and then sees somebody pulling a cigarette is bound to be
full of envy and covet his neighbor’s cigarette and say some ugly words and and
never be a Christian. I was so glad to hear that you were arranging the visit
here Xmas.  Keep on making plans and don’t think you’re a Jonah for you’ve got
to come or there won’t be any Xmas.  I’ll kill you all the birds you want and if
you want to shoot some yourself I’ll take you hunting.  I have killed two deer
this season but neither had a head pretty enough to have mounted, but I hope to
get yours yet. You never have told me anything about your school yet except that
you were teaching.  I am interested in everything you are doing and want you to
tell me all about yourself.  Have you any classes far enough advanced to make it
interesting for you?  I imagine teaching a bunch of small children would be a
pretty lonesome job. Every time I look at a paper I see about some Ladies’ Club
meeting in Halifax so I know you are a busy girl.  However please take time to
write to me as often as possible.  Each of your letters is just a package of joy
to me and I can’t get one often enough. I am – Most sincerely yours – Sunday
Night	Alex October 10, 1912 Halifax My dear Alex – I am going to try to write
some kind of a letter tonight but it’s under the greatest difficulties that I’m
doing it. To begin with, I have entertained the club this afternoon and am as
tired and sleepy as I can be, and then Little Sister and one of the boys are in
here planning a great trip to Rocky Mount next week and every minute they are
asking me something. They say they are going to get up a crowd to see "The
Winning Widow" there next week or the week after and if they get the crowd they
can get a fast train that is due here about one A.M. to stop and put them off,
so they really are interested. This school marm isn’t too much so though, for I
have no special here and am certainly not going to chaperone another couple if I
am an old school teacher. I just got a long letter from Evie Lee and she is
tickled to death over Baltimore and is having the time of her life. She has met
two or three of the "finest young men you ever saw" and she says she is just
crazy about them. Evie reminds me of my sister before she was married.  The last
boy she meets is the one she loves best – or likes best. She says "dog-gone
getting married" for she is going to have a good time. She says she is going to
stay up there through February as she has paid up till then and then she is
going home and have a good time. Buffet is going up there to see her
Thanksgiving and she pretends she is crazy over the idea. I don’t think, from
the way she writes, that she is acting on the square with Buffet.  While, as you
know, I am not at all in favor of the match, still I do think she should be
honest with him.  I don’t know whether she told you of the dream she had while I
was there or not about a strange man, but if she didn’t you were the only one
for she was some kinder excited over it.  Well she writes she has met the man
and has gone crazy about it. Your pitiful letter came Monday and I have prayed
and done nothing but pray for divine inspiration since it came. None has come
yet, though, so on my own back, I am going to agree to the month proposition.
(Especially when I know to disagree would do no good.) I think you must have
"gone crazy and died" when you wrote me that you had had indigestion seven times
and still had fattened twenty-five pounds in one week. I thought people didn’t
fatten when they didn’t digest their food. Either your scales were wrong or your
doctor made a big mistake in the diagnosis of your care. However, we’ll try the
"month proposition" and praise the past week for all it’s worth. I know you wish
you were in New York to see the games or in Boston and New York.  The boys here
are crazy over them and they do nothing but hang around the telegraph office
from two o’clock till the game is over waiting for the returns.  Who are you
betting on? You were powerful good to promise to kill me some birds Xmas and if
there were no other inducement, that would be enough to carry me to Bertie. I
would love the best in the world to hunt with a hunter but if I should kill
anything I verily believe I would die myself. The boys laugh when I say I’m
going to get me a rifle and hunt. They tell me if I just want to tote something
to save my money and tote a stick. Evie’s letter was full of our going down
there Xmas and she said we would go hunting – I write you to join us now. What
luck did your folks have on their hunt? I am crazy to go to Richmond this week
but of course I can’t. I am so tired of being dead poor I don’t know what to do.
 I’m afraid I’ll have to commit suicide before I get rich on my pecans – or
anything else. I notice you weren’t in society the other night at the Rawls’
reception. What is the matter with you? Mr. Thompson wrote that you all had been
to a party somewhere in Lewiston about two weeks ago, given in honor of
somebody’s house party and you wrote about another house party.  Little Sister
and I both agreed that we were jealous – not of the individuals (we don’t
suppose) but we just don’t like the idea of other house parties taking our house
party’s place. Now be the "superlative of dog-gone nice" and write real soon and
tell me all about what you are doing and about the smoking. I am, as ever,
yours, Kate Wednesday night. 

[October 18, 1912] [visiting Mattie Mizell Nowell] [Selma] 
My dear Alex – If there ever was a dead person and that person still breathes it
is I. Honestly I have been going around all day half dazed swearing that I shall
never see another fair and that we are all crazy for having gone.  We had a good
time while we were going but that day after. I never realized what you boys
meant by that expression till today but now I can tell anybody in perfectly
original language what it means. We were glad to see John and Leonard Wednesday.
 We found them a little while after we got there and stayed together nearly all
the time.  Saw "The Winning Widow" and the ball game, both of which were
disappointments to me.  We got here last night at ten and Mrs. Nowell says we
just shall not leave till Monday.  We may leave Sunday afternoon but we haven’t
decided anything yet.  In fact neither of us has sense enough to decide anything
today. Emma May Freeman is here from the fall and she will leave Monday too. I
know you have wondered what a school teacher is doing with her school all this
time.  Well I have resigned for good and all. The school got in a perfect mess
soon after we began and I wanted to resign right there but the committee and
County Board of Education wouldn’t let me. Finally Monday afternoon I went to
Mr. Travis (the Chairman) and told him I was going to send him my written
resignation that night to go into effect immediately.  I told [him] I was
determined to resign anyway and that I wanted to go to Raleigh so he said they
might continue two rooms till they could find another.  Don’t know whether I
will get my money or not and don’t care much.  I will tell you more about it
when I see you. I hope you had a good time in Norfolk and that your cold is
better.  Of course I asked all about you (much to their amusement) and they told
me you were sick with a cold for which I am truly sorry.  I am glad you had it
before and not after you went to Norfolk for I believe a cold is looked upon
with just a little suspicion by you boys in Bertie. They told me some thing else
though that I was glad to hear from some one else besides yourself and that was
that you had really stopped smoking.  Of course I knew you had but I just loved
to have someone else talk about it. That crowd had a good time laughing at me
and I just know what they are going to tell you that I said will be a plenty. We
were with Mr. Sessoms at the station and not dreaming he was from Bertie and
knew you.  I said "S’pose old Alex is on that train" and when I did he gave a
whoop. I felt like a dunce then, sure enough, ‘cause I didn’t want to make him
think I was a dunce too.  He says he is going to tell you a bunch of stuff. Well
the first of November is nearly here and I’ll just bet that when it comes you
won’t even want to smoke – much anyway. [remainder of letter missing…] 

