I am so sore I’ve got to give expression to my feelings. You see, the
truth of the matter is that I’ve been in the hospital five days with
bronchitis, and though I am practically better now I have just heard
that the doctor said I must stay eight more days. It will put me so much
behind my class that I am furious. It all started with a stomach ache
and high fever the day I arrived in Tours. They put me in the infirmary
two days and then sent me to the hospital. I was pretty sick the first
two days, but it’s all gone practically. My temperature is thirty-seven
degrees centigrade. But it is all bull. I shall be 2,000 meters in the
air when you receive this. So it will be the height of folly to think of
worrying.
Tours is a pretty town on the river Loire, and I am waiting to go for a
swim the first time my nurse takes me for a walk. They have not brought
in my suitcase yet, so I must still use this paper. I have a number of
sketches to finish up when the suitcase comes. Also it contains my
books. This is a good place to study French. One of the men here was in
Salonica two years and now has been in the hospital eleven months with
colonial fever. Another cannot talk above a whisper. They are all
generous and all think every American is deathly rich. One of the
fellows set up a box of _petits gâteaux_ (French pastry), and I passed
it around. As these cakes are a rare delicacy and considered quite dear,
each man had to be pressed to take one. There is an English-speaking
nurse here with a face like a blighted turnip. There is a gentle old
Catholic Sister with great white wings on her hat, who is wonderful. She
speaks only French, but she smiles in every language. I am getting a
profound respect for the Catholic church.
Well, my suitcase came today and I am all cleaned up. I’ve finished two
letters that were started, so guess I’ll close this one with love.