I am nine years old. We live on a hill. There are many hills here just like it, and the people here call them mounds. They are shaped very queer. They rise straight up on one side. There are rocks on some, and on others trees. We have two ponies, and when we go hunting, they let me ride on one of them. When they shoot anything, I go and bring it back to the buggy.
I am a poor boy. I lived with an officer here, and I was so fond of reading the daily papers and other things that his wife kindly subscribed for YOUNG PEOPLE for me, and I like it very much. I live in the woods, and I caught nineteen wild rabbits this winter in traps. I tried to tame some of them, but I could not. I wish you would tell me how to tame them.
Have any of our correspondents had experience in taming wild rabbits?
I am a little boy eight years old, and a subscriber to YOUNG PEOPLE. I made the money myself that paid for the subscription. I live away down in Florida, and during the winter months I sell flowers and curiosities to the Northern visitors. I have made twenty dollars this season. I don't go to school now, but my mamma and papa teach me at home. I have a handsome scroll-saw, and can make nice brackets. I had a shepherd dog, but it died. I want to take YOUNG PEOPLE till I am a grown-up man.
I want to tell you something about myself. My papa was an American. When he was young, he went to Florence, Italy. There he met my mamma, who was an Italian lady, and married her. I was born in Florence. When I was five years old we moved to Spain. Then I learned the Spanish language. Papa taught me to speak English. We staid in Spain one year, and then moved to America, and came out here. We had not been here long when mamma--poor dear mamma!--died. Then papa went back to Italy, and left me with Aunt Esther. He died while he was there, and now I am an orphan. I am eleven years old, and I can speak and write Italian, French, Spanish, and English, and I am studying German now. I want to be an artist some day, and go back to Italy, and make my name renowned. A friend here gives me YOUNG PEOPLE, and I like it so much! Please put some nice pictures in it for me to draw.
Some little girls--my cousins Nellie and Fannie, Clara Hessey, Nellie Woods, and Kittie Short--are going to have a cooking club, and I wish some other little girls would send some receipts. My cousin Nellie sends you a letter too.