Livy darling, we have had a most pleasant evening here—in a region familiar to Ma when she was a girl, some seventy or eighty years ago. Wherever we strike a Southern audience they laugh themselves all to pieces. They catch a point before you can get it out—& then, if you are not a muggins, you don’t get it out; you leave it unsaid. It is a great delight to talk to such folks.

At the hotel, before the reading, a large man introduced himself to me as “the big Kentuckian whom you have celebrated in the Tramp Abroad, in your chapters about Heidelberg students”—& showed me a huge scar extending from the bridge of his nose clear across his face—a permanent memento of his stirring Heidelberg adventures. He said my account was correct. I got if it from Consul Smith, you remember. I asked him up to the room and had a sociable good half hour with him.

Scrap of Conversation overheard in the smoking car to-day:

“Well, I’d ben a keepin’ school two 6 or 7 yers, & so I thought I’d lay off a while & do some work. So I farmed it two or three yers, & didn’t no particular pains; & yit I raised one o’ the likeliest crops o’ tobackers in the county. But I’m back keepin’ school agin—seemed like that uz what I uz made fur, you know, & so I kind o’ naturally sidled back into it agin. I’ve got a big school—45 scholars—& most uv ’em comes every day. They ain’t no day that 30 or 35 uv ’em don’t come. What’s the matter uv you?”

“Well I’m a ailin’ a little in a bad tooth I’ve got—aches right smart, sometimes.”

“Ought to have it out. I had one—’bout three year yer ago; I jes’ dismiss’ school, & says I they ain’t no two ways ’bout what I’m agoin’ to do; & with that I jumps on my hoss and humps muself for the doctor; come acrost him on the road, ’fore I got more’n a mile or a mile & a half; & says I “Git right down off’n yo’ hoss & pull this tooth.” And he done it—right there on the road. An’ I hain’t had no trouble sence, with that’n er any other tooth in my head.”

I love you, my darling, & I send New Year’s love to you & mother, & all the children.