Bertie County NcArchives History - Letters .....Urquhart, Richard - Kate Fenner Jan-Apr1914 1913 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Mollie Urquhart murquhar@bellsouth.net January 9, 2010, 4:27 pm Letters between Richard Alexander Urquhart (1889-1947) and Kate Nelson Fenner (1890-1956) [December 22, 1913] [Woodville] My dear Kate – It’s ten o’clock and I have got to get up ‘fo morning to go to Norfolk but I am bound to write a few lines to show my ‘preciation of that best letter that has ever been. I went to the Barbecue today but only staid an hour and a half and only took one bottle of beer. You allowed me that, didn’t you? I played poker for about an hour but I didn’t want to do that – I’ll tell you why I played. I have been playing in that big game for about six months and have been lucky every time and have beat them for about four hundred dollars and I didn’t want to refuse to play with them today because I knew they would think I was a quitter and was stopping because I was ahead of the game. However, I told them when I started that this was my last game and they had better work on me for all they could and even then I whipped them again today. But now I am done cause you‘re going to sing and and I’d rather hear you sing than win a thousand dollar pot. I don’t mean that I won’t play a little ten cent limit game some time for amusement for there’s no harm in that but I’ll promise you I am done with the sky limit stuff and everything else bigger than a quarter. The contractor is here at work on my building so I am going to be too busy now to get into mischief even if I wanted to. I am going to try to get through in Norfolk in time to come out on the late train tomorrow afternoon but I know with your letter in my pocket and my watch picture I could pass a saloon all lighted up with electricity in case I had to stay tomorrow night. I am going to be good whether I spend the night or not and that’s a promise. I am crazy about the Panacea trip and will write you about it as soon as Mog makes her plans definitely. One thing certain, we are going. I am doing some scientific work on my getting out proposition and if that won’t do I guess I’ll just have to walk out. I’ve got to get one cause I had rather be shot and cussed and everything else than have you stop writing to me. I hope I will be out by my next letter. I won’t write more tonight. Please write me a long letter as soon as you can. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [near Christmas, 1913] [Halifax] My dear Alex: – If you hadn’t been so nice and sent me the lovely and much needed mirror I wouldn’t write to you to bless you. I started once to get mad with you for not writing but finally decided I didn’t want to hear from you any more than you wanted to write, so when the letter did finally come it found me in right good spirits. Alex, the mirror is lovely and honestly, it was just what I needed. I have often wondered why my friends didn’t give me silver for my bureau instead of so much jewelry and you are the first to “hit the nail on the head.” The pictures have finally come and I sent yours last night. Hope you weren’t disappointed when you opened it thinking it was a Xmas present. I think they are right good with the exception of the mouth and that is so big. I made Miss Margaret a little handkerchief and sent it but am afraid the nigger lost it on the way to the Post Office. I wanted Miss Margaret to come up if just for the dance and I haven’t given her up yet. Evie and Em are coming Friday and I think we are going to have a very nice time. I wish I had invited them to come later and Miss Margaret had invited us to go down there while you all are hunting, for then we wouldn’t have been a bit of trouble to boys and wouldn’t have been accused of going to see “Miss Margaret’s brother.” Hope you’ll enjoy being with my county friend but please don’t think him a representative citizen – unless he has “mended his ways” lately. Please don’t eat up all those turkeys and birds for I am crazy about them. Em wrote us to bring our hunting clothes for they are hunting this winter. I think I shall ask Mrs. Travis to let me carry her gun with me for hunting and the woods just suit my wardrobe. Alex, I’m not going to try to write tonight for I have worked today till I’m nearly dead. I’d wait and try to write a decent letter, but know you wouldn’t get it. I hope Old Santa will be good to you and that you will spend the happiest and best Xmas of your life. I’ll leave it to somebody else who has a little influence, perhaps, to say anything about New Year and its resolutions. With every good wish, I remain Most sincerely yours, Kate. [January 18, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I have wanted to write to you every night since you left but each time I would start Henry Lyon would come and try to talk all night. He is either crazy about me or John was not very entertaining, the latter, I expect. He left today though and I am writing to you on Saturday night and will mail it in Kelford. I am not going to take this trip to Kelford because I think you are so anxious to hear from me but because I am crazy to hear from you and am afraid you will count the days before you write. Please