"Ranger", Acapulco,

March 5 – 1882.

 

Dear Alice,

                        Your letter with Mama's came by last mail, was glad to hear from you. I saw by Cal papers that you had had quite a snow storm. I wish we were in Erie for about a month so we could have some rides with that hackman, John—I forget last name. It seems funny to read of snow & ice while here we are sweltering in our linen suits.

 

I think I should have enjoyed that Sunday school entertainment myself. I tried to get some of those birds wings entire, but when they are shot of course their feathers suffer, and besides that they run amongst the cactus bushes and thorny undergrowth & of course their feathers get badly used there.

 

I hope you get through with all your examinations all right. I shall be disappointed if I can't get home before you graduate. I can't tell now whether I will be back then or not. Glad you liked the beans & feathers. Have quite a lot of those beans, not polished yet. About your trip to California I am afraid you will have to postpone it for the present, wish you could make it, some day you may. The papers out here are full of Oscar Wilde. You wrote me of what the teacher requires of your class, and I must say that I agree with you that it is too much to ask of any class to sit all day without speaking, &c. Still, on the other hand you know if all were allowed to talk as much as they wanted & as often as they wished your class would be a little noisy at times perhaps, & then there would be but little studying. If you want to speak I guess / the teacher consents, dont she? It must be pretty hard for a teacher you know, where a class is large, to get along day after day where there is very much talking, and besides you would not be able to study much if there was much talking going on, so after all I think it is a good rule in classes where scholars are over 10 or 12 yrs of age. for little children I should certainly protest against it. I suppose I should want to talk myself if I was in your place, but try & get along with your teacher, & talk all you want to when you are out of school.

 

            If you don't like your Sunday school, you & Frank, why not change?

 

            I always forget to get a fan when north, & I want it when south. I don't find any down here, when I get one I will mark it as you / want me to. You ask me to write what I see, & what I do. The first would be given in a very small compass, the second you will gather from Mama's letters. Our time when away from here is mostly spent up and down the coast, here and there we come to a place where there are a few huts. The towns and villages are nearly all several miles back from the coast. I don't care for them enough to travel on mule back or walk so far to see them, in the hot sun, and besides that, to go ashore in any of the places except such as Acapulco, Manzanillo or Mazatlan, you have to land on the beach and the chances are that you would get wet in the surf, going or coming, or both. I have been ashore very little, there is nothing to see or buy no one cares for you particularly ashore except billiard room or bar room keepers, or hotel people. Consuls & others are better, but one can't be spending money on them all the time, as they want to. 

 

         You can't get acquainted with the natives, Mexicans of better class or Spaniards. They are polite when you meet them drink & smoke at your expense & gamble with you if they have chance, but that is the end of it. It is decidedly uninteresting coast. Nothing for us to do down here except to work, and shall be glad enough when the three years are up, if I have to remain that time.

 

            Much love to Grandma & folks at Worcester, to Aunt Ellen & Maude, Henry & John. Remember me to the Hills M^rs Redding & the McConnells. I wish I could send some better feathers, or something, but can't.

 

            I enclose Franks letter, & slips for him.

 

            Good bye, much love

 

from    Papa.

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