[October 22, 1912] [Lewiston] 
My dear Kate – I found your letter awaiting me on my return from Norfolk
Saturday night and I assure you that, short as it was, I enjoyed it more than my
whole trip, and I had a mighty fine trip too.  I, like you, have been debating
in my mind the old question "Is the night before worth the morning after?" 
These trips are pretty good things – till the aftermath. Wish I could have been
in Raleigh with you.  John was tickled to death at being with you and Little
Sister.  He says he saw ‘em all and Mr. Fenner’s daughters were finest looking
there.  He and Leonard both say you sent me a message but both claim to have
forgotten it.  I am afraid you didn’t tell them anything good to tell me or they
would have remembered it. Was sorry you were disappointed in the Foot Ball game
and "The Winning Widow."  I thought they would both be good.  I saw "Madam X" in
Norfolk and thought is was real good.  I also saw and heard the returns from the
deciding game in the World Series which I didn’t enjoy at all. I had Diggs send
you a small box of candy.  Hope it wasn’t too stale to eat. Didn’t have a card
with me.  I also mailed you a copy of the "Ruling Passion."  I think Van Dyke is
fine even if he is a preacher.  There’s not much to the stories but they are
beautifully expressed and, I think, are rather true to nature.  I can’t decide
whether my ruling passion is hunting or something else that I haven’t done for a
long, long time – I was certainly glad to hear that you had [gotten] out of the
school teaching.  Now I want you to spend some of that spare time in writing to
me.  Hereafter I’ll expect some extra pages to make up school time. We are going
to have a big Democratic rally in Lewiston tomorrow.  Going to barbecue about
twenty pigs and have a big time.  Harris is to speak on national issues and
Claude Kitchin in behalf of Brother Will.  Lewiston is such a Kitchin town that
they ran the school teacher away because he was a Simmons man.  You school
teachers have got to know how to vote.  Old Zeke is a Simmons man so you needn’t
be surprised if you hear of his death.  Guess ‘twould be a good thing for the
neighborhood.  Zeke and I are together on one question, every time I see him he
tells me you are the finest girl he ever saw. When did you leave Selma?  I hope
you slipped a good dose of strychnine to Miss Annie Elizabeth before you left,
but I guess she would fatten on it. I do hope and pray Mattie didn’t arrange to
be here when you were Xmas.  You know what I think of her. I am going to get a
rifle and practice up so I’ll be in your class hunting.  We’ll all get fat on
robin pies. Write me a long letter. Most sincerely, Alex [November 4, 1912]
[Halifax] My dear Alex – I have waited till this afternoon to answer your good
letter and now I am as cross as X, so if this turns out a fussy letter you will
just have to forget it and I’ll try to do better next time.  My shoes are simply
killing me, and as they are the only high ones I have I am compelled to keep
them on. I think Mama either gave away or burned the ones I had last winter and
if I can stand these long enough to go to Weldon tomorrow I am certainly going
to bid these farewell and get some big enough. Don’t you know I have fattened
and fattened till I’m a perfect sight.  If you aren’t perfectly sober
Thanksgiving night you’ll not know me. Honestly, I weigh more than I ever
weighed and I’m tickled to death. I’ve outgrown all of my clothes and my feet
(as you would imagine from the beginning of my letter) are actually larger. I’m
not very elated over this fact, however, for they were boats in the beginning. I
got my regular number shoe in Weldon last week and that is why I’m mad and sour
on the world this afternoon.  I’m trying to wear shoes that are a size too
small. I reckon I’ll get a six next time and be sure that they are large enough.
Hope you had a good and successful hunting trip.  What did you kill? We are
going in the woods tomorrow to hunt hickory nuts and we are going to   carry
rifles.  If we kill more game than we need I am going to express, or send by
freight to you, the surplus. Did you get a card from Halifax from a boy last
week or the week before? One of the boys here told me he had sent you one and if
he did please write me what was on it. The boy may have been joking but he
wouldn’t mind doing any thing in that line. I had a long letter from Evie this
week and she and Buffet tell different tales about writing. She says she hasn’t
heard from him in a week and that she hasn’t answered his last letter.  I think
the way he acts is scandalous and I hope somebody from down there will write
Evie about his last escapade. I’ll not be that somebody, however, for I utterly
detest a tale-bearer. The idea of his going to the home town of the girl he
expects to marry in two months and getting drunk is awful and proves that he has
absolutely no self respect and none for Evie and that he is a simple, weak piece
of humanity. If I were Evie I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on
earth and the Angel Gabriel got on his knees and asked it of me as a special
favor. You ought to have a better influence over him and not let him get drunk,
for Mr. Wood said you wouldn’t touch a drop.  He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?
 Or he was while you were on that memorable Tarboro trip, for while your brother
and some one else were talking about you scandalously, he was boosting you to
me. Evie wants me to go up there from Norfolk but the Old Man reports that the
treasury is almost empty. I hope, however, that he didn’t give in his final
report. Evie says I can sleep with her and that it won’t cost much but I can’t
see my way clear, yet. I sent old Zeke some Kitchin literature but I can’t go
down canvassing just now. I am scared to death about our teams for Thanksgiving,
though A&M [now NC State] whipped Wake F. yesterday.  I was glad to see Virginia
go down before Vanderbilt since poor Carolina had to lose again.  Maybe though,
since Carolina has an A&M manager we’ll win this year. How was it that Carolina
got McLendon, an A&M man, for a manager? I hope you’ll take enough time on the
eve of the election to read this, even though you might be doing some thing else
to a better advantage.  Write real soon.  My best regards to John. Most
sincerely yours, Kate Sunday [November ?, 1912 [Lewiston] My dear Kate – Now I
wouldn’t have smoked if you hadn’t waited so long to write.  My time was out
Thursday night at 12 M and I didn’t smoke a thing until after the mail was
opened Saturday.  When I didn’t get a letter then I just knew you had forgotten
I was living and sought solace in a nice white fragrant and refreshing Piedmont
[cigarette].  Of course I could find no consolation for your forgetting me but
the smoke did much to keep alive the fond hope that some day the sun would shine
and you would write.  Finally after months, Tuesday brought your letter and
Woodrow Wilson wasn’t half so proud of the day as I.  It looks like our
candidate for the Senate got walloped pretty badly.  Well I guess a letter from
you and a Democratic President was enough good luck for one day. I believe I did
get a card from one of your Halifax sports the other day but just what he said
I’ve forgotten  I think he asked me to have a mint julep with him at Harry Tabbs
on Thanksgiving night.  Being a total abstainer I haven’t taken time to write my
acceptance as yet.  Tell him I’ll take Apollinaris [bottled water]. Speaking of
Thanksgiving night, that’s the time I’m to be perfectly, absolutely happy for
the first time since the House Party was over.  Somebody told me the other day
that I had been looking forlorn ever since lightening stuck me and asked was
lightening the cause of it.  I told him no but something very closely associated
in point of time with being struck by lightening was the cause of my being
forlorn and downcast. Kate I do want to see you worse than anything in the world
and can hardly wait for Thanksgiving.  I won’t care so much if Carolina is
defeated if I can see you.  And another thing you needn’t try to put up and
"fine frock" excuse about the picture – you might not stay fat always and you
know you must have one made while it lasts.  You got my idea exactly when you
asked if I wanted to fix up an art gallery with pictures of you.  Were I an
invalid and confined to my room I would wish to brighten its four walls with
pictures of you.  I’ve just got to have a dozen "fat" pictures.  The fat ones
have got to go a long ways to be as beautiful as the (I guess I won’t say
"lean") ones you sent me before.  Now please don’t try to find any excuses for I
tell you "I’ve just gotta have ‘em." I’ve been to the Express Office daily
looking for the surplus game from your nutting and hunting trip but it seems
that your trip like mine didn’t decrease the fowl or animal kingdom very much. 
However what we’ll do for ‘em Xmas will be enough.  I got a letter from Lunsford
Long yesterday asking me to go with him up to his grandfather’s place in
Virginia on a hunting trip but I don’t guess I can go. Was it really your shoes
hurting you or your desire to take a trip that sent you to Weldon?  Mine are
hurting me so I’ve got to go to Norfolk tomorrow or Saturday. Now that you have
ceased your pedagogical labors I don’t see why you couldn’t write to me oftener
and make them about six times as long.  Try it once, please. Must stop now. Most
sincerely yours – Alex [November 14, 1912] [Lewiston] My dear Kate – On my
return from the city I found your letter and although it was a letter of
condemnation for my weakness still as usual I was most happy to get it.  I think
when a person has been doing good and then falls back into the old rut he
deserves praise for what he has done rather than censure for his fall. Your
proposition to write to me whenever I say (which means on every train) is by far
the most enticing proposition that I have ever had or ever expect to have if I
live a thousand years, for I get more genuine pleasure out of our talks through
the mail than all my other life put together.  And the oftener your letters come
the greater the pleasure would be.  However I can’t stop smoking any more and
I’ll explain.  When I stopped and had gone about three days I wanted a cigarette
worse than I had ever wanted anything in all my life and in my desperation I
picked up the Holy Book and swore that if I ever lived through the month of
October I would never stop smoking again no matter what happened.  Now you see
that in order to take your proposition I would have to break a solemn pledge and
I know you wouldn’t have me do that.  Now if you have got anybody up there that
you desire to be killed and will put the same proposition to me provided I do
the murder then I’ll gladly put the guy out of business or I’ll do any thing
else that you wish except quit smoking.  If I hadn’t sworn never to stop again
your greatest of offers surely would make me try to stop again but I think
another month like last would kill me.  You can form no idea what it is for me
to stop and I can truthfully say that I don’t see where they do me the slightest
harm. I will promise not to smoke any more cigarettes but to use a pipe and not
to smoke that in your presence if you will let the proposition hold good.  Kate
just think of the pleasure you can give me by writing oftener and if you can
imagine half of it I know you will.  And the "fat picture" doesn’t come in under
the proposition anyway for as I have told you before I have just got to have
one. I went to Norfolk and got some shoes and also tried to get some boots of
that particular brand that would take me to see you, the ones like John was to
get.  Had a nice quiet time.  Saw a fine matinee Saturday afternoon, wished for
you a thousand times – I have promised a Goldsboro crowd to go there and go up
to Richmond with them but if I can get out of it I will join you at Kelford on
the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and go from Norfolk to Richmond that night.  I
had been thinking that the 26th was Thanksgiving until tonight when I picked up
a calendar and found that it was the 28th.  So that means two days more added to
the interminable time before I shall see you. I guess Little Sister thinks I am
waiting a long time to send "The Net" but all my sisters have started it and
each wants to finish it but don’t seem to get time.  I will send it in a few
days. I was sorry to hear such bad news about my friend Long for he’s one of the
best fellows in the world.  May be that was just an off day with him. Please
don’t wait any longer to answer my letter than I did yours.  I got yours last
night when I got home so that only gives you one day. With all my thoughts, I
am, Most sincerely yours, Alex [November 20, 1912] [Lewiston] My dear Kate – I
am "jest nacherally" so happy I don’t know what to do.  It’s now ten o’clock and
in sixty hours I will see you.  Of course each hour will seem like a year but I
will try to wait that long.  I have written to my friends that I was just bound
to go by Norfolk and unless I get a letter of protest from them I will join you
in Kelford.  In case they make me keep my promise I will be in Kelford that
evening and see you for a few moments any how.  Dave [?] the ex-football star
[?] from A&M and now is signed with the N.Y. Giants is over here hunting with
John and me, and he is going down Wednesday morning too.  He is such a fine
looking guy that I don’t even want you to look at him.  We will arrange our
plans on the way down. Please pray for one of the Carolina teams to win Thursday
so we can wear our colors.  I am going to take your advice (as I always do) and
not put my money on Carolina.  I think it would be more interesting to see it go
across the [?].  You didn’t tell me about that forty-two game that makes you
make all your letters so short .  Do you have anything up on the game or what
makes it so interesting? I do hope you have decided not to give me that piece of
mind you promised for I am being just as good as anybody’s boy could be.
Remember that the first thing you are to do upon arriving in Norfolk is to have
that picture taken.  There is absolutely no argument about it for you have
promised. I sent Little Sister the book the day I mailed your letter but found
it in the Post Office Friday so it didn’t leave until then.  Hope she got it. I
won’t write more as I will see you Wednesday if it is hailing brick bats.  For
the Lord’s sake be on that train or I’ll surely jump under it. Only fifty nine
hours and thirty minutes now. As ever – Most sincerely yours – Alex 

