1881?

TO: Louise and Frances Norcross
FROM: ED

My dear little cousins,

I bring you a robin who is eating a remnant oat on the sill of the barn. The horse was not hungry as usual, leaving an ample meal for his dulcet friend. . . .

Maggie was charmed with her donkeys, and has long been talking of writing, but has not quite culminated. They stand on the dining room side-board, by the side of an orange, and a Springfield Republican, It will please you to know that the clover in the bill of the brown one is fresh as at first, notwithstanding the time, though the only "pastures" I know gifted with that duration, are far off as the psalms.

Mr. C----- called with a twilight of you. It reminded me of a supper I took, with the pictures of Dresden china. Vinnie asked him "what he had for supper,' and he said he "could easier describe the nectar of the gods." . . . We read in a tremendous Book about "an enemy," and armed a confidential fort to scatter him away. The time has passed, and years have come, and yet not any "Satan." I think he must be making war upon some other nation.

          Emily.