Vassar College Digital Library

Woodworth, Mary | to mother, Nov. 1867:

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Date
November 24, 1867
Abstract
VC 1870
Note

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Details
Identifier
vassar:25328,,Box 23,VCL_Letters_Woodworth_Mary_1870_003
Extent
1 item
Type
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: VCLLettersWoodworthMary1870003001
Vassar,
Nov. 24. 1867

My Dear Mother:

I did not get the expected and accustomed letter from you yesterday and was considerably disappointed though not so much so as I would have been under some other circumstances.

Miss Powell invited all the girls who sit at her table to bring all their mending or whatever else there was to do in the sewing line to her room at nine o'clock and sew with her. We accordingly did so and had the most delightful time. We staid till twelve and enjoyed every moment so much. She read a letter from Sibley Severance of three sheets for my especial bene-

 


: VCLLettersWoodworthMary1870003002
-fit but it was of such a kind that all of them must enjoy it. He is a Junior at Harvard and the letter was splendid I assure you. She thinks he is a remarkably fine young man and I should judge so from what she tells me of him. He wants women to be admitted to Harvard and hopes they will be in time. We had two kinds of nice, large apples and then she read us one of Whittier's last short poems The last Autumn Walk, which is very beautiful. I bought a ticket for Wendell Phillips' lecture last night It will be next Wednesday night Tickets 50 cts. I am very glad I can hear him.

Last night Prof. Farrar gave his Algebra class another lecture and if I had not had that pleasure in anticipation for the evening I could not have borne the disappointment of not receiving a letter from you so philosophically

 


: VCLLettersWoodworthMary1870003003
as I did. You would not wonder at my delight if you could once hear him. He is the star of Vassar I think, and best of all he graduated at Dartmouth. When he found out that I was from N.H. he seemed very much pleased and talked with me some time about it, asked me if I had ever heard of Laura Bridgeman etc. I shall have so much to tell you that I will want a machine to talk through. I hope Nell staid with you Friday night as she intended when she wrote me. I thought of you and her so much that evening and really got to wishing myself there more than was for my happiness - then Miss Wilkinson went home that night and she was so delighted with the prospect I told her to enjoy every moment to the utmost for me, and she said when she kissed her mamma good night she would kiss her once

 


: VCLLettersWoodworthMary1870003004
more for me. It was almost too much for me and I was afraid I should not be able to keep from crying but as it was at dinner and I would have made myself conspicuous I choked back the tears and laughed it off. I have seen the eyes filled of a good many girls when I knew so well how they were feeling and pitied them too. There are girls here from about every southern state and every Western I think. You ought to see the loads of boxes that come to the girls - and whole barrels of apples even. They have chicken, pickles, oysters and every sort of thing you can imagine and Miss Lyman lets them have dishes and everything they want to eat with. There is much more latitude in such things than I supposed. Some of the girls like to eat better than anything else I should judge from...