Letter from Hattie to Frank, January 9, 1874

Letter from Hattie to Frank, January 9, 1874

Porcelain; Pottery; Students

In this letter to her brother Francis, Harriet talks about her busy day and how she and Mattie are still up writing letters so that they can be sent out soon. She tells him about her Christmas present, "a beautiful card basket made of earthenware" that was a gift from her school. Henry laughs at her for loving these little porcelain dogs and so she went out and bought four and placed them around the house for him to find.

Noyes, Harriet Newell

The College of Wooster, Special Collections, Noyes Collection, Box #1

Unpublished

1874-01-09

Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Special Collections Grant

PDF

eng (English)

Text

noyes_c_cor_111

Canton China
Jany 9th 1874.
My dear Frank,
Henry has some
time since said good-night
and Lucy too has taken
her way to the land of Nod
but Mattie and I are
still busy "making up the
mail". The steamer was
late coming in this time so
we only got our mail last Eve
and had only to-day for writing
and the time was filled
up until after 5-o-clock this
afternoon with meeting +
chinese visitors +c +c so I
have since then been
writing at railroad speed
and now I will send the

results on to you. I am
afraid I have not much
that is worth writing, Mattie
is counting up the number
of pages that we will send
out of our shop tomorrow
and makes it I believe
over 220. Dont you
think we are rather
Extravagant in paper
and postage. I expect
"the girls" will not keep
up letter writing at this
rate for a very long
time. I wonder if any
one has told you about
my Christmas present.
When I was away at
my school "my family"
took advantage of my
absence to go and buy for

me a beautiful card basket
made of tortoise shell and
an "owl". It is not a "live" one
but made of Earthenware
but looks very natural. I quite
frightened some of the
little Chinese girls with
it they thought it was
going to fly at them.
The Eve before we had a
little fun with Henry.
He is always laughing
at my fancy for buying
little porcelain dogs so
that day we sent for [u]four[/u]
little dogs with the idea
of having a little fun
We put the presents on
the tea-table and when
Henry saw his plate quite
surrounded he thought he
was going to get a lot of presents.

He first opened a paper
parcel and found in that
a little dog. Then he
turned to a nice large
box and on raising the
lid found two more little
dogs and the third box
contained the fourth. He
took them all out and
stood them around his
plate and it looked so funny
that we all had a good
laugh. "Speaking of dogs"
makes me think that Rover
must be very sure footed
to run around on the
roof and drive the turkeys
off. Well now I must say
good bye to dogs and
turkeys and bring this
[u]interesting[/u] letter to a close
Ever your aff sister
Hattie.



广州中国
1874 年 1 月 9 日。
我亲爱的弗兰克，
亨利已经说了晚安，
露西也去了诺德的土地，
但玛蒂和我仍在忙着“补邮”。
这次轮船迟到了，
所以我们上个前夜才收到邮件，
今天才有时间写信，
直到今天下午 5 点以后，
会议和中国游客等时间都被填满了，
所以从那时起我就有了一直在以铁路速度写作，
现在我将结果发送给您。
恐怕我没有太多值得写的东西，
Mattie 正在数我们明天从我们的商店发出的页数，
我相信它超过了 220。
你不觉得我们在纸张和邮资方面相当奢侈吗？
我预计“女孩们”不会在很长一段时间内保持这种速度写信。
我想知道是否有人告诉过你我的圣诞礼物。
当我不在学校时，
“我的家人”趁我不在的时候，
为我买了一个用龟甲和一只“猫头鹰”制成的漂亮的卡片篮。
它不是“活”的，
而是用陶器制成的，
但看起来很自然。
我用它吓坏了一些中国小女孩，
他们认为它会飞向他们。
前夜，
我们和亨利玩得很开心。
他总是嘲笑我喜欢买小瓷狗，
所以那天我们送了四只小狗，
想找点乐子。
我们把礼物放在茶几上，
当亨利看到他的盘子被围得满满当当时，
他以为他是会得到很多礼物。
他先是打开一个纸包，
发现里面是一只小狗。
然后他转向一个漂亮的大盒子，
打开盖子发现还有两只小狗，
第三个盒子里装着第四个。
他把它们都拿出来放在他的盘子周围，
看起来很有趣，
我们都笑得很开心。
“说到狗”让我觉得罗孚一定很稳，
才能在屋顶上跑来跑去把火鸡赶走。
好吧，
现在我必须向狗和火鸡说再见，
并结束这封有趣的信。
你的妹妹，
海蒂。

Letter