[December 2, 1912] [Lewiston] 
My dear Kate – I would have written last night as I said I was going to do but I
couldn’t have mailed it out tomorrow and would surely have torn it up before I
had time to write another.  Any how I am writing as soon as possible in order to
get that fourteenth letter for although as a rule I am not superstitious still
when a person wants a thing real bad and the omens are against it he naturally
feels a little nervous.  Now as soon as you get this letter sit down and write
to me for I’ll not sleep well till I get the fourteenth. I hope you and Little
Sister reached Halifax safely in time for the oyster roast and were not too
tired to attend. Although I enjoyed the trip immensely still I am dissatisfied
about two things – In the first place I feel that I did so little to add to your
pleasure while in Norfolk and there I saw so little of you.  I had a lot of
things I wanted to talk to you about but Friday I felt so much like a dead man
that I couldn’t even think.  I have some apologies to make that I won’t attempt
to write.  I have been on many a trip but never has one done me up like this one
to Richmond and I honestly think that at last I have learned a lesson.  I wish
you had decided to stay in Norfolk for then I would have had time to have a long
talk with you. I hope the oyster roast and your other efforts in behalf of the
Church are proving a great success and know they are if you are lending your
assistance.  It must be a pleasure to know you are doing something that helps
people and especially a pleasure to you whose thoughts and ideas and ideals are
all so good.  I’ve seen few people whose ideas of life and how to live were so
good and high as yours and if there were more girls with your ideas this would
be a better world. There is one thing that I wish you had not told me about and
that is the way that bunch treated you about the school, for each time I think
of it the worse it seems.  To think that a crowd of civilized people could have
tried to treat you like that is more than I can comprehend.  I think it passed
off very quietly though for it is a wonder to me there wasn’t some fighting
done. I saw old Zeke yesterday and told him a lot of things for you. (You must
be careful not to get mixed up on the messages when you see him.)  And told him
that if he and Bet didn’t want me to stop speaking to them they had better have
you and Little Sister stay a month Xmas. We have been planning the masquerade
all day today.  We are going to get the costumes from Norfolk so you must come
soon and get your pick. Did you ever get your suit from MillerRhoads and did it
fit to suit you?  If you don’t like it you must go down and see Mrs. Carrington
again and I’ll join you.  If you would do that I would almost hope for it not to
fit.  To me it looked like it couldn’t fit better but of course I don’t know
like you all.  My sister asked me why I didn’t bring the baby something and I
told her somebody had just bought all the baby’s toys in Norfolk.  I’ll bet
that’s a happy kid now.  But he can’t be as happy as I’ll be to get that
fourteenth letter so don’t make me wait any longer than possible. With fondest
thoughts – I am – Most sincerely yours – Alex 


