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New Albion March 20^th 1856

My dear cousin,

I hope you will be glad to hear that I have
survived the ordeal of a three month's school this awful
unparalled winter. I have come out unscathed, a little
older, somewhat wiser, and on the whole quite satisfied
with my success. You must know that of my twenty pupils
about one fourth were noted "hard cases" having left the
public school just in time to save themselves from expulsion

My friends shook their heads rather dubiously when I
announced my intention of teaching the school, and all
predicted trouble. This of course only made me the more
determined to try - which I did.

I am at present making myself generally useless
to my friends, and visiting a little occasionally. I have but
just relinquished the idea of going to Wisconsin this spring.

The directors of a school at Elk Horn, the county seat of
Walworth Co. engaged Mrs Plumb (an intimate friend of mine)
and her sister, to teach, and as the sister could not go,
I was to take her place. But owing ^to the irregularity of
trains of the railroads the letter containing the final pro-
posals did not reach us until sometime after they wished
me to comence teaching.