To Mrs. J.G. Holland
From ED

late May 1877

Dear friend.

I hesitate where you are, but decide to indite my Letter to my Sister in "Alexandria Bay," as the Irishman does to his "Mother in Dublin."

You have been magnanimous - and I requite you with nothing - the Sum that Benefactors love.

The Days are very hot and the Weeds pant like the centre of Summer. They say the Corn likes it. I thought there were others beside the Corn. How deeply I was deluded! Vinnie rocks her Garden and moans that God wont help her -

I suppose he is too busy, getting "angry with the Wicked - every Day."

He loves too homogeneously for Vinnie's special Mind.

Would you believe that our sacred Neighbors, the Mr and Mrs Sweetser, were so enamored of "Nicholas Minturn," that they borrow our Number before it is cold? But Youth, like Indian Summer, comes twice a Year -

Vinnie says I must go - or the Mail will leave me.

The etiquette of the admonition is questionable - though of it's imperativeness there is no doubt.

I must just show you a Bee, that is eating a Lilac at the Window. There - there -he is gone! How glad his family will be to see him!

Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles -
Buccaneers of Buzz.
Ride abroad in ostentation
And subsist on Fuzz.

Fuzz ordained - not Fuzz contingent -
Marrows of the Hill.
Jugs - a Universe's fracture.
Could not jar or spill.