[Paragraph marks added for ease of reading]Templeton, Mass.,
Jan. 25, 1903Dear Lucy:-
Do you get time to read my letters or do you save them until Sundays? If you do please tell me. We had a match in Latin vocabularies last Tuesday and Miss Bryant and Hadley were captains He beat. Then we sat down when we missed. Hadley, Johnson, Underwood, Martin, Miss Brewer & Miss Meriam went down on the first word. Jennie Wyman and I stood the longest and both went down on the same word. Martin has been sitting back of me for the last week. He talks at me & puts his feet under my desk. He has gone down front again now.
We were all late Wednesday morning. We started from here a little before nine. That day the fifth period I was trying to study history and Martin was too. He kept whispering - hadn't read any over yet, got one page read - about that time the five-minute bell rang and he begun again - got two pages read over - when the last bell rang - got nine pages more to read over. I hadn't read my own over and of course he pleased me.
I went down to Cousin Minnie's yesterday. It was Russel's birthday & I carried them each an orange and some popcorn. When Russel took the orange out of the bag he looked at it and then at [sic] said "Ball? Ball?"
Helen and I went down to Bessie last Thursday night. We were going to slide but when we got down there we found that the traverse was up at Rob Bourn's. Pleasing prospect! Well, we broke a barrel to pieces and tied a stave on each foot and tried to walk up the hill inside the fence. It was crust and awfully slippery & we could hardly go. When we got to the top we took them off and threw them down the hill & walked down in the road. You mustn't ever tell about our going down to Bessie's.
If you remember anything about my first Algebra lesson please write for it is due Feb. 4.
With love,
Mary.