Kitty Barry 1908 [?], Mass. Aug. 8, 1901 Dear Kitty: Yours of July 26 from Porchester Terrace is at hand. I remember Mrs. Brown's kind & cordial hospitality, & am glad Aunt B. was able to take refuge with her when you were able & overtaken by that tropical thunderstorm in London. It was probably a visitation from South Africa. You could not have had a nicer place of shelter than that large, pleasant house. In your letter to Grace, written at the same time with the one to me, you mention that Aunt B. had gone to London to see the doctor about her hand, but you do not say how the hand is. Please tell me next time. Uncle Sam is reported still improving, though slowly. Aunt Nettie wrote to Grace, Aug. 2 : "Papa has now a lovely room to be sick in. We can get the air from every direction, as we like. Mosquitos & flies do get in through crevices in some mysterious way occasionally, but now that it is cooler they are less persistent. The baby's poor little legs have suffered in the past. We hope that is over in the main now ; but the small pests have been strongly in evidence for the past several weeks. The grounds here are very attractive, made so by large trees & pleasant shade. The foliage is very full & green for this season of the year ; & trees are the feature of East Orange." Agnes wrote to Grace, Aug. 3 : "Papa seems bright this morning. He enjoys the letters every morning. There is one from you, but as it is addressed to Mamma I have not yet opened it, & Mamma is now busy cutting Daddy's hair ; but that will come next. Clifford, Albert, Albert's brother & Harry all came over & sat on our steps, & Howard treated to ice-cream, night before last. With Tom added, they made a great crowd of boys, & Mamma & I enjoyed it. Howard went yesterday, & he feels quite like a spring lamb let loose for a frolic. (Howard has given up his position at the Electric Works, May (Brown) Bruno says, & is going back to Cambridge for a two years' course in something - she does not know what. A.S.B.) I wish he would go to Columbia next fall for a change. He would be near his family, & come in contact with a different lot of men & a different city, & it would do him good, I'm sure. Papa eats three of Uncle George's fresh eggs a day, & broth, & mush, & apple-sauce, & milk, & it all seems to agree with him ; & his temperature is normal & pulse all right, so I think he will get on. But he can't move about much, though he can now turn himself over. xx Daughter & Grandma are playing house on the veranda. Grandma is also reading. Miss Kipp goes for a little ride on my bicycle every day, & takes the best of care of Papa. She has been nursing for 6 years, & has been superintendent of nurses at the German hospital, & is one of Dr. Willy Meyer's pets. Papa sleeps all night. The sun is coming out, & I must fly about & finish my duties so as to meet Tom at 2 o'clock & dip ourselves in the Sound at Midland Beach this afternoon. He so thoroughly enjoys a dip that it is doubly enjoyed by me." Howard wrote a card to Papa, Aug. 3 : "7 A.M., Hartford, Conn. Dear Uncle Harry : Here I am, just leaving the boat from N.Y. after a delightful sail through the Sound & up the Conn. River. I shall spend the morning in visiting a power-station at Farmington, then go on to Gardner, via Palmer & the Ware River Road to Templeton, due there at 5.11 P.M. I left Uncle Sam improving. He enjoys letters, & has a fair appetite. Others all well." Emma writes to me, Aug. 4, from Gardner : " We expect to go to M.V. on the 8th. Then, if you are coming our way the next day, we shall probably be 'at home'. Howard came from E. Orange yesterday via Templeton. We drove there for him, & had a pleasant drive both ways. He reports that the doctor says Uncle Sam is doing well. I hope the doctor knows, but he is far from being a favorite of mine." Alfred Robinson writes to Grace, Aug. 5 : "Ethel & I expect to see you this week. We came back from Pleasantville yesterday, & Edith returned to E. Orange. This afternoon we have been out there, & find your father improving very slowly. Your mother seems to me better than at any time since her return from Chilmark." Ethel writes ; "We saw Papa to-day. He is getting on slowly. I am afraid he finds it exceedingly tedious." Edith has gone to Pope's Hill- is supposed to have arrived there to-day. She writes from E. Orange, Aug. 6 : "Papa improves very slowly. We hope that he can sit up in bed very soon, which will be less tiresome. It will be out of the question, I think, for him to get to the Vineyard this year. Baby Ethel has just had two little ready-made gingham dresses sent home to play in at M.V., & has been trying them on, & trotting in to show them to Grandpa with great glee. Papa has had his first uncooked fruit, a peach, which he enjoyed. His appetite is good. It is a cool rainy day. We have had rain & to spare in this vicinity--only two clear days while at Briarcliff." That is the latest news. Papa wrote the enclosed to Aunt B. to send in my last week's letter, but wrote it a day too late. Isn't it queer, a little before we went to the Yellowstone, he said he wished Aunt B. would write her reminiscences & publish them ; & when I told him she had already done so, & they were published in a book, he flatly denied it, declared he remembered nothing of it ; & when Dr. Putnam Jacobi afterwards spoke to him about "Pioneer Work", it was clear he did not in the least recall that there had ever been any such book! Down here I borrowed it from Floy, & he read it with interest, but it was to him as a book he had never seen before. EstherBarrows, Mrs. B's oldest daughter, who has a taste for biography, has been reading it, & told me she had hardly ever read anything so interesting--that she got so excited over the narrative, she found herself trembling all over, & presently shedding tears! And she is not at all a demonstrative person ; I never saw her cry over a book. She is a beautiful & unusually gifted girl, whose health has always been delicate ; & she has always wished she were a man, so that she could be a doctor. She says she shouldn't want to be a woman doctor. I don't think she altogether approves of women's doing unusual things. She is not a suffragist--has never thought much about it. I am glad you had the little visit from Paul, even though it were a short one. I am glad also to see by the papers that it was a [canard?] about the British government's having imprisoned Olive Schreiner. That would have been a stupid thing to do--not only a crime but a blunder. Papa generally has enough of the Vineyard in about a week, but this time he said he hated to go back. However, he writes that it is very pleasant to get home. He made almost constant excursions while here, & I was kept busy accompanying him. I brought down here with me a lot of work which must be done, & I have hardly managed to get at it at all, as yet--partly laziness, partly lack of system, partly so many distractions ; but mainly pure shirking--putting off what is disagreeable. That is my besetting sin--one of them. I kept saying I must buckle to, & not doing it. Did I tell you that we went berrying, & that in about 2 1/2 hours three of us picked 42 quarts? I never saw such an amazing crop of blueberries & huckleberries as there is this year on the plains between here & Edgartown--berries as big as grapes, & as thick--really I am at a loss for a comparison. I wish I could send some to you and Aunt B. We hope you are now at Tunsbridge Wells and that Aunt Emily will join you about the time you get this letter. Yours affectionately Alice S. Blackwell