[December 4, 1912] [Lewiston] 
My dear Kate – The fourteenth letter came and I thank you from the bottom of my
heart for it.  I was still feeling bad from my trip and nothing could have cured
me and driven away remorse like a word from you.  It was certainly nice of you
to write to me when you were feeling so badly and I appreciate it more than I
can say.  I was so sorry to hear that you had to go out and have a chill and do
hope that Mrs. Fenner proved a good doctor.  I have thought about you all day
and wished for your speedy recovery but it’s precious little good thoughts can
do one when quinine is ringing in their ears.  You looked so fresh and pretty
Friday afternoon that I said thank the Lord somebody is feeling good for I
thought I was surely going to die.  The boy that got drunk and beaten up
couldn’t have been in any worse shape than I was.  But for your letter I don’t
think I would have gotten over it yet.  Kate please don’t get sick any more and
if you do don’t tell me about it till you get well for I hate like the d____ to
sit up here and hold my hands and know I can not do anything for you. There is
an old adage to the effect that if you try anything and it make you sick then
try it again and it will cure you.  I think you will have to go to Norfolk again
real soon.  Really if your suit doesn’t please you or you have any Xmas shopping
to do let’s go down to the City for a day or two.  Mrs. Carrington would be
tickled to death to have you come for "she’s done told me so."  We’ll choose a
time when there’s a good show on at the Academy and take it in.  I haven’t been
to a theater in so long that I don’t think I’d know just "how to do" if I should
find myself in one.  Sho nuff now let’s go down for I almost wish I hadn’t seen
you the other day because it has made me want to see you so bad.  Tell Mr.
Fenner that if he doesn’t send you to Norfolk to get him a Xmas present you’ll
not give him a thing –  That’s the argument I used to work on Mama when I wanted
a Xmas trip.  And while in Norfolk you can have my Xmas present made, a picture
of yourself.  If I could get that I’d be satisfied to forego all other Xmas
joys. Please don’t tell your mother any more about Zeke’s people for I am afraid
she might not understand exactly how it is and object to your coming.  I’ll tell
you honestly although they are not FF’s ["first families"], still they are good
folks and certainly do go with the nice people of the State. I think that’s a
fine scheme of yours to send your Bud [Kate’s brother] up to the Hill next year
for we need some Foot Ball material worse than ever before.  You and I want to
be able to wear our colors in Richmond next year.  Even if your brother doesn’t
play Foot Ball he will never regret having gone to the Hill.  He would certainly
be thrown with the best people in the state and will meet men that it wouldn’t
be possible to meet elsewhere.  And, in parenthesis, he can learn to play a very
scientific game of Poker if he so desires.  I wouldn’t take anything in the
world for having gone to the Hill even though I didn’t absorb too great an
amount of information.
	The date set for the masquerade is the Friday after Christmas, so make your
plans to be here then.  Of course if you can’t be here at that date we’ll make
it later.  
	I am glad you are making so much money for the Church for that will make your
prayers of more avail and you promised to pray for me.
	I’ll stop now.
	Write me a longer letter just as soon as you can.

		With fondest thoughts – 
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex



		[December 9, 1912]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate – 
	I was so glad to get your letter and hear that you were well again but I fear
that between Church work and making Christmas presents you will work yourself to
death before Xmas comes around.  But although you are well you will never be
entirely cured until you take the other trip to Norfolk.  Of course I am sorry
that the dress doesn’t fit but still nevertheless notwithstanding I would be
mighty glad if you would go down to Norfolk and get another try on.  I feel sure
they could do better and Express Companies charge more than Railroads and the
dress might get lost in transit and maybe the conductor would forget to ask you
for a ticket.  And you have promised Mrs. Carrington and she wants to see you
and I want to see you more than anybody in the world and you ought not to stay
home and work so hard anyway.  Now I think all the argument is in favor of
another visit to Norfolk.  If you decide to go just give me long enough notice
to get to Kelford and I will be there when the train comes.
	I saw Lala Mizell this afternoon and she said that Evie wrote yesterday that
she was expecting to have you and Little Sister over during the Holidays.  I
also got my sister to write to Evie and tell her about the masquerade and
incidentally mention the fact that John and I were counting on your trip here. 
Be sure to arrange to be here on the Friday after Xmas for it would be hard to
change the date in case you were not here at that particular day and I refuse to
honor them with my presence unless you are here.  About the costumes Margaret
says the girls are going to make theirs.  The boys (or most of them) will get
theirs from Norfolk.  If you go to Norfolk you can see what they’ve got there
and if you like any of them we can rent them along with ours.  Don’t go and get
one that you will be too pretty in for I am afraid I’ll have to put a bump on
some guy’s head that night anyhow.
	Evie and Emily are coming home on the 20th and I am going to see them on the
night of the 20th at 8 o’clock and what plans you haven’t made I am going to
make then.  I am going to write to Buffet tonight and invite him over and if his
assistant teacher hasn’t got too strong a hold on him we may have a little
excitement during the Holidays.  I wonder is the "Dream Man" still hanging on. 
I bet no.
	John and Burges and Ed and Tom Cobb went off on a joy ride this afternoon and
the machine broke down just out of Windsor and they have just gotten back
driving a mule to a cart.  Ed Cobb says his only regret about the breakdown is
that I wasn’t there for the ride back but I tell them they ought to have a more
religious way of spending Sunday afternoons.  I saw our chauffeur (Clarence
Rawls) yesterday afternoon and told him we would need his services during
Christmas.  He said he would insure him against sand storms and lightening.
	Speaking of automobiles, I hope you haven’t taken any more drives with the boy
chauffeur because I really don’t want to see you buried yet.
	Dave Robertson the fellow that went down on the train with us is coming out
tomorrow for a week’s hunting.  I still have hopes of getting that deer head to
have mounted for you.
	I have hired Frank Winston to go to the next Methodist Conference and show them
that forty-two is a game of chance and bad for the soul so you won’t have an
excuse for making your letters so short then. 
	In the mean time make them as long as you can. 


