_Dear Kate_:
I have had the grandest week. It is Billy's birthday, and I come out to
stay two days with him and have stayed on and on and won't go back until
next Monday. I brought out both the kids a white pique suit and white
shoes and stockings, and they look awful cunning. I always buy something
for Paul, because it seems kind of selfish to give to Billy and not to
the other one. I don't think the Smiths have much money. He was a
teacher in a school in England, and his health broke down and he come to
America because he thought he could do better here, but I don't think
every thing is going just as he thought it would. His brother is in
Australia, and is doing fine, and I guess they wish that they had gone
there instead. He is an awful nice man and knows all about the birds,
and the trees, and the flowers, and he tells it to me and it has changed
lots of things for me, because I know all the sounds now and what they
mean, and they talk to me instead of being just noises.
I am learning to be a housekeeper, and "I help round," as Mrs. Smith
says, all day. We washed Monday and I never knew it took such work to
just wash clothes. I have washed handkerchiefs and some of Billy's
things up in my room, but here we wash sheets and pillow cases and table
clothes and shirt waists. Talk about shirt waists! I use to tell Mrs.
Murphy that did mine up, that she was an old thief, cause she charged me
twenty cents for them, but now I know she earned her money all right.
First Mrs. Smith soaked the clothes over night with some white powder in
the water. Then Mr. Smith fished the washing machine out of the lake
where it was put where its seams would swell up, and I turned the handle
of the thing, till I thought my arm would come off, but it was rather
fun, as it was out-of-doors and I could watch the chip-monks as they
come looking for scraps from the kitchen. There is some squirrels in the
trees, and they look so pretty setting up on their haunches with their
long bushy tails curled over their backs, nibbling away at a nut. If I
lived in the country, I wouldn't keep a cat, because it kills the
chip-monks and birds. The young black birds are just now trying to leave
their nests, and sometimes they fall out and set on the ground under the
bushes and call their father and mother with a funny little chirp sound,
and the cat hears it and creeps with her stomach close to the ground
till she is close to the baby bird, and then pounces like lightening on
him, and the poor little chap cries for help most like a human baby. The
mother bird will fight for her little ones, as long as she can, and
sometimes I wish she would peck the old cat's eyes out. I spent a good
share of my time chasing the cat from place to place, but even after
doing that and watching the chip-monks and squirrels and stopping to
keep the children from falling off the dock, I got the washing done at
last, and Mrs. Smith rinsed and blued the clothes and hung part of them
up on a line and part she spread on the grass to bleach. My clothes
looked surprised as they never found themselves in such a place before,
laying on nice clean grass with the hot sun blazing down on them. They
seemed sort of happy, and they took such odd positions that I looked at
them in wonder, hardly knowing my old friends. But they got whiter and
whiter, and we gathered them in when the dusk come and they smelled so
sweet, that I am sure I will have to carry clean thoughts for the rest
of the week.
Mrs. Smith lets me gather the vegetables for dinner. Every morning after
the dishes are washed, I go across the road to the garden and pick the
string-beans and gather summer squash and grub around the nice smelly
earth for potatoes. I get the dirt all under my finger nails, and can
just see the duchess at Gimble's who manicures me, when she takes my
lily-white hands in hers next time. I pick the cucumbers from the
vines, and I never in all my life saw such big tomatoes. Then we come
down the path, Billy carrying a cucumber in each hand, because they
don't break if he drops them, and Paul with a summer squash swinging by
the neck, and me with my apron piled full of things that smell of the
vines.
There is nothing to drink up here, and I don't miss it and I don't bring
cigarettes with me. My friends think it ain't nice to smoke, and I would
not hurt them for worlds. Their friendship and the love they show me is
worth more than all the drinks or smokes in little old New York. Why, I
would give up anything just to see the look in their faces when they
meet me at the station, and I know they really want me to come.
It rained yesterday, not a dull, drizzling rain like we have in the
City, but a happy "I am good for you" rain, that washed old mother
earth's face and left quiet gray shadows on the lake. I never thought I
could think a rain was pretty, but yesterday it was just beautiful as
it came down slantwise on the water. We heard it coming long before it
got to us, sounded just like the patter patter of soft footed things on
a chifon carpet, and way across the lake we could see a blue-gray wall
that come nearer and nearer till it got to us. Then when the rain was
finished, the lake looked like a dull looking glass with every leaf and
tree showing in its face. The birds began to call to one another again,
and the robbins came out on the lawn looking for worms. There is one
saucy robbin who comes toward me and cocks his little head and says, "Am
I not a little dandy? Do I not hold myself as a gentleman should?" Then
he finds a big fat worm and pulls and tugs until he gets him loose and
flies away to his wife and babies because, although his vest is far too
gay for a person who is the main support, quite likely of a large and
growing family, he don't seem to have the air of a bachelor. There is a
loon at the other end of the lake that laughs just like a person, and
twice I have seen a big bird walking around on the edge of the water
that Mr. Smith says is a blue heron. When we go up into the woods,
little red lizzards with gold spots run across the path, and the babies
try to get them. I have been fishing twice, but I won't do it no more,
as I can't bear to take the hooks out of the fish's mouth, so when the
others go I will stay on shore and watch the funny water-bugs that make
such big jumps. If we could jump like them, one good hop would take us
from 14th Street to the Grand Central, and there would be no use for the
subway.
I just live out-of-doors, setting on the veranda watching the mist rise
over the lake, or, when I am not helping Mrs. Smith, spending long hours
lying flat on my back looking up at the sky and wondering if there is
some path for me, and if I will ever find it. I think it is good to get
close to the ground, and I tell it all my secrets. It gives me strength,
and a sort of hope I never had before.
Oh, Kate, I am so happy here! You know I have been hungry all these
years and didn't know it, just hungry for friends. I wanted love that
you didn't have to watch, and these people give it to me. They show me
that they want me and I have a part in their life, eat the things they
eat and hear their home talk and am just one of them. You know I never
tasted food, no matter how much it cost, that tastes so good as it does
out here. It ain't just the things, if you got lots of money you can buy
them, but it is the something that goes with the "why, come right in,
you are in time for dinner." If it was only potatoes and salt, the way
they offer it to you makes it better than a dinner party at Martin's. In
the afternoon, we have tea and bread and butter and preserves that Mrs.
Smith has made herself. She is English you know, and says she could not
go without her afternoon tea any more than she could go without her
breakfast. And we set and talk and laugh and I feel as if there was such
a thing as windows in one's soul, mine are all open to the sunlight for
the first time.
Good night, Kate dear. Do I seem sort of stupid to you? I know you
wouldn't like it here, as it is too far from Broadway, but I love it!
We have been out on the water all evening, each sitting in our end of
the boat with a lot of pillows at our back and looking at the moon. You
know I never seemed to have known the moon before, he is a new friend
that I have made at Lake Rest, and life will never be quite the same now
I have known him. He makes me dream and I plan such a happy future for
you and me and Billy, and when I look at him there is nothing but rose
leaves in life. But--well--it is a new moon now, I wonder what the old
moon will say.
Lovingly,
_Nan_.