Page:Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women - autobiographical sketches (IA b28145227).pdf/38



regularly inside a saucer with three or four little slices of ham, a roll, a piece of corn bread, a cup of cream, and a raw egg; the latter I throw into the hot ashes, and when it has split with a loud report I take it out, and, peeling off the coating of burnt egg and ashes, am generally happy enough to find a little clean piece in the middle, which I swallow, and burn my throat. Then I put on my hood and gloves, and walk up and down under a tree in front of the schoolhouse, eating the remainder, and endeavouring not to think of you all, as I find it does not assist the digestion.

I used to look sentimentally to one corner of the heavens and fancy I saw you all, when one evening, to my amazement, I beheld the sun set in that corner, so I had to turn right round and look in the opposite direction, anathematising the river for being so stupid as to wind, and convert the sublime imaginings of a forlorn damsel into a ridiculous blunder.

I have at present four music scholars, and one out-of-school French, but two go for boarding. I teach ten hours, three days of the week, and wish the other three were similarly filled; but it is small remuneration for such an outlay of breath, and as soon as I have the opportunity I shall fly off to some other point of the compass, where at any rate I may learn myself while teaching others. Carlyle's name has never even been distantly echoed here, Emerson is a perfect stranger, and Channing, I presume, would produce a universal fainting-fit.

Henderson.

I was delighted to receive my box last Sunday, the 12th; the things do admirably, the dresses I like exceedingly, they are both very pretty.

The people here begin to interest me more than they