		With all my thoughts – 
		Yours most sincerely – 
		Alex

		[December 16, 1912]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate – 
	You couldn’t have made me happier than by sending me a letter and in that
letter telling me what a treat you had in store for me.  I already consider this
Christmas the happiest in all my life and that because I am to see you and have
your picture with me always.  I will promise you faithfully that when I get
tired of it or another takes its place I will surely return it and in a frame of
gold studded with diamonds.  There is only one trouble and that is that I have
got to wait two whole weeks before I get it.  I would urge you to mail it but it
is too precious and might get lost.  In the meantime lock it up and hide the key
for fear some one will steal it, for any body would steal it and very
justifiably I think.
	I am sorry you decided not to go to Norfolk for I had looked forward to it with
a great deal of pleasure.  I guess you made a wise decision for it is hard to
shop when the Christmas crowds are bustling around the streets.
	I am going down in the morning if I can get away without anyone finding it out
for I certainly can’t buy things for other people.  I know I am going to have a
terribly lonesome time sans cigarettes sans wine sans craps sans you.  I expect
to leave Norfolk just as soon as I can get out.
	I don’t see why in the world Evie hasn’t written to you about your visit here.
 Lala says, every time I see her, that they are expecting to have you.  I am in
fear and trembling lest that dear Mrs. Nowell is not going to let Evie invite
you.  I know Evie is crazy to have you but Mattie runs the family and it is just
as she says. 
	Please don’t accept the Weldon invitation until you do hear from Evie.  I know
the Weldon dance will be a more swell affair than the masquerade but we are
going to have a bunch of fun.  I repeat that I don’t want to be in a belligerent
state of mind that night so whatever you be try not to be too pretty.
	You were right about my wishing for the fruit cake but just one pound wouldn’t
be half enough for one thing I do love is fruit cake and especially the one you
make.  You talked as if you might bring along a little of that cake when you
come.  If you do don’t check the suit case for the baggage man may have my
weakness for fruit cake.
	So John wrote Little Sister about hunting with Robertson.  I wonder if he told
her about shooting the biggest buck on Roanoke River the other day. Of course he
says he [?] him etc. but I am sure he was running still.  Now if old Daniel
Boone the Second had just had that shot you would have had a mounted deer head
as sure as you are living.  I sent two big coon skins to Philadelphia to be
tanned yesterday but know I won’t get them in a month as there is such a rush at
present.  
	In the meantime do the best praying you can for cigarettes look mighty good and
cards look natural and to hear the dice roll puts me up in the air.  But even if
I do fall off for a few days Xmas, what’s New Years for but to make good
resolutions?  If I continue at the rate I am going there won’t be a single
resolution I can make New Years unless I stop saying "doggone."  Honestly I am
so good that I think I had better die for it may be my only chance for a seat up
high.
	Don’t bother about sending the book, you can bring it when you come over.  I am
so busy that I don’t ever read anyway.  I see that Booth Tarkington has just
written a new novel and if it is published yet I am going to try to get it in
Norfolk.
	The next time you write forget that you have written but one page till you
[have] written about twenty – and don’t let the next time be long.
	Your letter was mailed Thursday but I didn’t get it till Friday.


		With fondest thoughts – 
		I am –
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex

 
		[December 20, 1912]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate,
	I am so elated at your coming over for a visit and so mad with myself for going
to Norfolk so soon that I am almost crazy.  One minute I am whistling, so glad
in the thought of your being here and the next minute I am "cussing" myself for
having gone to Norfolk.   And being good was the sole cause of my early visit to
the City.  You see, John Lewis, Burges, Tom Cobb, and Ben Renfrow went down
today and I knew that it would never do for the reformed guy to be there with
that bunch, so I had to go before.  The way of the ex-transgressor is harder. 
If I had only decided to go down with the boys and take a day or two off from
being good then your letter would have gotten to me in time for me to have
waited till Monday and I could have been with you and not had to break my
pledges after all.  Of course had I gone with them I would have had strength
enough to abstain and I ought to have made my plans with the knowledge but just
between us I was afraid to risk it.  Another piece of hard luck is that Monday
is the day appointed to fix up the school house for the masquerade and I am one
of the Committee but if I can get them to let me off I will see you in Kelford
as you pass through if it is only for a second.  Any way I will see you Thursday
(for you must come Thursday instead of Friday) and that’s enough to make me
happier than anybody in the world.  Write me what train you and Little Sister
are coming on Thursday and John and I will meet you in Kelford.  Evie and Emily
(and Buffet) are all coming tomorrow and I will find out what plans they have made.
	I had a mighty bum time in Norfolk ‘cause you won’t there.  I saw the 
"Shepherd of the Hills" at the Granby.  It was by an inferior company but I
enjoyed it very much.  I had about forgotten the story but it came back to    …

[ page missing here …]

tired and weary waiting for it.  I hate to hear of your working so hard making
Xmas presents and helping the Church for I am afraid you will do too much and be
sick.  Don’t forget to bring me a taste of that fruit cake.
	Margaret is to entertain the Card club tomorrow night.  Of course I’ll enjoy it
and especially now that Whist is my only game.  I am afraid that I’ve even
forgotten how to read the "spotted cyards," it’s been so long since I have put
my feet beneath the velvet table.
	We have made arrangements for the costumes for the ball to be sent out from
Norfolk.  Will tell you what I’m to be after I see my outfit.
	I’ll bet I was praying for you to come here just at the very moment that Miss
Daniel was tying to persuade you to go to Weldon or you would have gone there. 
I don’t think she was trying to flatter you at all when she told you you would
look better without a mask, she was just stating a plain fact.  You might be
‘most as pretty but never quite.
	Next time write me an extra long letter to make up for the short note yesterday.
	I hope your tip to Norfolk will be pleasant and you won’t completely demolish
your bank account.

