Lewis Betts' 1853 Penmanship Practice Notebook with Great Sentences, Milton MA vessel with face with some nice alligatoring to

with some nice alligatoring to the cream paint

and a huge one

such that the silhouette of what are surely meant to be feathers on a Native American figure also could be read as bunny ears

with the silver plate polishing up nicely

” is one of my very favorites

Lewis Betts' 1853 Penmanship Practice Notebook with Great Sentences, Milton MA vessel with face with some nice alligatoring toI'm drawn to different penmanship notebooks for different reasons often for beautiful handwriting, obviously, but also for the specific words and sentences repeated, which both speak to the specific values being imparted to students when they were written, and resonate in all sorts of ways now. This one, completed by a Lewis Betts of Milton, MA in 1853, predates the teaching of Spencerian calligraphy by a few years, so the handwriting is small and not