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 assures me that the store room will be large enough for a quantity 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.
We are filled with admiration for you that you should have thought of a garden. Have you looked into the matter of chickens? I remember when we have boarded in the country chickens were what we and all the other boarders clamored for. I want to have fried chicken on my menu that I am to learn to cook, but they are so terribly high now in town that I shall have to put in a substitute and learn how to fry chickens when they get cheaper, which they will surely do later on.
Dear Cousin Lizzie, who has been kindness itself, is to take us to her home after this week, where we will stay until we go to the mountains. It is so good of her to go with us. I just know she hates it and we must all of us try to make things as easy for her as possible. Will the cabin be comfortable? When the other things are freighted, I am going to send a little iron bed with a good mattress, also an easy chair for her to be comfortable in.
Please remember me to Mr. Tinsley. All the girls send messages to both of you.
I am writing this on the steamer but expect to mail it at Bermuda. You are in my thoughts every moment, but my dreams of you are so sweet and peaceful that somehow I feel that you are all right. I know you are anxious about your beloved father and I am very happy to tell you that he is much better. It seems that every day puts new life in him. At first he lay so quiet and slept so much that a strange dread filled my heart. The young surgeon on board, who is a friend of Dr. Wright, assured me that sleep was the best thing for him, but while he slept, I would get so lonely that I could hardly stand it. I had time to think much of what a poor wife I have been to him and foolish mother to all of you. I have not worried him with my grievance against myself, however, and I am not going to worry you, but am going to be less selfish with him and may even be stricter with you. He lets me wait on him now and he thinks it is a great joke to lie still and ask me to bring water or to fill his pipe or do something equally easy.