Pittsburgh Jan. 16, 1857
Dear, Billy,
Your letter from Point Pleasant has been received, and I am glad to know the whereabouts of the great North American ballad singer. When can you promise to appear again before a Pittsburgh audience? Masonic Hall can be had now. I have also had an engagement, tendered me, but I declined. Kleber is going to give a concert and he has offered me the post of first anvil player in the “Anvil Chorus” from a new opera. I was unwilling to go through the course of training and dieting requiste for the undertaking, and consequently declined. I understand he has sent to Europe for a “first anvil.” We have had another little political brush in the election of Mayor, but there was very little excitement.
I have not yet received the Cincinnati Gazette and suppose that puff has not appeared. I will send you by this mail a copy of “Jeanie with the light brown hair” if I can find a copy. Mit is now living with us. James Buchanan returned yesterday from a long visit home. Mrs. F. and Miss Maggie are quite well. Your account of your appearance on stage rather got them.
I am much obliged to you for that dog, “Rat-trap” as we call him, on account of his well known ferocity toward those animals. You must pardon me if I inform you that he is now with us no more. He continued to devour shoes, stockings, spools, the Cat and everything else that he could find lying around loose. At last we held a council of war, and thought we would put him in the cellar. There he stayed for three weeks and howled all the time, and would have howled until now if I had not let him out. I was afraid the neighbors would inform on us for keeping a nusiance. Solitary confinement did not agree with him. He lost his appetite. Then I gave him some garlic as you had instructed me. This gave him a sort of diarrhea, and he got into Mit’s room and relieved himself on his bed, then he scattered his dirty shirts over the floor, sprinkled his shoes and played hob generally. This performance seemed to bring him to his appetite, for that same evening he stole a whole beef steak off the Kitchen table and swallowed it raw. We concluded that this was too much to stand even from “Friendships offering,” so I made up my mind to trade him off. John Little had a friend in Chicago who wanted just such a dog, so he gave me a very fine Scotch terrier eighteen months old for him. “Trap” is enjoying the lakebreezes. I am very much obliged to you for that dog.
James Buchanan has just come in to see me, so here I will wind up.
Your Friend
S.C. Foster
