RK-121

[circle] New Albion Dec 16^th 1855 -

My dear naughty neglectful cousin Doody

You said to me once, "if I fail to answer your letters, just jog my memory," Well that is just what I am not given to doing - generally - because when any one neglects to answer a letter of mine, I think the omission is due to indifference, and so I intrench myself behind my pride, of which I have a great amount - (too great for my happiness I find sometimes -) But with you when I have a cousin's title to lay aside formality. I intend to appeal to TITLE(?) your conscience as well as memory. I dont expect a very large share in your consideration which is directed with hunting, horses, dogs, insects, reptiles &c ^{as usual I suppose,} (whose merit lies in being ugly and peculiar,) as well as other correspondents in whom you are of course more interested than in Cousin Annie - just as she has friends who occupy a warmer corner of her heart than Cousin Bob, but by whom she does'nt like to be forgotten neverthe-less.

What are you doing this winter? Attending school, I suppose. I am teaching a small private schoool about a mile from home. I am very pleasantly situated. I board in a very pleasant family, and go home as often as I want to see my mother, which is about three times a week usually. I teach Grammar, with Meteorol^ogy, Geography, Chemistry, Physiology & French.

I am always happier when I am pleasantly and earnestly employed, and teaching, under circumstances at all favorable is the most congenial employment open to me at present. When my health is good as idle[in pencil] well life or one varied only by what is really irksome to me where obliged to perform - household tasks, such a life is really little short of purgatory.

Just now I took up a paper and saw there is an announcement that my old friend and schoolmate Alson Leavenworth, son of the old Dr Leavenworth whom your father will remember, has just been admitted to the bar. I could hardly repress an unlady like whistle of astonishment. It is truly marvellous how soon a verdant youth is by the micromancy of Coke & Blackstone, converted into a legal gentleman. I apprehend however that he will never astonish the world with his forensic powers. You need not suppose that I am actuated by any feeling of disappointment in this case, for though this learned youth did do me ^the honor [illegible due to stain on page] to say 'if I had auburn hair & blue eyes[page stained] I would suit him exactly', I can candidly assure you that in all my supplications to the goddess of beauty I never asked for these adornments, much as I admire them for others.

Today's mail brought me a good letter from one of my old teachers, Mr Love, who is at present teaching in Buffalo. It was a cheering, fatherly sort of a letter and set my dull school room all aglow with sunshine. He is a good friend of mine, and as excellent a man as the Lord ever sent into this out-of-joint world to make amends for the excess of bad ones.

I am scribbling in the midst of a noisy group of children who have concluded to spend recess with me instead of riding down hill as usual. Little Charlie, one of my brightest boys, wonders who I am writting such a long copy for. If I answered him truly I should say it was for an ungrateful young kinsman of mine

who had neglicated me beyond all pardon and to whom I want to write so moving a letter as [illegible] to make him implore me to stop lest he die of a stricken conscience and a broken heart.

I feel sure that like Agustine St Clare you must constantly suffer from "Chronic remorse." I wonder how you sleep o- nights. Your dreams ^sleep should be haunted by visions of heart-broken girls, looking in vain for epistles from good-for-naught cousins and - oh pshaw - nonsense is'nt my forte - I grow silly.

Brother Lucius is still in Va. Wilbur has gone to Dowagiac to live. But as I presume you hear from him I will let him tell his own story.

How are all the friends? Also keep me advised of the welfare of your own immediate family ie. your pets the snakes beetles, &c &c I collected quite a quantity [page stain] curiosities last summer in the way of beetles, curious [page stain] the utmost horror of a nervous young lady who spent a few months with me.

She has a horror of beetles especially and the sight of one set her to screaming. I left her in charge of a curious one I found in the garden one day, while I ran to the house for a glass vase I kept them in. When I returned she had got a long [illegible]-plant leaf with which at arm's length she was endeavororing to detain the poor thing which was quite as much frightened as herself. I left her to play the [melodion?] when I went curiosity=hunting next.

But, it is time to ring the bell and Rev. John who is P. M. says the mail will be made in fifteen minutes precisely.

If you dont write me directly _______

Yours in haste Annie Kennicott

Robert Kennicott.