write to me right away for I have been so lonesome I have even considered suicide since you left. I know what I’d do if I hadn’t reformed. I swear I miss you so much I am almost sorry you came but please come again real soon and don’t be in such a hurry to go down to the Mizells. Mog said today she doesn’t feel like you stayed any time with her. I hope you and Little Sister got home all safely and when you weighed you didn’t find the depreciation so great that Mrs. Fenner won’t allow you to come to Woodville again. And by the way, tell Mrs. Fenner that I’ve got a brother and sometimes he keeps a drink in my room and maybe he offered Robert one. Talk about hard luck, old Bowers went to Norfolk the other day and sent me four of the prettiest quarts I ever saw and here I was reformed. Why in the world didn’t he do it a month ago? It struck here during the panic (and I didn’t want it anyway), so I gave Cobb two and Steve one and didn’t keep but one for myself – I wouldn’t have kept that one but I didn’t think it would be showing the proper appreciation for the gift if I hadn’t kept just a little. And Kate while I am here taking this back-to-nature treatment be sure to practice every day for every time somebody offers me a drink I say to myself now if I just knew she wont going to practice today. Honestly though I had rather hear you play a piano than have all the drinks and almost everything else in the world. And you can do it too for anybody that can separate me from cigarettes for a month and then turn right ‘round and reform me can do anything in the world. Please don’t let your DAR and Club duties make you decide to give it up. I hope your entertaining the Club passed off nicely and you didn’t work yourself nearly to death. Did Little Sister go to the Hill? Tell her I say stay right there and talk up for me and consult Mr. Webster on the meaning of forever. Emily left yesterday for St. Mary’s, very much against Evie’s will. Burges took her to Kelford and said Perry joined her and was going to Raleigh with her. Have you and Little Sister heard from your Ahoskie friends yet? I am glad they didn’t happen over when your brother was here. Write me sometime his opinion of Zeke. Evie and Miss Sallie both came over this afternoon but they must not have told anything new on me for the folks haven’t said anything yet. When I walked in I couldn’t help laughing to see that pair for I just knew I’d have to stay home and work for the next week trying to make a little character. John Urquhart [Alex’s horse] had another bad day today. I drove him up town this morning and hitched him on his side of the street in front of the Bank. As soon as I left him one of the boys knocked a nigger down and when he got up he was so scared he ran over John Urquhart and then John ran over me and the nigger too but nobody was hurt much except the nigger. The next time you come I am going to get another horse or another blanket anyway – cause I don’t think it looks very sporty to be driving up and down the road with a young lady and not even have a blanket. Kate please try to understand how much I want a letter and write to me right away. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [January 26, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I was so glad you didn’t count the days on me but I was sure you had when I opened the Woodville mail Thursday and didn’t find your letter. I don’t like your idea of sending my letters to the Lewiston Office for it takes them an hour longer to open the mail there than it does at our Post Office and that’s a whole long time when I am waiting for your letters. I’ll have to change my job to Assistant in the Lewiston Office. If it hadn’t have rained yesterday I wouldn’t be writing to you tonight for I had already planned to start to Halifax in an automobile this morning. Cobb’s girl is in Roanoke Rapids and he was going to take me by Halifax and then go up to see Lila. Of course I wasn’t going to tell you that I came with somebody who was going to see Miss Hancock because I know you would have told me to keep on to Roanoke Rapids. I lost all the religion I had when it began to rain and I tried my best to get Cobb to go anyway but he was afraid of these Bertie roads. I am sorry Gregory has decided to put off the Raleigh trip so long cause I was counting on seeing you for a whole week and then I had already sworn to have my head shaved on the first day of March. I guess I’ll just have to let my old hair alone and get in Frank Winston’s Class. I’m just as happy as I can be at your really learning to play the piano. Every time I have the blues and want a drink I just think that the next time I see you I can listen to you play and then I don’t take the drink. I have honestly almost reformed. I went to Sunday School this morning and refused two drinks this afternoon. I haven’t started on the home-made cigarettes yet as I can’t get any good papers here but am going to start real soon. If John Urquhart would die I believe I could stop “saying bad words.” I told you in my last letter about the boy hitting the nigger and making John run away. The nigger died and when the Coroner examined him his skull was cracked four inches. The Coroner’s jury decided that