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ForⒶemendation the time that has elapsed since I came here, I’ve a day’s work to show for every single working day. I’m not suffering in any way that I know of, except the old difficulty, only twenty-four hours in a day, &Ⓐemendation not days enough in the week.Ⓐemendation

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DayⒶemendation before yesterday, feeling not in condition for writing, I left the study; but I couldn’t hold in—had to do something; so I spent eight hours in the sun with a yard-stick measuring off the reigns of the English kings on the roads in these grounds, from William the Conqueror to 1883—calculating to invent an open-air game which shall fill the children’s heads with dates without study. I give each king’s reign one foot of space to the year, & drive one stake in the ground to mark the beginning of each reign;—& I make the children call the stake by the king’s name. You can stand in the door & take a bird’s eye view of English monarchy, from the Conqueror to Edward IV.; then you can turn & follow the road up the hill to the study & beyond, with an opera glass, & bird’s eye view the rest of it to 1883.

You can mark the sharp difference in the length of reigns, by the varying distances of the stakes apart. You can see Richard II., 2 feet; Oliver Cromwell3explanatory note, 2 feet; James II., 3 feet, & so on—& then big skips: pegs standing 45, 46, 50, 56 & 60 feet apart, (Elizabeth, Victoria, Edward III., Henry III., & George III.—by the way. Third’s a lucky number for length of days, isn’t it?)

Yes, sir, by my scheme you get a realizing notion of the time occupied by reigns.

The reason it took me eight hours was because with little Jean’sⒶemendation interrupting assistance, I had to measure from the Conquest to the end of Henry VI. three times over—& besides I had to whittle out all those pegs.

I did a full day’s work & a third over, yesterday, but was full of my game after I went to bed,—trying to fit it for indoors. So I didn’t get to sleep till pretty late; but when I did go off, I had contrived a way to play my history game with cards & a cribbage board.Ⓐemendation

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