December 14.
Dear Judy:
PLEASE pepper your letters with stamps, inside and out. I have thirty collectors in the family. Since you have taken to travel, every day about post time an eager group gathers at the gate, waiting to snatch any letters of foreign design, and by the time the letters reach me they are almost in shreds through the tenacity of rival snatchers. Tell Jervis to send us some more of those purple pine trees from Honduras; likewise some green parrots from Guatemala. I could use a pint of them!
Isn't it wonderful to have got these apathetic little things so enthusiastic? My children are getting to be almost like real children. B dormitory started a pillow fight last night of its own accord; and though it was very wearing to our scant supply of linen, I stood by and beamed, and even tossed a pillow myself.
Last Saturday those two desirable friends of Percy's spent the whole afternoon playing with my boys. They brought up three rifles, and each man took the lead of a camp of Indians, and passed the afternoon in a bottle shooting contest, with a prize for the winning camp. They brought the prize with them—an atrocious head of an Indian painted on leather. Dreadful taste; but the men thought it lovely, so I admired it with all the ardor I could assume.
When they had finished, I warmed them up with cookies and hot chocolate, and I really think the men enjoyed it as much as the boys; they undoubtedly enjoyed it more than I did. I couldn't help being in a feminine twitter all the time the firing was going on for fear somebody would shoot somebody else. But I know that I can't keep twenty-four Indians tied to my apron strings, and I never could find in the whole wide world three nicer men to take an interest in them.
Just think of all that healthy, exuberant volunteer service going to waste under the asylum's nose! I suppose the neighborhood is full of plenty more of it, and I am going to make it my business to dig it out.
What I want most are about eight nice, pretty, sensible young women to come up here one night a week, and sit before the fire and tell stories while the chicks pop corn. I do so want to contrive a little individual petting for my babies. You see, Judy, I am remembering your own childhood, and am trying hard to fill in the gaps.
The trustees' meeting last week went beautifully. The new women are most helpful, and only the nice men came. I am happy to announce that the Hon. Cy Wykoff is visiting his married daughter in Scranton. I wish she would invite father to live with her permanently.
Wednesday.