Such men as the late Dr. Horace Bushnell and Dr. William Adams were unstinted in their praise.  In a letter to Mrs. Smith, dated a few months later, Mrs. Prentiss writes:  “Poor old Aunt Avery!  She doesn’t know what to make of it that folks make so much of her, and has to keep wiping her spectacles.  I feel entirely indebted to you for this thing ever seeing the light.”  When published as a book, Fred and Maria and Me was received with great favor, and had a wide circulation.  In 1874 a German translation appeared. [6] Although no attempt is made to reproduce the Yankee idioms, much of the peculiar spirit and flavor of the original is preserved in this version.

To Mrs. H. B. Smith, Dorset, August 4, 1868.

Miss Lyman says I have no idea of what Miss W. really is; she looks as if she would drop to pieces, can not drive out, far less walk, and every word she speaks costs her an effort.  Miss Lyman is not well either; and what with their health and mine, and A.’s, I see little of them.  But what I do see is delightful, and I feel it to be a real privilege to get what scraps of their society I can.  Our house proves to be far prettier and more tasteful than I supposed.  I am writing up lots of letters, and if I ever get well enough, shall try to begin on my Katy once more.  But since reading the Recit d’une Soeur, I am disgusted with myself and my writings.  I ache to have you read it.  Miss Lyman and Miss Warner send love to you.  I do not like Miss L.’s hacking cough, and she says she does not believe Miss W. will live through the winter.  Among us we contrive to keep up a vast amount of laughter; so we shall probably live forever.

August 18th.—­I have enjoyed Miss Lyman wonderfully, but want to get nearer to her.  I see that she is one who does not find it easy to express her deepest and most sacred feelings.  I read Katy to her and Miss W., as they were kind enough to propose I should, and they made some valuable suggestions to which I shall attend if I ever get to feeling able to begin to write again.  I am as well as ever save in one respect, and that is my sleep; I do not sleep as I did before I left home, while I ought to sleep better, as I work several hours a day in the woods, in fact do almost literally nothing else....  But after all, we are having the nicest time in the world.  I have not seen George so like himself for many years; he lives out of doors, pulls down fences, picks up brushwood, and keeps happy and well.  I feel it a real mercy that his thoughts are agreeably occupied this summer, as otherwise he would be incessantly worried about Anna.  We work together a good deal; this morning I spoiled a new hatchet in cutting down milkweed where our kitchen garden is to be and we are literally raising our Ebenezer, which we mean to conceal with vines in due season.  George is just as proud of our woods as if he created every tree himself.  The minute breakfast is over the boys dart down to the house like arrows from the bow, and there they are till dinner, after which there is another dart and it is as much as I can do to get them to bed; I wonder they don’t sleep down there on the shavings.  The fact is the whole Prentiss family has got house on the brain.  There, this old letter is done, and I am going to bed, all black and blue where I have tumbled down, and as tired as tired can be.