the lick broke the nigger’s skull and I had to assist in the boy’s get-away but I think Johnny broke his skull. I am afraid to walk from the Office to the House now in the dark for I know I’ll see that dead nigger in the shape of a spook. We bet a fellow up town last night that he wouldn’t go to the nigger’s grave and get a quart of Whiskey off of it and he came back all lit up. I know I never did want a drink that bad. Of course even if I did I wouldn’t take it now that you are becoming a pianist. At last the deerskins have come but the poor little … […page missing here…] … there for the Lee-Jackson Exercises and heard your paper on Jefferson Davis. How in the world did you ever get up nerve to stand up and read that paper without taking about twenty drinks? No wonder you are not afraid of spooks. I got an advertisement of Roulhac Hamilton’s History of North Carolina but don’t think I want any more of Rouhac’s dope for I have got forty notebooks full of his stuff now. Kate please send Mamma some more candy real soon. I didn’t find any card in it saying this is for Alex but I ate my share anyway and I’ll swear I never have seen any candy as good. I wish you had taught Mog how to make it when you were here. I’ll tell you what do, come back and give her some lessons. I’ll stop now. Please excuse this paper. Write to me just as soon as you can. With all my thoughts I remain – Most sincerely yours Alex [January 31, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I was tickled to death when I saw your best letter in the world yesterday for as you predicted I was half afraid to expect it but anyway I opened the mail and was hoping strong enough. I guess you are expecting the deer skins since you got my letter but I decided to wait till Stevenson’s come and trade him. His was a big deer, large enough to get both knees on when you prayed. However, I sent the little one today and maybe it will do with one knee on if you will just “pray the right prayer.” I firmly believe that if you had wanted that dream to come true and had prayed the right prayer next morning it would never have rained Saturday. Please have another dream real soon and get right up next morning and go to praying against rain and snow and bad roads and automobile breakdowns. It was real funny that you should have had the dream but I always did believe in spooks and dreams and things like that. I tried to get Cobb to take the trip Sunday but he says Lila is due in Scotland Neck then. I wish I could have seen you greeting her. How did she happen to be traveling with Mrs. Jackson? “Beverly of Granstark” was played in Windsor on Wednesday night, but being reformed, I had to have an excuse for being absent from the wedding that morning so couldn’t be seen in Windsor that night. You see how hard is the way of the reformer. I believe I’d almost be willing to practice two hours a day if I could go unreformed for the other ten. Margaret and Burges went to the wedding and Burges took part. They say it was the swellest that ever happened in Windsor and the bride looked better than she ever had in her life, neither of which is saying much but I guess it separated John Bell from a bunch of his money to have it said. And speaking of weddings reminds me that I never have given Wayland a present. Please tell me something to give the thing and a good excuse for its coming so late. So Evie is going to have a Valentine Party. I am glad something is going to happen in Woodville and hope I’ll get an invite and they have something to eat. Poor Evie got a letter from Buffet the other day with his picture enclosed and old Zeke got the letter and opened it and burned Buffet up before she ever saw him. As West used to say, that’s a slippery bunch of people down there. It became my painful duty this afternoon to haul Captain Gus home from town. He inquired very kindly about the lady who sweetened his coffee with a look and I immediately inserted his name in my little ledger. We have been having an awful time this week, the cook is taking a vacation. We about decided tonight to stop keeping house till she returned and take our meals at the De la Bob in Lewiston. If you happen to have any left overs, cake or anything else please send them to me by Parcel Post. Kate write me a long letter real soon and don’t say you like the deer skin if you don’t cause then your prayers won’t be answered. I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [February 4, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I have just found out that Sunday is my Jonah day. All that good cake and a long talk with you waiting for me in Halifax and I stuck in the mud. Cobb got a letter from Lila Saturday afternoon saying she was going to stay in Roanoke Rapids to see Granstark that night and would be there Sunday. He called me up at once and we tried all over the county to get a machine and couldn’t find one. But Saturday night a fellow from Aulander brought a 1909 model Ford to the shop to be repaired. Tommie and I worked on it all day Sunday till three o’clock and finally got two cylinders to firing and set out for Roanoke Rapids via Halifax. The old thing did fine till we got to Rich Square and we were congratulating ourselves but when we got