December 18,1864.
Merry Christmas to all.
Our new school-house is now being hurried forward pretty fast, and we hope to get in by the first of the year. How happy we shall be, nobody can tell who has not taught in a school where he or she had to make herself heard over three other classes reciting in concert, and to discover talkers and idlers among fifty scholars while one hundred and fifty more are shouting lessons, and three other teachers bawling admonitions, instructions, and reproofs. Generally two or more of the babies are squalling from disinclination to remain five hours foodless on very small and tippy laps — their nurses being on benches too high for them and rather careless of infant comfort in their zeal for knowledge. . . . Oh, dear, I am away off! To think of being able to hear directly all these good and stirring things! Phillips Brooks is a fine war-horse, is n’t he? He does n’t seem to be getting spoiled.
I went to-day to see Maum Katie, an old African woman, who remembers worshipping her own gods in Africa, but who has been nearly a century in this country. She is very bright and talkative, and is a great “spiritual mother,” a fortune-teller, or rather prophetess, and a woman of tremendous influence over her spiritual children. I am going to cultivate her acquaintance. I have been sending her medicine for a year nearly, and she “hangs upon top me,” refusing all medicine but mine. I never saw her till to-day, and she lives not a stone’s throw off, so you may guess how hurried I am.
