I can tell you little Marje is so grateful to Sears-Roebuck Company that she is seriously considering putting them in her prayers! I sleep under Sears-Roebuck blankets, wear their flannel nighties and underclothes, and use their pen, paper, and pins! The French idea of blankets seems to be something as heavy as possible, with the least possible warmth in it!
Miss W. says that I am to tell you that I already look better than when I first came. I have a wonderful appetite, and only hope that I will not by any unfortunate chance grow out of any of my warm things!
When I get home I expect to put your Miss K. out of the office, I am becoming such an expert typist! It is rather amusing to come way over here and type so much, but just now that and “visiting” is what they need most. I expect to work after a time on the tuberculosis cases under a very nice elderly gentleman whose name I cannot remember, and also to drive the auto a good deal. Esther Root, one of the workers, has just had a car (Ford, of course) sent to her by her father, and when it arrives we are going to Bordeaux to drive it up here. Won’t that be great? We hope it will get here soon, for we need it frightfully. There is so much to be carried around—furniture and such—when we move a family, which we do quite often.
Oh, I do hope that Mother is not going to worry too much about me, now that I am at last in such good hands. I never saw a much nicer, kinder, more thoughtful set of workers. Now that I shall be warm, and I am very well fed, indeed, I am as happy as can be. I think that I shall work in to be fairly useful after a time.
We keep hearing rumors of sugar-cards, no more bakeries open, and all sorts of things. I shall be interested to see if the new laws really come into effect the first of February. Even if they do, I do not believe that it will affect us very much. As usual, the poorer people will have the hardest part of it to bear.
The more I see of Dr. and Mrs. Shurtleff, the more I like them; they are so simple. It is quite wonderful to me to see how this work of Mrs. Shurtleff’s has grown up. The whole institution is run very smoothly and very thoroughly. She takes it all very calmly and keeps it all in hand without giving the appearance of being what you would call a “business woman.” She always has time to be more than polite and kind. She takes the trouble to drop in to see me, for instance, when I know perfectly well how busy she is. She writes the greater part of the “thank-you” letters herself, and that alone is a terrific job. She is almost an exact opposite to Mrs. ——, and yet it is wonderful to see how she has kept this work up to standard and how she has enlarged it, and is every day, almost, enlarging. Since I have come, for instance, she has started a grocery store department, and the special tubercular department. Altogether I am thoroughly enjoying “watching the wheels go round,” and I think I shall be able to do my bit towards pushing. I do not see how I could have found a pleasanter, more fitting job for a girl of my age.
Dr. and Mrs. Shurtleff in the Office
Until I got warmed up yesterday, I had the keenest sympathy with one “Sam McGee” in one of Robert Service’s poems,—who, you probably remember, never was warm until he finally sat in his “crematorium”!
I must stop now. I hope that you have been able to read this. I used a pen to-night because I have typed so much all day I was tired of it! Lots and lots of love from your daughter