about a mile out of town the roads got muddy and the Ford got weaker and weaker till finally we got stuck. We got us a crowd of countrymen to help pull us out but they were a bunch of Quakers just from Church and Tommie slipped up and cussed just once and they all deserted us so there we stayed till night and cranked and pulled and sang hymns. I never was so mad in all my life and if I could just have got a stick of dynamite the Gentleman from Aulander would have surely been minus an automobile. I know you would have been mad though if we had driven up in front of your house in that thing and I had already given Cobb instructions to drop me about a mile out of town. What would you have done if we had blown in on one cylinder while your Weldon friends were there? I told Cobb I knew Lila wouldn’t recognize him. I hope Lila won’t come to Lewiston this week for Cobb and I have planned to go to Norfolk Saturday to see “Broadway Jones” and I know he won’t go if she is here. I think I am well enough reformed to spend one night in Norfolk and next day is Sunday too and everything will be closed. Besides I have got to go to Norfolk to get some rice cigarette papers. From what the papers say “Broadway Jones” ought to be good. I would certainly love to hear Melba and Kubelit work together. As soon as you master the piano why then it will be an easy task to learn to be a violinist and regain the voice that the diphtheria tried to rob you of. Mog is over at Whiteheads and I certainly do miss her playing after supper nights. Evie invited me to come down and hear her sing some night and she would give me some candy. Guess I’d better go if I want an invite to the Valentine Party. I certainly do wish you and Little Sister would come over to the party. I don’t see where it would be giving Bertie any rush at all and am sure Bertie would be proud of a visit from Mr. Fenner’s daughters of Halifax every week in the year. If you’ll just come I’ll do any thing in the world you say, don’t care what it is. Please come if you won’t stay but just a night for the party. Honestly I don’t see how Evie is going to have a party without you there to tell her what to do. You see you are really and truly needed to make the party a success and it will be another good mark on the books up yonder for you if you’ll come. You and Little sister talk it over and see if you don’t think it is your Christian duty to come. Please write me a long letter real soon. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [February 16, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – Talk about happy folks but nobody has ever been as happy as I was when I got home Friday night and found your letter. I am mighty sorry it couldn’t have gotten here before I unreformed but any [way] I was so glad to get it that I haven’t suffered so much from remorse (and I have really acquired the habit of having remorse). I got a telegram from Bowers Tuesday to meet him at his camp at Hill’s Ferry Wednesday and hunt a few days with him and nothing could have appealed to me more just at that time so I went down and the unreformation was complete. However as soon as I got your letter I went uptown and persuaded two other remorseful souls to get back on the wagon with me as soon as all the snow melted. I went up again yesterday afternoon and they had made a snow-man about twelve feet in circumference but I told them I meant sho nuff snow so guess I am on again now. I won’t attempt to tell you how the thought that I would not hear from you anymore made me feel. But I can say this much, that although I have always felt that your letters were something too good for me still I didn’t know how much they did really mean to me till I thought I had lost them forever. You say I wrote as if I didn’t much care if I didn’t hear and was going to Norfolk to see her when she was in Washington. I’ll tell you how I figured it out. I knew that your brother had just been home and thought probably that knowing Paul Capelle and Jim Hines and a few other friends of mine, he had heard them tell some things about my career at Chapel Hill and felt it his duty to tell you, and you thinking that maybe a Lewiston automobile might run some day and I would really get to see you decided you had better put a stop to it all first. Of course it may seem foolish now but that’s what I thought when I got your letter. I am a little surprised that Lila should have said what she did because I have always been unusually nice to her because I thought she was a good-hearted, good natured kind of a creature, and I don’t blame her now as much as I do some of these gossipers for I know hers was actuated by lack of sense and a desire to have something to tell and not by meanness. I had more fun the other day than I have had in a long time; Mrs. Austin, John Hill Spivey’s mother, has been one of the main talebearers in this proposition and last Saturday afternoon her husband got drunk and ran her in a wardrobe and shot sixteen bullets through it. My only regret was that she managed to dodge them all. I did say I was going to try to get rid of the Margaret Clark affair and honestly I am trying to do it but it is not so easy to do all at once. She will stop writing to me pretty soon I