Boston June 22 1846[?]
My dear Jane
We shall begin to think by & by that you care very little about home, or we have not yet received the first letter from you since you left home - we however put the most favorable construction upon it & presume that you are pressing your studies so closely that you can't find the time - we presume also that you are well or you would have informed us the contrary - after waving about we are all comfortably at home - our house looks like a new one since the operation of painting, papering and whitewashing - the dining room particularly has a splendid paper & new marble chimney [face?] - we have a new stair carpet that will almost dazzle your eyes to look at it.
Your Uncle Adam has moved to Newton & taken the house next to Marshall, & intend[s] to let their house in the City - he is very little if any better - and we have many fears that he will not recover the tone of his mind - Evart [?] says tell Jane "I have got into the Latin Reader" - what do you think your mother & I have done to-day - took a carriage and with Mr. Hubbard rode to the Winthrop Church in Charlestown and saw a couple married - & who do you think they were. Deacon Rogers & the widow Doane - the deacon took us all by surprise, as much in the taste he has shown in his selecction as in the unexpectedness of the event - Mrs. R surpasses in beauty all the other deacon wives - and as to the other matrons of our loc'y they can't hold a candle to her - she is a brilliant woman of 31[?] with four children - three sons & a daughter - put the two flocks together & they will outnumber us - they left the afternoon for Springfield - We last heard from Charles at Utica - they were to [...] Sabbath before the last at [...] Falls - Your Uncle Horace & Aunt Mary Steele ever with them - I presume they spent the Sabbath yesterday at Painted [...] & are probably to-day in on their way to Montreal - Prentiss has just come in & says Ellen is not engaged that he knows on - last week your mother & I went to Douglas on the annual frolic, Sarah Hubbard went with us - we had a very pleasant time, as we returned in the cars we went with Sarah Prichard who has come to make a visit to Mrs. Lamberts - Charley Hubbard will probably not go to N. Orleans again & most likely will take the house Marshall now occupies at Newton -
Horace is better, but has not yet got his strength & will not go to school this summer -
Edward Adams is staying with us at present wile our boy John, takes his summer vacation -
Edward has just come in & says Jennett is going to a boarding school - perhaps not South Hadley - Wm [?] has bought him a new gold watch 135 dollars -
Only a few short weeks & we shall see you permanently at home. I anticipate much enjoyment in [...] society, I hope you will have a plan marked out for the employment & improvement of your time - a time for Household affairs, a time for study - a time for reading - select reading not library trash - a time for society - a time for relaxation, a time for doing good - a time for private meditation & reflexion - I would make up my mind if I were you, that I would be useful in the world - that life for you should not be a blank sensing to waste & sickly sentimentality - let your future life be a reality - not imaginatory & illusive - don't look for happiness & enjoyments in the wrong quarter, or expect it apart from the performance of duty cheerfully & habitually -
Your mother & Evart join [in?] love
affectionately,
Charles Scudder