"I do hope you will soon be better. I felt so mean at leaving without even saying good-bye. But I had to think of all my brothers and sisters and the girls—I couldn't expose them to the fever, you know. I hope you liked the postals we sent. Amanda and I came very near being left once when we couldn't find the post-box at Kansas City,—we had to run a block, while Alec and Kitty stood on the back platform and laid bets on the winner. (Amanda won.)
"We are all well and hope you are the same,—I mean I hope you are better and will soon be well.
"With best love,
"Sarah Jane Blake."
"Oh, girls, I am simply speechless and can't find a word to say when I try to describe our grand trip and this perfect peach of a place, and the glorious time we have had and are having ever since we left pokey old Woodford and arrived at the Blue Bonnet ranch. I keep pinching myself to see if I'm really me, but it isn't at all convincing, and I suppose I'll simply go on treading air and not believe in the reality of a thing till I come to earth in time to hear the Jolly Good say—'Miss Kitty, you may take problem number ninety-four'—and wake up to the monotonous old grind again—oh, if you could only see this darling old house and the picturesque Mexicans—rather dirty some of them (I suppose that's why they are called greasers) and the perfectly dear way they adore Blue Bonnet and their deference to her 'amigos'—I tell you I feel like a princess when they call me 'Señorita' with a musical accent that makes you downright sick with envy. Why anybody on earth ever left the West to go and settle up the East I don't see,—you may think I mean that the other way about but I don't, for anybody can see at half a glance that this country is as old as Methusalem—the live-oaks look as if they'd been here forever and ever and would stay as much longer—they're all 'hoary with moss' and all that sort of thing like that poem of Tennyson's—or maybe it is Longfellow's—it doesn't matter which in vacation, thank goodness. I don't like to seem to be rubbing it in about our good times, for it's just too hateful that you can't be here, too, and ride like mad for miles without coming to a fence and wear the adorable riding-suits Mr. Ashe got for us in New York—all seven alike and as becoming as anything—and have the best things to eat, wear, do, and see every minute of the day.
"This won't go into the envelope with the rest if I run on any longer so I'll close,—with a fat hard hug and lots of love to you both,
"Kitty."
"Dear Girls: Don't you ever go and get conditioned at school; take my solemn warning. That awful thing hanging over me is going to do its best to spoil my grand summer in Texas. I intended to do a lot of studying as soon as we arrived here, so that I might have a few weeks perfectly free from worry; but goodness me, how can anybody open a book when there's something going on every blessed minute of the day? It's a pity it wasn't Sarah who was conditioned. She actually likes to study and if it came to a choice between a horseback ride and doing ten pages of grammar, she'd jump at the grammar. Sometimes I think Sarah isn't made like other girls. Not quite normal, you know.
"Now that I've seen Blue Bonnet at home, I realize what a hard time she must have had in Woodford, at first especially. She's treated like a perfect queen here, and doesn't have to mind a soul except Señora—that's what we call Mrs. Clyde. Fancy having run the ranch all your life and then at fifteen having to start in and obey Miss Clyde, and Mr. Hunt, and the rest of those mighty ones! I think she's a brick to have done it at all, and I take back every criticism I ever made of her. She must be terribly rich, but doesn't put on any airs at all.
"How is little old Woodford getting along without us? I'm almost ashamed to write Mother and Father, for I can't say I'm homesick and parents always expect you to be. Debby wants to finish my page, so no more now from
"Your loving Amanda."