am sure. Her only reason for writing to me now is that she thinks maybe she will visit over here sometime and wants me to come to see her when she does to keep this bunch from talking about it. I hope something will happen to prevent her coming. Lila hasn’t come yet but I saw Tommie send her a telegram yesterday, something about “impossible to come” so guess she’ll have to break her word and come to see him first. I haven’t got the cigarette papers yet but think I’ll slip down to Norfolk sometime soon and get them. I got an announcement of friend Mary’s wedding and it reminded me of a promise that if she ever succeeded in fooling a man I’d certainly buy her a present. Now I’m up a tree about what to give her. All of the sick folks have recovered now. They have found out what caused the trouble. Mog and Lou had invented a new wine from Blackberry Juice on the order of grape juice. The stuff had either fermented or not fermented whichever one it ought not to have done and kinder acted like a poison. Of course as I was on the wagon and didn’t drink anything that wasn’t water color I escaped. I know you are tired. Please write me a long letter as soon as you can. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [March 2, 1914] [written on stationery from The Lorraine Hotel in Norfolk] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I haven’t been to Norfolk to get this paper so you needn’t fear an unreformation but this just happens to be the best in the house tonight. I certainly appreciated your good letter written after such a strenuous week and it surely came in a good time for, but for it, all that snow might have had a bad influence. I am never going to pray anymore about the weather for fear there will be a second flood. I am a perfect Jonah on the weather question anyway, went up town this morning and somebody wanted to bet it would snow before night. I of course fell for it with the contents of my pocket and about two thirty this afternoon four flakes came falling down and I was awake to see them. I might have known it cause you said you hoped it would snow some more and I ought to have been in Sunday School anyway. I was selling cotton last August and Cobb Bros. told me that unless it rained in Texas I would make a fortune and the next weather report over the wire showed cloud-bursts all over the State. I am either going to reform on betting or confine my bets to things not affected by the weather. I am glad you had such a pleasant week in spite of the weather. It was a shame that your prizes couldn’t come in time for the party but I know it was fine even without them. Talk about disappointed folks, the Lewiston train failed to bring any Express one of those cold days and there were some sad faces at the station. Burges informed us tonight that he had ordered an automobile, a Buick, and I think he is telling the truth. Mama didn’t like the idea at all and when he said he bought it to take the widow out riding poor Mama’s nose went up to the ceiling. Mat [Mattie] says she is going to buy a Hudson but I think it will be a Ford if anything. What do you think of Henry Ford’s generosity? Think if my income was a hundred a minute I might be willing to share profits with my employees too. Evie went over to Williamston yesterday to be confirmed. She is to be the guest of the Buffets while there and I hope they will arrange for the wedding. I swear I believe it is going to be. Dr. Mitchell has dissolved partnership with Webb. Webb hasn’t decided whether he will stay here or not. I guess he is waiting to see what Emily says. Please advise her against it for I think she will starve if they have to depend on Lowrie’s practice for support. I am going to get the hawberries for you as soon as I can if there are any left. The river is rising in Weldon so it may be some time before I can get them as they only grow on the river. I saw a long necklace over at the House today made out of China tree berries. Of course the “meat part” of the berry was gone and just the kernels used with gold bead between them They claimed that it was very pretty and stylish too but I told them “’twouldn’t look like nothing side of” your hawberry. Tell Little Sister I am going to write to her and in the meantime stay with me. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [March 19, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – You could easily imagine again from the paper that I had been to Norfolk and was unreformed when I bought it but I am not guilty and if you will overlook it this time I’ll surely get some paper. I never heard of people having such a gay time as you are having, parties and dances every night. ‘Twas good of you to take time to write to me if you did write a mighty short note. Don’t forget your promise to write a great long letter next time. When I go to Norfolk, if that happens, I am going to take some lessons in the new dances cause you said you thought I could learn them and if there is one single dance in the world that I can learn, I’m for it. Please don’t stop practicing while you are having so much fun for I am working some kinder hard reforming. Have been rolling cigarettes all day and I hate them, the tobacco gets all in my mouth and eyes and makes