Hickman Mills, Mo
3/28..89
My darling old girlie:--
Your dear old letter was received sometime past & how I did enjoy hearing from you once more & will forgive you on condition that you return the favor & write to me immediately. I have had a splendid excuse for not writing. I was out here when your letter arrived and when I got home protracted services were in progress at our church & I attended preaching twice a day for five weeks almost every day & of course had no time for anything else. I enjoyed them so much there were 45 additions & the church is so much revived. I think we have one of the grandest pastors in the state, he is such a worker & so earnest & smart, our church was about dead before he came, but is booming now & we hope to build a new house this summer, before meeting closed I received a letter informing me that I had a Spring term of school & of course, I had to make a few preparations. I came to the country last Friday, & I will begin teaching on Monday. I will tell you, I expect the little kids will have to suffer, don't you? I pity them, but myself more, I am with Sister Emma this week & little Virgil is getting to be a big girl now & I tell you she is a captain. Nan, you have heard of Fernnie & Bertie Wright, well they are both married, Fernnie married a grass widow & she was sick & thought her his soul was much more precious & valuble [sic] & he may go to the very lowest depths in sin & when he repents we receive him with open arms, not so the women, we act as if she were past redemption & it is her own sex that drives her from bad to worse quite frequently, & we will take up for the men against her. I think we had better turn over a new leaf in that direction. I tell you Nan, I know something about how girls have to struggle to make an honest living & how hard it is to get employment. I speak from experience & of course it isn't one half as bad with me as Mother hubbards the first thing it would be quite so bad, I have a real cute little fellow 'bout as big as your fist, his Sister, a young lady, died in Jan. & it was so sad, she was friend of mine, but she was a devoted Christian & quite a worker in the S. S. & church, her funeral was very sad.
Yes, I received your picture & I can't tell you how much I value it, I thank you so much. I haven't heard from Mary since her marriage, guess her little kid & "Joe" keep her so busy she hasn't time to think of the old girls I hear from Lute often. I would give anything to go back to Columbia. Did Elvira Johnston ever marry? You poor little dear, it is sinful for all of them to impose on you in such a way, I won't hear to it any more. Nan, I would give anything to see you, I would talk you to death. I will be at home in July this summer & want you & Lute to come & see me & I will go with you to see her, if nothing prevents. Oh that is awful, awful! about those girls in Glasgow, it always makes my heart ache to hear of things of that kind, poor deluded creatures what can they be thinking of to wreck their lives in such a manner, how sad that they will throw their virtue & their all away so recklessly & then to think our own sex will countenance the men who accomplish their ruin. I tell you I think him the greatest sinner in the sight of God & I think we will have a great sin to answer for, for countenancing them & spurning the girls, we might say, as though others, because I have a home. I know some few of the trials that we meet with & I think more & more of the troubles that working girls have & I tell you it make my heart ache especially, if they are young & in these large Cities, just think of the temptations & the traps that are laid for them & they never suspect it until they have fallen into them. I never know when to stop when I get on this subject for I could write volumes in their behalf, just from observation.
Isn't this delightful weather I am so glad Spring is coming, but will be much more, most glad when school is out and summer comes, heigh ho! We are never satisfied. I will have to close as it is getting very late & this letter is already equal to a no account news paper. Nan, please write soon & cheer me up & keep me from murdering the little kids, you will be doing a noble act to your fellow man by writing therefore it is your duty to sit right down & write me a long letter. All send love, much from me to you & also Miss Lida. Direct your letter to Hickman Mills, Mo c/o Mr. R. C. Colgan. Yours Mattie