Narok, Masai Reserve, Kenya
Colony, Africa.
FEB. 27, 1922.
Dear Ones all around the
Globe:
Do you see the date? Well, here is wishing
you mama, a very happy birthday - wherever you may be.
SIXTY-EIGHT!!!! and like the Johnny Walker Whiskey advertised
out here “still going strong”. At least we hope you are well
and really enjoying the day. If you had been here you would
have had a squash pie for dinner - roast beef and baked
squash, and potatoes and lettuce salad and a cup of tea to
finish up on. But if you really were here we would have made a
nut cake with Cora Beth’s nuts.
School really should have begun today but
if all work well for another week the new building will be
done enough to have school there so we are putting off
starting til next Monday.
I only sent you people a letter ten days
ago so I am very spry but this is only begun because it is
Mammas birthday - but really we got a long letter from Cora on
Sat. and also the one from mama written after coming from
Washington, also the postal. So I really have quite a lot to
answer, and I will do so as fast as I can for I don’t like to
let such a lot pile up that it takes a week of writing to get
all taken care of. I like Lora’s way best and every time I
write I think I will not let it go so long again and then the
next thing I know it is as long as ever.
Last Sat. John and I spent the day up the
river again working at the place we want to try to take it out
and were rather encouraged as the stones were not as hard to
break and get out of the way as we thot they would be, but as
we came home we came along the river as well as we could and
found some very steep places and that got us rather off the
idea again for it would take a lot of work and perhaps some
blasting. So we don’t know just what we will do about it. Our
object wasn’t only to have the water here at the house but the
prime thot was to have more land under irrigation so that more
people would come around here to live and we have them under
our influence. We wont give up til we have to, that’s sure.
Mr. Clarke was here to dinner and we are to
go there to supper, only he has his dinner at night, so we
really get two dinners a day. I never sleep so well after a
diner at his house - in the first place because it is so late
always eight oclock til we get thro eating, and then I think I
eat too much. But there is always soup and it is so good that
I don’t like to refuse it, then there is fish of some sort -
tinned always, sardines or herring or something else just as
good - then the roast with vegetables and then dessert and all
followed by cocoa - and after such a meal I ought to have a
ten mile walk before going to bed and instead it is only about
like from home to Calvary Church. So if I can’t go to sleep
tonight mama I’ll just try to imagine what you are doing. I
have had two such troubled dreams about Claudon lately that I
shall be glad to get their letter tonight. I know they are
alright but it feels good to get their letter and hear them
say so themselves.
Now John has come and is playing the organ
so this will go better. We wanted to go to the garden and see
how things look but it rained so hard that it is too muddy.
There was a tulip budded and I think it was a double one so am
anxious to see. (Later - 2 tulips open - white with yellow
centers. They seem to do alright.) The hyacinths seem to rot -
I mean the flowers and I wondered if it was the rain getting
into the cup made by the leaves and because the flowers come
out so near the ground the water stands in the center and
finally rots the flowers. They seem to open alright but
instead of drying up they seem to rot. I took two of the bulbs
that had no buds showing yet up and put them into pots here in
the window, just to see if the flowers would come up higher if
in a darker place. (Later - they both rotted & the soil is
perfectly dry.) And then should I take up the bulbs right
after they get done blooming or let them sort of dry off
first. I fear these in the garden wont dry because of the
rain. I’ll watch and when they seem ready to take up I’ll put
them into dry soil.
Don’t get scared of this paper, relations
must put up with it.
[Rest of letter missing]
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