LETTER OF JAMES NEWTON STARR Letter to his sister Marth Starr, 9 February 1860 Transcribed and submitted by Nora Tocus, (c) 2000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Elizabethtown, Kansas, February 9, 1860. Well, Mattie, I now seat myself to answer your letter. You have time now that Mary is married and nothing to do all day but read and write. We are all well and prospering amazingly. It would surprise you to pass through our principal apartments and witness the many signs of prosperity and improvement. Douglas [Douglas Newton STARR b 1859] is the greatest object of interest in this line. He is growing purely democratic. His very cry has a Democratic air to it and I can almost imagine that I hear him say down with those treacherous Republicans. He laughs and cries much more graceful than he did a few days since for quite lately I put rockers to our borrowed chair and this seems to add grace to his actions and music to his squalls. Ann has been washing part of last and this week so you may imagine that we look rather clean just now. When you come to see us walk round to the east door, otherwise you may step in the school room and then there might be a laugh. You will see old "Pede" sitting right square in the east door. Just knock him to one side and step in without knocking and there you will find Ann and she will tell you where to take a seat. The lounge---some improvised benches, our rocking chair, and a small pine box, you will find all easy seats. That is, if you are tired. Then, look all round and you will see a blanket hung over one window, the opther half covered with a big calico rag. Two of the upper glass broken and my overcoat in one and a quilted something else---Ann can tell you what it is---in the other. Stay all night and you will see how we fix our candle stand. For this we take the old stone churn, set it on the lounge, lay the Almanac across the top and then when we are seated near by Ann with her work and I with a book which I read to her until I read her asleep. Then we prepare for going to bed which is about---generally---9 o'clock. You will have to sleep on the lounge for we have but one bed and that on the most one horse plan just high enough off the floor for a cat to run under but then not without danger of knocking out its brains. But then we have got no cat so we suffer no uneasiness on that point. The first thing that you will hear in the morning is Douglas scolding about having to lie so late in bed. He awakes about 3 or 4 o'clock and gives us no more rest nor sleep until we get up. When once awake, you will hear the old rooster crowing lustily around and sometimes a gang of wolves trying their voices, tuning them and yelping harmoniously as though holding a musical concert. The little whelps are not very particular as to how near they come for once or twice have heard them at the door. Last night "Old Pede" chased off something from above the door which I thought must be a wolf and so I took my pistol and the ax and pursued with haste and I came upon them about a hundred yards distant from the house. But he was Old Sow this time and not Wolf. So I came back as I went only not so fast. Our getting up time of a morning is daylight. You very generally se me nursing from the time I make a fire until about breakfast time when I make a fire in the school room and sometimes feed Gijo before breakfast, but more generally after, while breakfast is eating. The scholars are pouring in to the number of from 10 to fifteen without my having to go after them. Then goes school until 4 o'clock. My little clock generally tells me the time---that is if the weather is not so cold that I cannot see. These things you will see when you come to Kansas and as the Queen of Sheeba said to King Solomon you will say then that the half has not been told you. I attended a lawsuit at Tola [Iola?] last Saturday week and made nothing but my dinner and that I paid 25 cents for. We did not get through but adjourned until Thursday following. Then it was so cold I could not go and so lost my case as I worked by the insurance. But I think that I will make it all right in the circuit court... Feb. 10th---as cold as getout this morning. Sometimes my school room stove draws upward and sometimes downward. This is just as it happens. Sometimes it [warms] the scholars and sometimes smokes them. All chance work, this Kansas business. The mail bags will come trotting by this evening. Then, the Herald will come...chock full of democracy and windy advertisements. But chance may have something to do with this---it may not come...I wonder if you are going to school yet. I tell you that if you do not qualify yourself for teaching you ought to have to work severely. Study that Geography, Arithmetic, Grammar, History, and Philosophy and quit tearing out the leaves as you go. Leave it so you can review it. Here is the stopping place...Truly, Jas. N. Starr "