Sumter, S.C.
Mar. 1, 1867

Dear Fuller;--

All this long week not a word from you--why? I have nothing to reply to, and must strike out on a new path. I have missed your always welcome letters ever so much, and am getting fearful lest you confine yourself too strictly to the miserable pinchbeck rule of doing as you are done by.

Please don't think that you will be justified in writing only as often as you receive letters from me. It is not quite five months since I left Massachusetts, and in that time I have written one hundred and eighty-six letters, according to an account I have been foolish enough to keep, addressed to forty different persons. To you and my mother I have written every week--can more be expected?

I dearly love to write letters. I would do it now if I did not like it, because I know I can do so much good in that way, but I do like it. I cannot do anything in fine writing. When I attempt to soar on the wings of hyperbole or rhetoric, I always come down with a thump, so I have learned by long and sad experience not to try it. Even when I know my letters will be published, I write just as I do to you--I can't any other way. One thing is encouraging--they always look better in print than I had any idea they would. Should you like to see one?

You don't know what a good kind friend and brother Mr Whittemore has been to me. I think I never learned to respect and esteem anyone so much in so short a time. My associate is good, true, and devoted, but not much to my taste. We work together in tolerable harmony, but sometimes I do so long for someone to whom "a primrose by the river's brim" [Note: allusion to Wordsworth poem also cited by Thoreau and others] is something more than a "yellow primrose." After all you are a thousand miles off, and when your letters come they can only tell me of you a week ago. Mr. Whittemore's letters reach me the same day they leave him, and there is so much individuality about them, that even the merely business notes bring with them a sunbeam. So I never miss an opportunity of writing to him, sure of a reply.

I should like to tell you about other of my friends, and will when I see you.--it takes too long to write .I have a great many more and better than I deserve. I so often wonder how it happens that so many noble men should think me worthy of their friendly regards.

Don't think that any of them ever enter at the side door however.

I am stupid and dull tonight. I will not inflict any more of myself upon you. Good night. May all good nights attend you.

I think my discourse last night was decidedly rambling but if I burn it up and begin anew I shall not do any better. It is a lovely day--clear--blue & gold. The birds are as full of happiness as their little frames can hold. I have been sweeping, dusting, baking & eating, & have got so tired I had to lie down. Poor prospect for letter-writing! The trees are putting forth their leaves, and the peach-trees are clothed with a perfect sheet of blooms. A large peach orchard, such as they have here is a beautiful sight.

The Southerners here are beginning to look after their interest, and put their honor in their pockets. Last Sunday Col. & Judge Moses, the two great men par excellence of Sumter came to our church, and after service talked familiarly with the people, and requested an introduction to the teachers--a sure road to the people's favor. As the only teacher present happened to be your "fair correspondent" she had to bear the whole burden of the distinguished honor in her own person. They --(The Moseses) were very courteous, inquired what part of the Union was so happy as to have given me to the world (not in those words exactly) asked how the climate suited us, inquired about our school, how large it was, whether the children learned well (to which I was most happy to reply that they did learn as well as any class of children I ever saw) and answered me that my enterprise was looked upon with favor by the leading men in town. I urged them to visit the school & judge for themselves, which they promised to do.

You can hardly conceive the change which six months has wrought in making possible such an incident as that. The negro is a power in the land; the government is not quite effete; the teachers have an acknowledged position. Yet some barbarisms of prejudice remain to be overcome, particularly among the women. Mrs. Solomons has been heard to remark that "we could not be ladies; no ladies would come down here and associate with niggers as we do." And Mrs. M'Coy says she wishes a clap of thunder would come and kill those two Yankees.

It's time for me to bring my remarks to a close. I wish I could see you and have a great long talk. I cannot write--not yet--what I should say. I hope I shall [?] be true to you, and never [?] [?] even betray the confidence you give me. Pray for me. I am in many dangers here--most of being spoiled by adulation. I try to be humble but I don't succeed very well--nobody helps me--it is beating against wind and tide. The thought overwhelms me sometimes that I am not fit for the kingdom of heaven yet.

Yours as ever,

Jennie B. Smith

W. F. Fisk

Mast Yard, N.H.