		With my fondest thoughts – 
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex


		[January 6, 1913]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate –  
	You were just as nice as you could be to write to me Thursday night after the
tiresome trip from Norfolk and you will surely find a mark in your favor on the
books above for making me so happy.  If you an write such a good letter when you
are tired and have just returned from a trip to Norfolk, no wonder your letters
are the best in the world.
	I am glad you had such a pleasant stay in Norfolk.  It’s good to have such a
nice cousin as Mrs. Carrington.  I am crazy about the Virginia Beach House
Party, don’t miss a chance to talk it up.  I think it would be fine if the boys
could rent a cottage and have Mrs. Carrington to chaperone us.  And by then (if
there’s any possibility) I will know how to dance.  We are to go over to the
Phelps’ Wednesday night to begin practice.  I am sorry you didn’t have the
pictures made while in Norfolk for I really need a dozen more for I am going to
wear this one out looking at it.  Yes I’ll trade you when you have the others
made provided you give me three for one and send them first.
	Don’t be worried about your telegram’s coming collect.  The fact is I didn’t
even know it.  You see my Brother brought me your telegram along with another
one from Norfolk and told me I owed him a quarter on one of them.  I told him to
"charge it" and thought no more about it.  As for what the Lewiston Agent or
anybody else in Christendom thought, it makes no difference for they had nothing
to think.  Had I noticed that it was collect I would simply have thought that
you went down the street with the proverbial $3.00 and after emptying
MillerRhoads and Swartz’s store found that you only had car fare left and wanted
to send the telegram before you went back to Mrs. Carrington’s.  
	About the New Years resolution – yes it is certainly a good one and if I pull
though then I will be right in line to take holy orders under the Methodist
banner.  In fact I think I might be a candidate for Bishop.  I am afraid to tell
you how good I am trying to be for fear I might be snake-bitten or have the
tooth-ache or go out hunting on an awfully cold day and get wet or a thousand
other little accidents might happen to make me break the resolutions
involuntarily.  However I’ll promise that in case I do break it I’ll ‘fess up. 
You must pray every spare moment for it has only been five days and I have
already been sorely tempted and am of faint heart.  As for these people here
telling you that I am fooling you (or rather trying to fool you) about these
things, that’s all "Tommy" – for I have never claimed to do anything but cut the
cigarettes and that I have done.  Of course sometimes I go off and forget my
pipe and then I smoke a cigarette or two but even that is very seldom.
	I want you to write me the resolutions you remade for me and if they are not
too hard I’ll include them in the other two.  I wish you would resolve to write
to me seven times a week more than you do and sixteen more pages to each letter.
 I believe if you knew how much happiness your letters meant to me you would
almost be willing to do it.
	I went down and had a long confidential talk with Evie the other night and if
Buffet will only stay sober till February, I think she will marry him.  Old Zeke
has forbid him to come to see her any more but that’s in our favor.  Evie got
three letters from him yesterday.  The way I figure that out is that he wrote
one in the morning when he was fairly sober, another in the afternoon when he
was about half and the third that night when he was "charged."  Of course I’ll
not tell her though.
	Kate write me a long letter just as soon as you can for it seems like I haven’t
seen you since about 500 B. C.  If it wasn’t for my prettiest of pictures I
don’t know what would become of me and I know I’d break my "resolves" in about
ten minutes.


		With all my thoughts – 
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex
	
		[January 13, 1913]
		[Lewiston]

My dear Kate – 
	Your letter would have been the best of all letters if you hadn’t told me that
you had gone and gotten sick again.  There you go working yourself to death for
the Church when you have already done enough good to have a mortgage on the
highest seat they’ve got in Heaven.  I think I will have to study medicine
instead of Law unless you hurry up and make that church rich.  It must rank
about third among the wealthiest institutions in America now and I expect to
hear of you erecting tenement houses and office buildings like Old Trinity in
New York.
	That’s a fine scheme about my going over to Ireland to get Lady Anne’s fortune
(for I never did fancy Irish whiskey) and then I’ll take a flying machine to
Scotland and try to establish kinship with that old Urquhart rummy over there
that’s worth a few millions.  I guess all my New York dreams have about gone up
though for I have about bargained to buy a River Farm and I think I will close
the deal tomorrow.  If I do then I’ll have to change my breakfast hour and go
down to work.  I wonder just how that will feel.  I will have to give up hunting
too so I have had Joe Pugh over turkey hunting all the week.  We killed five
turkeys and lots of ducks.  I would certainly have sent you some but knew you
would say they were sick.
	The dancing school met for the second lesson tonight and I am sure I deserve a
zero.  Margaret is limping from having her foot stepped on so much and Lou
advised me to take a few snorts and see if I couldn’t get a little music in my
system.  Very wholesome advice I think if it wasn’t for the resolution.  I guess
while I was telling you about the resolution I should have told you all of it or
rather the amendments – but then I was afraid you might not congratulate me.  It
reads thus:  For the year 1913 A.D.  Total abstinence in North Carolina except
egg nog when it snows – On trips, beer only and not over thirty pony beers a day
– In Richmond Thanksgiving (if you go) same as in North Carolina, (if you don’t
go) oh, just a few to get the College Spirit.  The amendments don’t mean much
for it looked like it was going to snow all this morning and then it wouldn’t
and I don’t think there is any danger of getting out of North Carolina any time
soon and I’ll not go to Richmond unless you go.  I know you will be glad to
excuse those few little harmless limitations to the resolve.  I had thought up a
fine resolution about the poker and crap and horse races and Base Ball Games and
Cotton Futures etc., but I forgot all about it on the first, so now I have to
wait till 1914.  I am truly sorry.  
	You say you are proud because you are one of the causes of the good
resolutions.  That’s a good sentence but the arrangement of the words is wrong.
 You are the one cause of them and if there’s any virtue in taking a poor devil
who was fairly happy with his cigarettes and jug and divorcing him from these
two most jovial companions then you should be justly proud.  Of course when I
feel sure that you care about the resolutions it is a little easier to deny
myself but when I see the boys gather around the old bottle and light up the
Piedmonts and the oft-receiving thought comes that maybe Kate is just doing this
because she knows she can then I tell you it is mighty hard.  I haven’t
forgotten my pipe this year and won’t.
	I know you will enjoy being at the Hill again.  I’d like to re-enter College
again for the length of your stay.  I am glad the house is small so there won’t
be room for so many callers for I don’t want a S?? or ??? pin to take the place
of mine.  Please don’t try to work too hard fixing up the house.  I’ll tell you,
you do the head work and let the others carry out the instructions.
	Kate I wish I could tell you how much pleasure your letters bring me but it is
not in my powers.  I want each one more than the last and count the days before
I’ll get each one.

