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                                                     Westfield
                                                     Aug 17 1857

                                                                                                                   Westfield Aug 17th/51

Dear Mother I wrote you just a fortnight since at Dunkirk, where I was detained some hours waiting for a boat, one of the waiters told me there was a Post Office at the hotel and promised put my letter in but I was hurried away when the boat came in, without a chance to pay for my breakfast and perhaps they in revenge did not send my letters as I have heard nothing from you - it is two months since the date of Lucy's last letter. I got home safely Sat P.M: the next morn at the church door met Miss Woodbury, one of the teachers' who went with me to the West: she taught near Milwaukee, one year we exchanged visits, very first summer at Racine, she belong to Fitchburg Mass, attended teachers' Institute at Roylston last fall is well acquainted in all the towns about there knows cousin Josiah Metcalf and altogether seems quite like old friends to me, in this land of strangers. She comes through my means by request of the Trustees. to take charge of the juvenile department of the Acad. is almost deformed in shape but noble in mind and heart, having a beautiful soul enshrined in rather a plain casket. She will be just such a true friend to me I hope and I believe as I need in a week or two I intend leaving this (Mrs. Brunsey's) for her board in place much nearer school - a place engaged for her previous

• I send you some pretty varieties of pink seed and spider wort which heaps in blossom from May.