The familiar letters of Peppermint Perkins : illustrated : reprinted from the Boston "Saturday Evening Gazette."

Dedication

I ruinx it’s perfectly Jovely that my letters are to be published, it will be szchk a soaker for the Runover girls, and so gratifying to Poesie and me. I asked my brother Joe what I could dedicate them to, and he said, to whatever I liked the dest that was nice and reliable, and I zmmedzately said I would dedicate them most affectionately to THE

Boston SATURDAY EVENING GAZETTE.

PEPPERMINT PERKINS.

Preface

To THE Pusiic:—I understand that there is a general impression that I am the author of the following letters, or, if not the author, responsible at least for their prevailing tone of depravity. I ask you, what is a sensitive, but chivalrous, man to do? If I. acknowledge them as mine my reputation as a man of good sense is lost. If, on the contrary, I deny all connection with them my sister Peppermint will be in a deuce of a mess. I can only beg for your kind indulgence.

Sincerely,

JOE PERKINS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

‘* BEUSHFUL GURLS” . : : ; : : 46 CECILIA R. BROWN é ; ; ‘ : ris Maye ‘‘OF COURSE WE HAVE TO REST SOME”. pS bah: AT THE NEW AMERICAN SEMINARY . : peek ZOS

‘¢ONE OF THEM BROUGHT OUT HER FATHER’S STOCKINGS” . ; : : ; . en, 390

‘<] WIPED MY EYES WITH MY ARM” n emcys:

Ao &

FAMILIAR LETTERS

OF

PEPPERMINT PERKINS.

I can see you now “in my mind’s eye, Phortachio,” -as old .Miss Culcher..used to pronounce it at school, sniffing that Grecian nose of yours in a scornful indignation, as mail after mail comes in without any letter from your Peppermint. Say, how do you get your letters in Venice, anyway? Does the postman travel round in a boat, and supposing he should drop his bag in the water? But never mind—I was talking about your nose. Yes, I can see your sniff, and I can hear you, just as plain as can be, say, “Oh, yes, that Peppermint promised to write to me the very day I sailed, and I’ve been here for three months, and not a word has she sent me, and not even the GAZETTE, as she most faithfully promised she would, once a month,” all of which I acknowledge, with as ‘“meachin” a spirit as Josiah Allen ever had before Samantha’s frown. But, my dear Poesie, if you only knew to what I have been devoting the time that I mzght have spent in writing to you, you would feel most gratified that you haven’t written anything hateful to me about it. My time now, my dear, is devoted almost wholly to Self-Improvement and to Charity. Excuse me for using italics, but I am so earnest about it. My brother Joe says he hasn’t seen such an earnest expression on my face since I followed up that homely Harvard Senior all one winter, who was going to have such a swell spread class-day. (You remember him. He didn’t have it, after all, for his grandfather died, and we were mad enough to chew up the old gentleman and the grandson too.) It is just despicable of Joe to say such things; but you know that he is getting to grow old and stout, and his boots begin to hurt him; so we won’t mind him. Well, revenonus & nos moutons, Clara Smart and I.

Of course I know I promised you I would not take up with a single Boston girl after you’d gone; but Clara isn’t a Boston girl,—she is from Runover, and she is awfully smart. They have colleges and observatories and everything there to make girls smart; it’s in the air. Every other man you meet there has discovered something or looks as if he was just going to; and as for the girls — well, they look as if they’d got all their discovering done, and there was nothing left in the world worth their notice. I suppose you will feel sarcastic just here, and want to ask me how she happens to notice me. Well, I forgot to mention that there is one thing in the world they do think is worth noticing, and that is a man, and my brother Joe isa man. “Am I lucid?” as old Professor Keen used to say in the philosophy class. But don’t for the world say anything to any one, for Clara and I are the best of friends (Afro tem., of course — that is, until you come back), and I would not have her think I notice she is laying for Joe for anything.

Well, where was I? Oh, yes, Clara and I went up to Mr. Stirrem’s church to hear the singing. They have got an elegant tenor there. Joe says he hasn’t got any voice, they only hire him for his winning ways; but, anyway, there is something that draws great audiences there (I wonder if I oughtn’t to say congregation? and it must be he, because the rest of the choir are nothing at all), and for a wonder I listened to the sermon, too, and it was perfectly affecting, all about aims in life and things of that kind, and the traces we must all leave behind us in the sands of time. Maybe it was because the allusion to sands made me think of Sconset. Joe said it was; but at

PEPPERMINT PERKINS. BE any rate I felt just like crying, and was quite serious after I got home, especially after Joe made the remark that all the traces I’d ever leave behind me would be caramel papers and hair-pins, and I determined to begin to be more serious. I did begin that very night by not doing up any crimps. I was going to wear my _ hair like Clara’s. She never wears any crimps. Runover girls never do, though they have never advanced any sufficiently good reason to me for not crimping it, for they all look like old fuds with it so, and they spend just as much and more time brushing and smoothing it at night than I do on my “ Fedoras.”

Well, I was going to say I didn’t do up any; but about three o’clock I woke up and remembered that I had promised to go skating with Charlie Brood out to Jamaica the next morning, and I knew any amount of self-improvement wouldn’t make up for the absence of crimps in his eyes, so I just snaked out of bed and up with two “ Fedoras;” but no sooner had I got them up than my conscience began to reproach me for my weakness, and after I got back into bed I determined that even Charlie Brood’s criticisms shouldn’t influence me, and I began to take them down; but you see I was so sleepy, getting up so suddenly (it all was like a dream), that I only got one down before I dropped to sleep, and the next morning you ought to have seen what a fright I looked. You know how high my forehead is, and shiny. Well, there I was with all that shining expanse and one little bob on the left temple, and I overslept on account of getting up so, and was late, and before I could do anything Charlie Brood was after me. Howl felt you can imagine, for you look just as bad as I do without your crimps, and I just had to cry, and Joe came into my room, and I must say he was real kind if he was sarcastic. Of course I was so excited I out with the whole story, and he said I wasn’t the only person whose religion was one-sided; but he said I mustn’t go out looking

PEPPERMINT PERKINS. Le like a Jewish old-clothes woman (that was fearfully cutting, but I did look like one), and he just positively “scooted” down to Medina’s and bought me a front-piece, which looks real nice. I offered to give it back to him to decorate his room with; but he says I can keep it for religjous emergencies, and he calls it my “ moral support.” And he never told any of the rest of the family anything about it, though mother

_- wondered what he was doing in my room so long. But here I am, at the end of all the sheets Joe says I can send for five cents, and I haven’t told you a thing about what I am doing, only about what I haven’t done; but if you take any notice of this letter and don't laugh at me, I'll write very soon again. Your devoted

PEPPERMINT PERKINS.