Lebanon, Ohio, July 3, 1887
Miss Callie Malone
	My dear Sister;
		I received letters from you and Ella.  I appreciate them so much.  I love to hear from home.  I am almost persuaded to take the Appeal in order to know what is going on in my own country.  I feel like I am in a foreign land now.  I am becoming more reconciled to my new situation.  I have oh! such an “appetite.”  We have had corn bread only once and that was not very well cooked.  It is cheaper to buy bakers bread than to have warm corn bread.  But maybe you would like to know just what a man gets to eat for the price of 6 cents per meal?  This is a pretty good average:  Breakfast: coffee (not quite as strong as aqua fortes”), oatmeal (a little sour), a piece of meat (a little over one inch square), irish potatoes and good baker’s bread and manf. butter.  These last three articles are always on the table and you can eat just as much of them as you want, but the other articles, except oatmeal, are furnished in the limits now.  We have for dinner in addition to bread, butter, potatoes, English peas or butter beans, rice, a small piece of pie or custard, and plenty of pure (hard) water.  Occasionally we have ice cream instead of pie.  Molasses you find on the table about twice a day and prunes are always given at supper, with a dish of crackers.  So you see we have something of a variety at least.  But my phrenological man has advised me to drink milk (I wish I could) instead of tea (which by the way we must certainly have a supper) or coffee and to eat lean meat, but no butter or sugar.  Now what is a poor man in my fix supposed to do?
We eat in the basement under the university building.  There about one hundred and twenty in this shift.  You may come as soon as the university bell rings and take your seat at your own little table with your three companions, but you must sit still and let your mouth water till all have been helped and then when the bell rings you may be sure the noise of knives forks &c make a noise like an earthquake in a crockery shop.  
My three companions are Miss Fannie, Mrs. Edwards, and a little red headed girl that turns up her nose at everything on the table, like she had been used to better grub.  I wish she would go to where she could get better by paying but a little more money.  I have been very particular to tell you about my eating, because I knew you would like to know what a club is.  Our steward, who by the way is one of the students, announced that after today we would have thanks returned before we commenced to eat.  I think this would make us all feel like we were more at home.
Last night we listened to a lecture by Mr Holbrook of Chicago on the subject of “Wit and Humor.”  Prof Heber Holbrook introduced him thus: “Ladies & Gentlemen, this is my cousin Zeph.”  Of course this produced a roar of laughter.  He (the speaker) defined very clearly the difference between wit and humor and illustrated his lecture by telling very many funny things.  I laughed very heartily and so did every one else, when he told of the man who went in a restaurant and when the waiter brought him a very small piece of meat he said, “Yes, mam, bring me some just like that.”
I will go to the Cumberland Church tonight to hear cousin Zeph preach.  I attended S. S. at church today.  The lesson written in outline on the board: “What Christ said about himself.”  What do you think of that!  It is not a good way to study the Bible.  ZI must now quit writing for I must go to the Methodist S.S. which meets at 1:30 p.m.  Prof Heber as he is called is our teacher.  We have in each Bible class about 50 members.  A question is asked and those only who snap their fingers (like the children in my school) are called up to answer the questions.  The teachers themselves understand the Bible and are fitted for teaching.  Prof Heber Holbrook, the son of Pres. Alfred Holbrook, is a very able man.  He teaches mathematics very much like Col. Harris.  He just drives facts into a fellow, by repeating and repeating again.  He is the life of the school.  I wish you could hear him read and explain the scriptures and then pray at “Gen Ex.”  He reads one or two verses from the Bible “Blessed are they that mourn &c” and gives a practical illustration of what that means and prays about 2 minutes (on an average), prays just like he was talking to God.  The “Old Prof.” as he is familiarly called, has undoubtedly seen his day.  He has a training class, and a grammar class, neither of which I am in.  He is quite tiresome at times.  But he knows how to interest a class.  But his memory is always failing him when it should not.  The old gentleman can not and perhaps never could teach mathematics, like his son Heber, nor science like Dr. McBride: yet he has the advantage of being above average in all the branches.  In other words, he is a teacher not only but a man, a sincere man, a Christian man.  But his best work is done.  There is evidence all over the town of Lebanon that there is and has been a large school here that has had the effect of building up the whole town.  While I do not receive instruction directly from him, yet I shall always be glad that I had the privilege of seeing and talking with, the abolitionist, the Connecticut school teacher, Alfred Holbrook.
I believe we have had no rain here since I came back from Boston (2 weeks), but it is very cloudy and threatening now.  I am now taking a writing lesson from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m.  I don’t suppose you see any improvement in my writing however.  this of course necessitates my rising at least by 5 and after reciting Trigonometry at 7 a.m. Geology at 1:30 p.m. and Botany at 3:30 and German at 7:15 I think you’ll agree I’m likely to get the value of my $9 tuition.  But no one knows how prone I am to cheat myself of the requisite number of hours of sleep, by sitting up too late.  I believe that I told you before that I took Drawing.  All of these classes keep my just one hour each.  Now I may venture to tell you a little bit of bad news.  Someone stole my box of drawing instruments.  Of course I don’t know who did it, but I strongly suspect it was my room mate who I am happy to say has left for his home in Indiana.  Among the 800 people we have here from everywhere in the U.S. it is nothing but reasonable to expect that a thief now and then gets in. 
The more I know the Yankees the better I like them.  They have many traits, however, that I don’t admire.  The yankee girls are not all ugly; some of them are very much like the Southern type.  But the majority are coarse, some masculine looking.  Most of them have lots of common sense, as well as book learning.  Quite a number of students speak to me on the street that I don’t know.  Especially nearly all the members of my German class who salute me as “Her Malone.”  I know most of them as there are not more than sixteen in the class.  I would write you more if I knew what interested you.  You need not expect to get a letter oftener than once a week now.  I received letters from Mr. Wright and Dick Watson.
							Your brother.
							F. M. Malone