me want to say bad words. I saw where some New Bern Druggist had invented a gargle that was a regular Keeley Cure for cigarettes. If I knew it would take away the desire to smoke when it stopped you from smoking I think I’d try it, but wouldn’t it be awful to want to smoke and then every time you tried it would make you sick. The weather and roads have been so bad that I haven’t had a chance to go down on the river to get your hawberries yet but will get them this week if there are any. Burges really ordered the Buick and is expecting it this week but if it comes he can’t use it till the roads get much better. I am being might nice to him now bringing him water and making fires for him and everything else cause I want to use that thing some myself. If he doesn’t let me then I’ll just have to get lucky and buy me one. I’ll buy that Oakland and get you to teach me how to run it. Mama prays very vigilantly for Burges’ to be lost in transit for now she says both her sons will be loafers. Did you see the Proper Number of Life? Some pretty good things in it but I don’t think it was as good as the Improper Number. However that seems to be the case always. Have you been reading Booth Tarkington’s short stories in the Cosmopolitan? I think he is the best writer of the present day. I was talking to a fellow the other day who had been up in Alaska and he said all of the pictures of life in Alaska drawn by Rex Beach were absolutely false. I had been thinking Rex Beach was fine. I made a resolution to read some Bible during Lent but it has been so cold nights I’d have to crawl under the cover. We had some excitement in Lewiston the other night. Bob’s Hotel, the big old wooden building caught afire and came pretty near burning down. One of the school teachers left an oil stove burning in her room and it blazed up and set the bed on fire. I got there just a little too late to do any hero stunts but like to got unreformed in the aftermath celebrations. I don’t know what we would do for music and skating and dancing if it wasn’t for our Hotel. I had a talk with Lila yesterday. I thought Evie came nearer having the right opinion of you than anybody else except me but you ought to hear Lila. She thought you were the finest girl she had ever seen in all her life and a thousand other most complimentary adjectives. I agreed with her in it all and then she wound up by saying “But Kate don’t like me,” and I came pretty near agreeing again but I told her you thought she was fine. You’ll excuse me, won’t you? If you ever join the Suffragettes and run for an Office just get Lila to stump for you. Kate remember now you promised me a long letter. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [March 30, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – So sending the candy was not only a pleasure to me but a benefit too. I am so glad you didn’t cuss me out as much as I deserved cause honestly I felt bad enough about it to pay for all the joy I could have gotten out of a gallon. It does look like my pledges are very easily forgotten doesn’t it? But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, if you will send me that fat picture for my watch and a pledge card not to touch a drop (‘scusing beer) for three whole long months I’ll be tickled to death to sign the pledge. Sho nuff Kate please give me the picture. I’ll swear it will help me out a lot and I want it. Burges went to Suffolk yesterday and got his car. He has been running it all day and is away somewhere with it now. There wasn’t but six at Sunday School this morning and he took four of them away – only left me and John Hill. All the family is crazy about it except Mamma. Charles Jr. hasn’t said a word but “Bull” since it came. I don’t think it is such a pretty one but it rides mighty easy. You had better cook a chocolate cake and look out if I can learn to run it. Lalla Mizell told me yesterday that Mattie had bought a “King.” I don’t know anything about them but have seen the advertisement in the News and Observer. I never could think it was a good car now. Mog came home Wednesday. She looks very fat indeed, I think she gained a pound and a half. I have been working her overtime at the piano but haven’t got any new music. There is a girl living in Lewiston now, a Miss Brett, who claims to know all the new dances. Cobb and I are going to try to get her to teach us. I am afraid she has just got an idea that she knows them for she comes from Windsor and I never knew anything good to come out of Windsor. You said I ignored your proposition to become an Attorney at Law. Well at the time you wrote about it you also mentioned the fact that you might stop writing to me so I forgot about everything else but that. I would some kinder like to go up there and take a course if you were going to be there. Leigh Williams from Norfolk was advising me to take Law the other day but I am trying to make a deal here now and if I do I’ll go in business here. I’ll be some business proposition when you see me again. Mamma and all the bunch advise against it but Mog says I’m bound to win so I think I will really try to start something. I think I’ll go to the Hill for Commencement if they have a Junior Order Reunion. If you decide to go to the Summer School, when will you go and how long will you be there? John Bell was here the other night talking about a trip to Nags Head this Summer. He says it’s fine now, nice Hotel and Ball Room and good eats for $800 a week. Let’s get up a party and get John’s wife to chaperone us. I think it would be fine if you and Little Sister would go. Talk it over with her and see what you think about it. Kate please send me my fat picture and don’t have to wait till you go to a City to have it made cause I need it right now. Write to me just as soon as you can. