Part 12 (2/2)

Miss Elizabeth Somerville to Lewis Somerville.

Richmond, Va.

My dear Nephew:

Your letters have been most satisfactory and I am deeply grateful to you for writing so frequently and in such detail. I spent yesterday afternoon with the Carter girls and Douglas read me your last letter to her. I must say your description of the mountain woman and her son is far from pleasant.

You are very much mistaken, germs do lurk in the earth. Teta.n.u.s and hookworm are both taken in directly from the earth, and meningitis is considered by some of the best authorities to be a product of rotting wood. Did the Englishman die of T. B.? If he did, no power on earth will make me sleep in that cabin. The daughter no doubt has inherited the disease from her parent and is this moment stirring the dread germ into your batter cakes. She sounds to be very industrious and efficient. Do not praise her too much but remember: ”A new broom sweeps clean.” Please find out from this girl what was the matter with her father. Did you burn the sulphur candles?

The Carter's tenants take possession of their house next week and then all of the girls and that Bobby, who is certainly a living ill.u.s.tration of ”Spare the rod and spoil the child,” will come to me until it is time to go to the mountains. It will be quite a care for me, but I do not forget that my mother, your grandmother, was brought up in their grandfather's house. ”Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days,” etc. Old Cousin Robert Carter left no money but many debts, debts to himself just like this one that I owe him.

Please let me know by return mail what was the matter with the Englishman and if he died of T. B.'s.

Your devoted AUNT LIZZIE.

Telegram from Lewis Somerville to his Aunt Lizzie.

Englishman had melancholia and committed suicide. Lungs sound.

LEWIS.

From Douglas Carter to Lewis Somerville.

Richmond, Va., May --, 19--.

My dear Lewis:

You don't know how we appreciate your kindness in going up to the mountains and working so hard for us. We feel as though we could never repay you and Mr. Tinsley for your kindness. Everything you have to say about the camp sounds delightful. As for your b.u.t.ting in--you know you couldn't do that. If you think Josh and the little English girl would be good ones to have for the Week-End Boarding Camp, why you just engage them. We are so inexperienced that sometimes I think we are perfectly crazy to undertake this thing, but then I think if the boarders don't like our ways they don't have to stay, and certainly one week-end would not kill them. They don't have to come back, either.

Nan's funny ads have called forth all kinds of replies and already we have many applications for board. One woman wants us to take care of her six children as she wants to go to the war zone as Red Cross nurse. We had to turn that down as Bobby will be about all we can manage in the way of kids. She only wanted to pay two full boards for the six children as she declared their ages aggregated only thirty-seven, which would not be as much as two full grown persons.

Some of our school friends are eager to go, and as Cousin Lizzie has a reputation for being a very strict chaperone, their mothers are willing. Mr. Lane and d.i.c.k, the two young men in Father's office, are both coming up when they can and they are going to send us some of their friends.

While you have been working so hard, we, too, have not been idle.

Of course, school has kept me very busy as I am anxious to take my exams and make all the points I can for college, whether I am to go next year or not. Helen has decided that her schooling just now is of very little importance since she has no idea of going in for college, so she has simply quit; but she is very busy, busier than any of us perhaps. She is learning all the cooking that our cook can teach her in the few days she is to be with us, and she has also joined a domestic science cla.s.s at the Y. W. C. A. and has added jelly roll and chocolate pie to her list of culinary accomplishments.

Dr. Wright made a splendid suggestion: that each one of us learns to cook a meal, a different menu for each girl. If we do that, we can change about and give the boarders some variety, and then the responsibility would not rest too heavily on any one of us. Nan and I are trying it and on Sat.u.r.day I am to serve the family a dinner under cook's directions. Helen, of course, scorns Dr. Wright's suggestion and Lucy says she won't learn anything Helen won't.

Susan, this housegirl who is to go with us, cannot cook at all, but we are to have her wash the dishes and make up beds, or cots, and set the tables, etc. Oscar will wait on the table and help with the dishes.

We are looking out for a cook, but the trouble is good cooks are already cooking. This old woman who has been with us for years is weeping all the time because she is too afraid of snakes to go to the mountains. I have found her a good home and next week she leaves us. Oscar says he can cook but he has lived with us, as Lucy says, since before we were born, and no one has ever known of his so much as making a cup of tea or a piece of toast, and I am afraid that he has hid his light under a bushel for so long that it has perhaps gone out.

We have sold the car and all debts are paid, and we have a tidy little sum to buy camping outfits and also provisions. Mr. Lane a.s.sures me that the store room will be large enough for a quant.i.ty of provisions, so we are ordering everything by the barrel, except pepper, of course. It saves a lot and Schmidt pays the freight. We already have a list as long as I am of things we have to get, and every day one of us thinks of more things.

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