		With all my thoughts – 
		I remain – 
		Most sincerely yours –  
		Alex
	


		[January 17, 1913]
		[The Lorraine Hotel, Norfolk, VA]


My dear Kate – 
	I’ll bet my hat that when you got my card saying that I was en route for
Norfolk the first thing you said was yup there he goes chasing one of those
amendments into Virginia, but not so – I’ve been in the City about nine hours
and have already refused nine hundred drinks and been called a fool exactly nine
hundred times.  One guy argued that it would be perfectly legitimate to fall off
provided I gave my seat on the wagon to a lady and proposed that we go down to
the Rathskeller and try to find an occupant for it.  Another said drink and the
world drinks with you, swear off and you drink alone.  But none of these
enticements could move the hero because you’ve done said you cared and that
means more to me than all the wine of the Mumms and all the diamonds of the
Tiffanys and all the gold of the Guggenheims and all the joys and hopes and
aspirations of everybody.  Since your letter I’ve scratched out all the amendments.
	From your letter I infer that I must have told you about something that you
didn’t know was in the category of my wrongdoing.  If I did it was a mistake on
my part for I had planned not to tell on myself about anything else until I had
already made up [my] mind to quit.
	For the Lord’s sake sing the dance proposition low around Mr. Fenner for I have
actually learned the step (mirabile dictu).  We had a big dance at the Phelps
last night for the pupils.  You ought to have seen me floating through a waltz
dream with Johnny.  As long as I am going in one direction I can get along
fairly well but just let me try to reverse and it’s good night.  Margaret says
as soon as dancing becomes a pleasure instead of work then I will know how to
dance.  I must say that so far it is as near work as I have ever approached.  I
haven’t done my first day’s work on the farm yet but will start up as soon as I
get back home.
	What about the Grand Concert in which you were to render the solo?  If you had
told me about it in time you wouldn’t have had to invite me for I would have
come any way.  I am anxious to see the account in the Observer.
	I went to Granby tonight and saw "Satan Sanderson."  It was darn good indeed
even if Jessica did happen to be a Hebrew.  Eddie Foy is to be in here in "Over
the River" next week.  I saw it in New York last year and it was one of the best
on Broadway.  Can’t the Halifax folks get along without you long enough for you
to come down with me to see it?
	After the theater tonight I went up to the Monticello Café with a fellow and
got some fine eats but all the time I was wishing for one of those biscuits you
are cooking during your cook’s absence.  I don’t like your idea about crossing
the pond.  It takes me too long to get a letter from you now and if you got way
over there it would take a year.  Just think about the Titanic.  You might be
drowned.
	I have missed the picture, which sits on my desk, so much tonight and have
caught myself looking for it more than once.  Next to your letters it’s my
favorite possession.  It’s time all good boys like me were asleep so I won’t
burden you with more.

		With all my thoughts –  
		I remain – 
		Most sincerely – 
		Alex
	
	
		[January 22, 1913]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate,
	Every time I hear from you you are doing something good for other people’s
benefit and pleasure and generally at the sacrifice of your own well being.  I
hope you brought the unfortunate girl with the spasms around all right.  You
were braver than I would have been to stay with her.  It was good of you to
write to me under such circumstances and your letter got the usual glad
hand-shake of welcome. 
	I’ll tell you about the experience I had some years ago with a boy afflicted in
that way if you’ll promise not to tell on me.  A crowd of us went down to a mill
pond about two miles from here to take a swim one Sunday afternoon.  While we
were splashing around having a time this boy chunked a fit in water twenty feet
deep.  Another boy and I swam ashore and lit a rag for home.  We had run about a
mile when we suddenly bethought ourselves of our raiments laying on the banks of
the mill pond –  Luckily there were no travelers on the road and we returned to
find that some of the boys had fished the boy out and revived him.  After that I
had an engagement to take a girl in bathing at Virginia Beach and found out that
she was an epileptic and suddenly had a phone message to come into Norfolk.
	I got back from Norfolk Saturday and yesterday I did a whole day’s work down on
the river.  Took my lunch down and staid all day and I didn’t care if it did
rain today.
	You asked if I had seen Little Sister’s picture.  I should say so.  John and I
have already had three fights over which picture shall occupy the most important
position on the desk.  I think the picture is fine and a better likeness of her
than mine is of you.  Little Sister was not the only one that thought you were
beautiful on the night of the dance for everybody that saw you has told me the
same thing and as for me, if I hadn’t already known that you were the prettiest
girl in the world I would have had no trouble in realizing it that night.  I
think you will be downright hardhearted and unkind and unchristianlike and
everything else if you don’t have your picture taken in that dress and give me a
dozen.  And just think, as pretty as you were and had to go with a nigger and he
couldn’t even dance.  However they tell me I showed a little improvement tonight
and if you and Little Sister will come we will have a dance Easter and try to
make up for having to stay on the side lines so long.
	I am going to send Little Sister’s book back tomorrow.  I feel real bad about
keeping it so long but John and I both had to read it just a little at a time. 
I think it is real good as all of Wright’s books are but it would have seemed
more real and come nearer home to me if the characters had had "a local
habitation and a name."  
	I know you will hate to give Miss Nelson up if she’s really to be married and
I’ll be sorry too for the way I size it up is that whenever there’s anything to
be done for the good of Halifax you and Miss Nelson have it to do and when she
leaves that will put the whole burden of a city on your shoulders.  I guess
you’ll be able to handle the job all right though.
	I want you to pray extra for me Friday,  Saturday, and Sunday, for George
Thomas is coming down to spend the "week end" hunting with me and although
George is of course a very temperate youth still a little wine serves to revive
and tighten the fetters of friendship and he realizes that too.  It’s good to
see an old friend occasionally for living in this neck of the woods I almost
forget that I had any friends in College.  It is a mystery to me now how I ever
did exist here before I knew you and had your letters to make living here seem
bearable.  You will soon have to send your letters to me to Woodville as the new
Post Office is to be installed some time within the next week or two.  And they
are talking of changing the schedule on the Seaboard so may be it won’t take
letters so long to travel from Lewiston to Halifax.  I didn’t get your letter
till Monday afternoon and if I were to write to you on Saturday afternoon you
wouldn’t get it until Tuesday – Ain’t that something in this progressive,
civilized state of North Carolina? 
	I missed one or two of the papers so never did see an account of the Wednesday
night concert.  So write me about it.
	Write me the longest letter you have ever written and tell me all about yourself.

		With all my thoughts – 
		Yours most sincerely – 
		Alex
		[January 27, 1913]
		[Lewiston]


