You don't know how we appreciate your kindness in going up to the mountains and working so hard for us. We feel as though we could never repay you and Mr. Tinsley for your kindness. Everything you have to say about the camp sounds delightful. As for your butting in--you know you couldn't do that. If you think Josh and the little English girl would be good ones to have for the Week-End Boarding Camp, why you just engage them. We are so inexperienced that sometimes I think we are perfectly crazy to undertake this thing, but then I think if the boarders don't like our ways they don't have to stay, and certainly one week-end would not kill them. They don't have to come back, either.
Nan's funny ads have called forth all kinds of replies and already we have many applications for board. One woman wants us to take care of her six children as she wants to go to the war zone as Red Cross nurse. We had to turn that down as Bobby will be about all we can manage in the way of kids. She only wanted to pay two full boards for the six children as she declared their ages aggregated only thirty-seven, which would not be as much as two full grown persons.
Some of our school friends are eager to go, and as Cousin Lizzie has a reputation for being a very strict chaperone, their mothers are willing. Mr. Lane and Dick, the two young men in Father's office, are both coming up when they can and they are going to send us some of their friends.
While you have been working so hard, we, too, have not been idle. Of course, school has kept me very busy as I am anxious to take my exams and make all the points I can for college, whether I am to go next year or not. Helen has decided that her schooling just now is of very little importance since she has no idea of going in for college, so she has simply quit; but she is very busy, busier than any of us perhaps. She is learning all the cooking that our cook can teach her in the few days she is to be with us, and she has also joined a domestic science class at the Y. W. C. A. and has added jelly roll and chocolate pie to her list of culinary accomplishments.
Dr. Wright made a splendid suggestion: that each one of us learns to cook a meal, a different menu for each girl. If we do that, we can change about and give the boarders some variety, and then the responsibility would not rest too heavily on any one of us. Nan and I are trying it and on Saturday I am to serve the family a dinner under cook's directions. Helen, of course, scorns Dr. Wright's suggestion and Lucy says she won't learn anything Helen won't. Susan, this housegirl who is to go with us, cannot cook at all, but we are to have her wash the dishes and make up beds, or cots, and set the tables, etc. Oscar will wait on the table and help with the dishes.