South Hadley, Nov. 22.Friend Charles.
Perhaps by this time you are looking for a letter from me, and as I am at leisure tonight I will write you. I am enjoying myself very much,now that I have got acquainted. I board at Mr. Brown's. The family consists of Mr. & Mrs. Brown, two daughters, one seventeen, and the other two, and Mr. Willard Moody, a young man who works for Mr. Brown.
I like my boarding place very much; it is only a few steps from the young ladies' Seminary. I have 25 scholars, and they are very good scholars, most of them striving to please me in every way, which makes it very pleasant for me. I have not been homesick but once, and that was the day after I came here. Oh! how I wished I had never come here; but I do not feel so now. It is a very pleasant place; you ought to come here and see the place. I do not know how long I shall stay. And now, how do you and the rest of the hill people do? I have not heard a word from home since I came here, although I have written them. Has the teacher boarded with you yet? How does she & Baxter get along? Did you have a good time that night you stayed at John's?
I want you should write me all the news, about what transpires on the hill, for everything, you know, is news to me. You remember, don't you, that you said if I would come home, you would meet me at the depot in Greenfield. Will you do it? I want to come home Thanksgiving, and I don't want one of my folks to know it. Now be sure and not tell them as anyone else. I want to go home Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving). It will be Dec. 6. I shall be at Greenfield Wednesday, Dec. 6th at 4 o'clock if nothing happens to prevent. Perhaps you will have business there, so I can ride home with you. Now don't tell a person that I am going home, for you are the only one that knows it there. Please write me whether you will meet me or not, immediately. I have written my address on an envelope for you to send back, so there will be no mistake, as I had one letter go to the Seminary. Now do not forget the time, Dec. 6th. Write me a long letter, all the news, as soon as you get this. Write, Write.
Good bye till I see you.
Yours respectfully, Mary.
Mrs. Brown sends her love to you. Now I am gone, who do you have to tickle with straw & rags. Does any one pinch you now?
Your friend Mary Liz.
[I didn't make notes at the time [2009] about how I decided that the author was Mary Elizabeth Childs. But now [2017] I have a second letter from the same person to the same person, and I had to reexamine the clues. I believe I figured that it was Childs because she was the only Mary Elizabeth that I could find on the faculty at Mount Holyoke in 1865.]