RK-048

Feb 3 Dear Father The other boys did not write according to agreement It is nearly mail time and the ink frozen - no time to thaw it or I would be in time for the mail - We have got no letters from you since you left Chicago - Yesterday came a letter to you from David Thomas. He wrote mosty of it for "thy son Roberts" benefit so I will answer it probably He argues that animals can reason [reason is triple underlined]. Gives very many anecdotes to show that instinct won't govern all their intelligence. Says his poem "The Wilderness" was written to proove this fact - or at least to argue it. Cora has Erysipelas I am afraid

spots are covering our mothers [illegible] on her thigh as they did on Flints. Doct Moody thinks it is probably Erysipelas. Cora is not much sick but she has to lie down or stand up all the time as it hurts her to sit. We had a good paper of the "School Times last No. Two long stories with entirely original plots. We have organized a new socity "The Grove Literary Society" at present we have only four members - we hold our meetings Saturdays & Sundays at the school house - Our time is ^on [illegible] with [illegible] [illegible] is employed in various Literary occupations Writing for the Times is encouraged. No swearing is allowed - no smoking in dirty pipes. No cracking of hickory nuts is allowed unless he who cracks them finishes the

cora

society with a liberal tithe. We have ^all been to school every day despite the drifts. Mother has had the small boys & girls taken & "tooken" home again" ' with the Sled. Prairie hens eat buds from fruit trees! Last sunday a flock came into the garden in front and began to pick the fruit buds from a dwarf pear. I broke the law while they were in the act In ones crop were a great many buds - they would have soon spoiled the tree. I have heard of this trick before. Please dont forget to ask about Coccus Maclurae (Osage orange Coccus of those who have hedges. How would it do to write an article on the American ivy (Ampelopsis) for the Farmer

It is little cultivated The tax gatherer has not come. Snow two feet deep allow Drifts twenty feet high sometimes. Nursery trees sticking their disconsolate heads up through the snow that burys them in the most comical manner. Son Bob [J. Kennicott Brenton Collections stamped on right side of page}