Westwood, Mass.,
Apr. 25, 1906,Dear Lucy:-
You are pretty good natured to write to me again, and I only hope that you will answer this letter too. No, I haven't been sick, but very much unsettled. I couldn't get a school last fall; to tell the truth I didn't try very hard, for I made up my mind that I didn't want to teach. Finally in September I came to Boston to see about getting a place in a private family as tutor or governess. Almost at once I got this place and came to it about the middle of September. But I am neither a tutor nor a governess, although I was hired for the latter position. My boy is ten and an
ainvalid who reads out loud for a few minutes a day, writes a little and does number work when he feels like it. You can understand why I have felt unsettled. I have been on the point of leaving several times, but I am fond of the little fellow and rather hated to leave him. However I plucked up courage to give my notice a month ago and have been planning to go home. But now they want me to stay until the middle of June, anyway. I haven't been home since the middle of last July to stay more than a day or two at a time, and I am terribly homesick.At first I liked the life, for it did seem rather good to go to bed early with no thoughts on
themy mind of essays to be written in the morning. But that has worn off and I am getting impatient for more to do. I am going to try my best for a school, but I am pretty well discouraged along that line.Apr. 28, My pen went dry and there was no ink in the house. We have to get our necessaries once a month from Boston and sometimes we don't calculate right.
The country here is beautiful now with the maples just budding and the tulips and daffodils in bloom. But it isn't as pretty as So. Hadley. Where is Addie now? I suppose that she finished up at the end of last semester. I wonder if she is teaching.
What are you teaching? Did you get what you wanted or are you having to teach anything the principal can't teach?
Just now I am working through arithmetic with the idea that I may have to take examinations somewhere. I am studying American Literature also, for Mr. Loring has a fine library I should like to spend some time studying in the new library at Mount Holyoke. I am going to spend a week in So. Hadley this summer with Mrs. Mellen, so that I shall view the buildings again from the outside anyway.
I also intend to visit the Baker's in Templeton - just a call, you know - and if I do I shall try to look you up. I wish you could plan to come to Greenfield for a little visit this summer. It isn't very far from Templeton and I am sure I could give you a good time. I am afraid Miss Weed wouldn't think that last sentence exactly correct in form.
My little niece wrote me a letter last winter and I wrote to her mother and said that I enjoyed it very much and wanted her to write another. But I neglected to answer it, and she informed her mother that she guessed "Aunt Marrie didn't like that letter as much as she said she did or she would have answered it." Now please don't think that "I didn't like your letter." I didn't write because I felt that I was doing the sort of work which was rather out of my sphere and I was ashamed of it. I am neither a governess nor a tutor but just a plain nurse waiting on a rather imperious young branch of the aristocracy. I am in an inferior position and I was waiting until I got out of it before I told my friends of my whereabouts. That is why I didn't send in a class letter; I was ashamed of the work.
So pleas answer when you have time and tell me about your work.
With love,
Marian