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [April 19, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I wanted to answer your best letter in the world as soon as it came but thought I would wait and see if my picture wouldn’t come Friday or today. I think it was real mean in you to spend all your time in Rocky Mount talking style when you knew how much I wanted that picture. You remember in Richmond we almost got late to the game. Please don’t let anything happen in Weldon. I am mighty glad your father is better. I knew he [would] be all right when you got there. It’s good you left Mount Olive before the fever got you. What is it about Halifax that makes it so healthy for you? A man came through here the other day selling acetylene lights and we decided to turn our deep well money into lights but I hope we can get the well too. The town of Lewiston is figuring on putting in Electric lights and I’d rather have them but don’t think we could ever get them down this far. I always did hate lamps. I walked in the office tonight and was feeling around for a match to light the lamp with and knocked down a looking glass and broke it. They say that means seven years of hard luck but I am going to a “trick doctor” and have it changed. By the way, how are the warts? I talked to a nigger the other day and he said he would guarantee to take them off. I don’t believe there is any need to send the pledge card if you will only send the picture. Tommie and I are getting along so nicely that he says we ought to get drunk to celebrate our display of will power. I am on for three months from April first if it snows or I go to Norfolk or anywhere else. I don’t like the lady’s idea about your going to Chapel Hill and meeting all those boys and having all those dates made. I some kinder hope you will decide not to go. I got a letter from Jim Cheshire yesterday informing me that he had unreformed again and this time for keeps and begging me to go to commencement with him. You say you are scared to go to one of those dances up there – I am scared to go up there at all. But maybe by then I would be so reformed I could refuse to even take one with Cheshire. Evie comes home Monday and I am going to get all the dope on the Buffet question and write you. Old Zeke and Mr. Bethea had a long conversation the other day and Zeke gave him an ear of corn to plant so they must be getting chummy. I was glad to hear where Dr. Webb was for nobody here knew. Made Gregory break up his game with Emily. Cobb couldn’t go to Kelford the morning I took Buffet up so I had to drive John Urquhart but I am going to try to get him to take me up in the morning to mail this letter. I have been so busy working in Mamma’s flower garden that I haven’t learned to run the automobile yet but am going to take some lessons tomorrow. Nice way to spend Easter, ain’t it. Of course I am going out and hear the “Choir” sing some Easter carols first. Give Little Sister my Easter Greetings and tell her I tried to get an Easter card to send her but couldn’t find one in town. Don’t forget my picture. Please write to me as soon as you can. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [April 20, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – That Richmond Photographer is fine. I am so glad he didn’t wait to write you he could make the picture but just went ahead and made it. You must have told him it was for me and then he knew in some small degree how much I wanted it. I am tickled to death that you got him to make it for I have always been crazy about my big Richmond picture. I put it in my watch and have been so good that I haven’t even said “doggone” since. I’ll promise never to carry it anywhere I couldn’t tell you about and I’ll wear my watch all the time if you will promise not to let one of the other pictures find its way into some other guy’s watch. I wish he had only sent you one for I’m scared. Evie and the Widow and the little __cat [hellcat] blew in Saturday morning. You ought to see Evie in the new Spring Bonnet. I laughed myself nearly to death. I guess the hat is all right but she looks so funny in it. Mr. and Mrs. Bethea came on the same train Saturday. Mrs. Bethea is a pretty nice looking dame and seems to be very sensible except for the fact that she is crazy about the Evie-Curtis match. She was wondering tonight at the table why Evie didn’t call on her yesterday or this afternoon. I expect Mat is keeping Evie hid like they do old Zeke. Evie sang an offertory tonight in Church and if I hadn’t already put in my quarter I think I would have take out twenty cents change. It was something terrible. I don’t [know] whether it was that the piece