We have chaperones to burn as Miss Elizabeth Somerville is here and Mrs. Tate may stay a long time so Lil can be here with Lucy Carter. I am dying to stay but $2.00 per is right steep for yours truly. I don’t think that is much for what you get and I think the Carter girls are real smart to charge a good price as long as they are giving you good things. Helen Carter does a lot of the cooking and has the sweetest little bungalow aprons to cook in. They are pink and blue, just my style, and when I get a trousseau I intend to have one.
We danced last night until eleven and then old Miss Somerville made all of us go to bed. She couldn’t see to play cards was the reason she was so proper. Little dinky kerosene lamps that blow out in the wind are not much for card playing but they do fine for dancing. The boys say they are going to bring up some electric lanterns the next week-end so the old lady can see to play and she will forget the time.
Did you ever sleep in a tent, Grace? Well, it is great—I was real sorry I didn’t have a blanket when it blew up so cold. It was right down nippy. I wasn’t going to say a thing but I was sorry I hadn’t even brought a sweater—one of the fellows didn’t have a blanket either but I heard him say he was going to sleep in his clothes. A blue Georgette crêpe and a pink chiffon wouldn’t help me much and all of my clothes are diaphanous this summer. I am sharing a tent with two old maids and a sten from Richmond. Do you know when I went to my tent I found six blankets on my cot and Susan the maid brought me two more? It had got out among the men that I didn’t have a blanket, how I can’t imagine, and they sent me theirs. Now wasn’t that too sweet of them? I sent them all back but a lovely cadet blue—it was so becoming I chose that. It turned out to be Mr. Tinsley’s so I believe he is not mad about the tip I gave him.
We are going on a walk this morning over to a terrible place called the Devil’s Gorge. I am going to wear Lucy Carter’s shoes and Nan’s skirt and Helen’s middy blouse and Douglas has a hat for me. The sten in the tent with me lent me some stockings. You see I brought nothing but silk ones. After we got to bed last night and I was almost asleep but was talking to the sten, who is a very nice agreeable girl—the old maids were both snoring—we heard a car chugging up the hill and it seems two more men had arrived, motored all the way from Richmond. It was a Dr. Wright and a boy named Dick. I heard Helen Carter, in the next tent, just raising Cain and saying he was very inconsiderate to come in on them at night that way, but before they could so much as get up to see where they were to sleep, they got a message that the new comers had brought their own blankets and hammocks and no one was to stir for them. I met Dr. Wright at breakfast and I think he is real cute. Helen Carter is mighty rude to him and I can’t see how he stands it. Helen has lovely manners usually but she certainly does pick him up quick. He is a general favorite with the rest of the family though, and Bobby is just wild about him. No more at present. I don’t see how I ever wrote this much as there has been a lot of noise and I know ten times I have been begged to stop writing and come dance. It looks like rain but I do hope it won’t. My blue will melt I know if it rains.
Your best friend,
Tillie Wingo.
Skeeter from Frank Maury.
Hello Skeeter!
Come in, the water’s fine! Say, Skeeter, what’s the reason you can’t light right out and come up to camp? Be sure and bring a blanket, the nights are cold as flugians. Miss Douglas Carter says that they call it a week-end camp just for cod, but we can stay through the week if we’ve a mind. Bully eats and plenty of ’em, and say, Skeeter, two mighty prime girls—no nonsense about them but spunky and up to snuff. They are named Lucy Carter and Lil Tate. They say they’d like to meet you a lot. If you come we can play five hundred when we are not climbing the mountains and hunting bee trees. Lucy has some chores she has to do but Lil and I help and we get through in a jiffy. It is just fun. I talk like I been here a month and it is just one night. Anyhow, Lil and I helped this morning and we are going to do it every morning. You see, these Carter girls are running this camp for the spondulix they can get out of it and it means all of them have got to spit on their hands and turn in. Lucy has to help wipe the dishes when they have many folks. I blew in the glasses and polished them so fine that Miss Helen said she would like to hire me. I ain’t going to tell you more of the camp because I am sure you will be here yourself soon. It beats the beach all hollow. These girls are sure slick, these Carter girls. They have a camp fire going all the time to make it look al frescoish, but they do their cooking mostly on stoves and in fireless cookers. They roast the potatoes in the camp fire and bring them to the table with ashes on ’em to make ’em look more campyfied; and they have a big iron pot hanging over the fire but they never have anything in it but water. Say, Skeeter, when you come, bring your fish lines as there is a stream that looks like fish. Let a fellow know when to look for you.
Yrs. truly,
Frank Maury.
Susan Jourdan to Melissa Thompson, the former cook at the Carters’.