Viewing page 10 of 54

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Nice,Nov.28,1864.

I kept Thanksgiving-day, as the President recommended. Surely we have had great cause for thankfulness: a country regenerated and a good President elected for the next four years, sure of the support of the majority of the people and of the States - this is cause for thankfulness of itself. And then the individual and family blessings and mercies swell the aggregate.

Emily continues able to walk about and to enjoy herself pretty much as other little girls do, excepting that she is made to lie down and rest occasionally in the course of the day.

I am trying to teach Emily and Johnny the rudiments; but I find it very wearisome. Teachers require to be Jobs of Patience. My little experience of the annoyances of teaching have made me appreciate what teachers undergo. They are apt to be disliked and even hated by their pupils, - until they rest from their labors and their works do follow them. To be a good teacher requires that one shall not only know something, but be able to make others know it, so that a good teacher is doubly wise. 

I am just now trying to make Johnny comprehend the mystery of a sum in simple division: but it tries his little soul wonderfully. However, we must persevere.

I asked you two years ago, how you used to make your wine-sauce, that thick and clear sauce which would enable one to eat paving-stones, it was so good. Please tell me in your next letter; you forgot it before. And also your custard-puddings were exceedingly good; please let us have the recipe. Mary makes very good mince-pie; but yours used to be particularly celebrated, I remember. So you may as well add the recipe of those also; squash-pies, cocoa-nut puddings; pie-crust; apple-dumpling crust, etc. etc. - Speaking of apple-dumplings reminds me of a cheating cook whom we had four winters