didn’t suit her voice or that she was nervous in the sight of ma-in-law. I went to Windsor Friday and what I don’t know about Bertie politics isn’t worth knowing. I believe if a Saint got into politics, he would be crooked. I know one Baptist preacher is. The old fellow came to me the other day and thinking I was a Whiskey sympathizer told me confidentially that he wouldn’t hurt the Whiskey shipments much but when I told him I had reformed he changed is line of dope in a hurry. I was surprised that you didn’t have Roanoke Shad in Halifax. You people must be too lazy to catch for I almost know they go up that far. They catch Rock in Weldon and it looks like Shad would go as far. If you and Little Sister will come over we will give you a fish fry with fish right out of your own river and guarantee that they are not carp. You promised once that you would come over and we were going down to Capehart’s Fishery on the Sound. I wish we had known your preacher had the agency for lights. We would have been glad to help the cause and maybe the commission he would have gotten on them would have saved you the trouble of getting up something to make money for the Church. You say your lights are the Epworth put out by the League – I guess I didn’t know they were up to that too. The Methodists have been having a conference here since Friday but I haven’t had a chance to hear the new presiding Elder as old Buffet is here. If the new Elder is as good as Bumpess he’s all right for I have never heard a better preacher than he is. Where have they put him now? He was too smart for this bunch in Lewiston. Kate you can ease up a little on praying for me now for with my prettiest picture with me all the time I can’t be anything but good. Please write me a long letter real soon. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex [April 27, 1914] [Woodville] My dear Kate – I wrote to you last night intending to mail it in Kelford this morning but it rained and I couldn’t go so I’m going to start all over. So they have been teasing you about giving me the picture. One thing certain you never did a better deed in your life and I have already derived enough pleasure and benefit from it to make me a thousand times happier and, I hope, a little better. As for the picture’s having company in my watch, there wasn’t any picture in it and if there had been it would surely have had to come out for even if I hadn’t thought more of your picture than any other one in the world it would have been so much prettier than any other I would have had to wear it in my watch. If it hadn’t been for my picture I don’t know what I would have done for you have certainly been writing me some short letters lately. In the last three you have promised a long one next time so I’m expecting a great long one this time. I am crazy about the “Fishery Party.” Capehart’s Fishery is about twenty five miles from here or about ten the other side of Windsor but the roads are fine all the way. The law allows them to fish until the 10th of May. Make Fletcher bring you and Little Sister over here one day and the next day we will get a crowd and go down and eat dinner at the Fishery. They have got some good old cooks there and shad are fine when they are put in the pan kicking. Tell Fletcher Emily will be here soon and if she is not the widow will be. She is to come back in her car this week and he can drive it that day if he likes. I have been fishing every day for the last week and we have caught lots of shad and herrings and a few Rock. We were on the River Thursday and had a fine bunch of shad and a gasoline boat came along. I asked the man if he was going as far as Halifax but he wasn’t. I was going to take a chance on his carrying some shad to you if he had said yes. If he had been a scientific liar he would have had shad for supper. Kate, if you and Little Sister and Fletcher will come we can have a nice party. Burges will take his car and the widow hers and Sallie Thompson will take Mog in hers. Please come Kate and if Fletcher won’t bring you come on the train. Mog and Burges and I have been planning to go down all the Spring but we just refuse to go unless you and Little [Sister] will come and go with us. Burges’ car has gotten limbered up now and runs fine. I have been trying my best to get him to volunteer for the Mexican War so I could have the car all the time but he thinks the bald head would be too good a target. I tried to bluff Mamma out of a little bribe money by threatening to go to the War but she merely replied that I ought to make a good soldier – I’d be too lazy to run. Mamma has been very much grieved over the death of Dr. Richard Urquhart in Baltimore. I didn’t know him very well but he was just like a member of the family as he was raised right here in the house and my father sent him to college. Our lights came yesterday and the man is going to install them this week. I hope they will be as good as the Methodist lights. Kate please keep your promise about the long letter and don’t wait long. With all my thoughts – I remain – Most sincerely yours – Alex File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/bertie/history/letters/urquhart229gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 42.6 Kb