My dear Kate,
	I was waiting at the Post Office yesterday when the mail was getting put up
hoping to get your letter but scared to death that it wasn’t coming.  I think
the Post Master put a thousand letters in our box before yours came but finally
it came and I was amply repaid for being there.  If it hadn’t have come, today
could never have been the beautiful sunny day it has proved to be.
	"That ain’t no nice way to do" to say you can’t come to the Easter Dance.  What
have I been going over yonder, twice a week, working like a nigger tying to
learn to dance for if it wasn’t just to dance with you?  I had had a thousand
chances to learn before but didn’t care to till I knew you, then you furnished
the inspiration and now you say you won’t come to the first dance.  I call that
very unkind to say the least.  I think you might have promised to come even if
you couldn’t and that would have made me happy for a time.  As long as you are
"promised out" to four places why not promise to come here too?  Then write the
names of the five places on separate pieces of paper, put them in a hat,
blindfold your self and draw out one and go to the town you draw.  Give us a
gambler’s chance anyhow and choose Lewiston’s lucky day and peep through the
blindfold.  I know you are wanted in all five places and everywhere else you’ve
ever been but nowhere as much as Lewiston.  Your pupil in the Art of Right
Living wants to see you more than everybody in the world and needs a long
conversation with the teacher.  Can’t you come, if only for the night of the
dance?  If there’s anything that can be done from moving mountains to changing
the course of the Roanoke River that will persuade you to come just tell me what
it is and I’m at it.
	The weather was so bad that George Thomas wired Thursday night that he wouldn’t
come but all that good praying was not in vain for during all those cloudy
stay-in-the-house days I had a terrible cold and the blues too because I had to
wait so long for your letter and resolutions were looking mighty hard.  And I
know some of the prayers are stored up on high for the time when George does come.
	I wish we could have seen Eddie Foy together.  The crowd that went from here
said it was the best thing they had seen in a long time.  Weber and Fields are
to be in Norfolk tomorrow night and I am about half way in the notion to go down
and see them.  If I hadn’t seen them in New York and had any excuse to offer my
conscience for going to Norfolk, I would certainly see it again.  I am glad the
show in Rocky Mount Friday night was of the doubtful variation.  I would have
had to wait till tomorrow or later for your letter and that would have been
misery for me.
	Lewiston is to be honored with two grand entertainments this week.  On Tuesday
night there is to be a play and Ice Cream supper and a few other graft games for
the benefit of the Methodist Church.  You see Halifax ain’t the only town on the
map that’ll have a new Methodist Church.  And on Wednesday night there is to be
a musical entertainment conducted by your friend the Professor who played for
the dance.  Don’t you wish you could hear it.  
	Evie Lee and Mary Spivey are to leave Baltimore this week but I guess Evie will
have to stop by Selma for a while.  When she comes I am going to have Buffet
over and make a final effort toward hitching them up.  I hear that he hasn’t
gotten drunk since he left here, just takes a few snorts each morning and warms
over the jag he got here Xmas.  I am afraid I am going to make a failure for I
believe Evie has gotten so she can distinguish the smell of whiskey from chewing
gum.  
	The town of Woodville is building a sidewalk from Mr. Mizell’s house to the
Depot.  I told you we would build one and if it isn’t pavement I think you owe
us a visit to see it.
	For the Lord’s sake try to change your mind and come over Easter for I want to
see you.  I have got a million things to tell you and if I don’t hurry up and
see you I am afraid I’ll have so much to tell you that you won’t listen to me.
	Please write to me as soon as you can.

		With all my thoughts – 
		I remain –
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex


		[January 31, 1913]
		[Lewiston]

My dear Kate – 
	I am writing at once to tell you where to find Evie but if your letter hadn’t
have been the best in the world and I didn’t just long for another just like it
I certainly wouldn’t attempt to write tonight for it is two o’clock now and I am
nearly dead.
	Evie is due to leave Baltimore tonight and is to visit Mattie in Selma and
Emily in Raleigh before she comes home.  I don’t know which first.  You might
write to her in Selma and put Forward on the letter then after Mattie has opened
it and read it, as she will surely do, maybe she will be kind enough to send it
to Evie in case she is in Raleigh.  Or, to be certain to reach her you might
write to both places.
	I had to arise very early this morning and go over the River to a sale near
Hamilton.  The River was out so we had a terrible time getting there and had to
walk and walk five miles after we got there.  I went over to buy some coral ear
rings the deceased lady had and got there just five minutes after they had been
sold.  Then when we waded and swam back to the Bertie side found that our horse
had broken loose and we had to hike it home.  I know the walk would have killed
me if I hadn’t had the hope that I would find your letter when I got home.  The
boys said I must be mighty hungry to walk so fast but they didn’t understand.  
	We got here about 830 and found all the Windsor girls here, they had come to
give us some pointers on the dancing question.  Of course we couldn’t miss a
chance to get the information so we had a big dance.  I guess it will be the
last before Easter as Mamma says no dancing during Lent.  I don’t see what Lent
was invented for anyway for I need the dancing practice very badly, and I
haven’t got a thing in the world to fast on.
	You asked who was learning, or trying to, besides John and me.  We have got a
big class, Tom Cobb and Florence Spivey and Whit Spivey and Lala Mizell, and
Mary Grant Spivey is coming tomorrow, and Lewis Thompson and about three or four
more.  Billie E. is to learn at the still.  All the Windsor girls are fine
dancers and I sho nuff reversed three separate and distinct times tonight
dancing with Sallie Lyon.  But she and Lewis are going to hook up soon so I’ll
lose the only teacher I can reverse with.  Be sure to get the fellow from
Jefferson to teach you how to make me reverse.  You say you are going to learn
the new dances.  What do you mean the Frat and Bear and Tommy, etc?  If that’s
it I’ll have to go up to New York and learn them too.
	Well I promised to fess up didn’t I?  Tonight after we got done we made some
egg nog and being so tired and sick with a cold and threatened with pneumonia I
wanted to imbibe just a wee little bit.  But I didn’t consume but two glasses
and honestly I wanted the whole bowl full.  You can forgive me for just that
little can’t you?
	I am so glad you sent the picture and if the picture of you was better I would
never return it.  It is rather funny that we four should have gotten in a
picture together.  I guess the camera man arranged it so for sake of contrast
putting me between the woman I like the least and the girl I like the most in
all the world.  He knew I thought so much of you that he put in the little H__
cat to balance Mattie’s side but even then I like you more than I dislike them
both.  Mog said my picture wasn’t good for I looked too fat but I told her she
hadn’t taken into consideration that I had just consumed two thirds of a pot of
Brunswick Stew.
	When you see Evie tell her that I was over in Buffet’s country yesterday and
those people over there are just noodle bad about him.  They say he is just a
model youth and is teaching a Bible Class in Sunday School.  I wish I had have
known Evie was going to Halifax.  I would have written her not to leave there
till you promised to come Easter.  I have […unreadable…] about your not coming
and am almost sorry I am trying to learn to dance.
	Please don’t decide to go to Hot Springs or Greenbrier this summer for we want
to have a good house party.  I am not in favor of going to Morehead for Mrs.
Nowell will be there.  How about the Virginia Beach proposition?  I think we
could get a cottage there for a week if Mrs. Carrington would be good enough to
chaperone us.  We could get a cook and have the best eats in the world under
your supervision.  Then we could dance every night and fish and sail etc. and
[…unreadable…].  Or we might go to Nags Head and get a cottage.  Think it over
and decide about it and I will do everything in my power to carry out the plans.
 It’s not a bit too soon to be making plans for I want to be sure to have it.  I
wish it was all arranged now so I could sit back and be happy knowing that I was
going to see you for a week this summer.
	What about going to Columbia, are you really thinking about it?  I’d hate to
have to give up farming I like it so well but if you are really going I think my
brother will have some extra work on his hands this year.
	I wonder what Mr. Fenner would think about a boy writing too much.  I’ll stop
now though or I’ll have to send this by Parcels Post.
	Write me just as much as you can and as soon as you can.

		With all my thoughts –  
		I remain – 
		Most sincerely yours – 
		Alex
	



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