Sunday [Jun 30, 1918]
I don't believe I'll ask you down here this summer for you'd hate the weather. It's hot and sticky and every time I move out doors I have a feeling that I'm on the point of dissolving completely. Except for a constant general moist feeling, however, I'm still present. But things don't dry nicely over night so you wake up in a moist condition and feel around for clammy clothes and go out into a wet morning and your feet grow larger by the minute. By night you feel tempted to sit around in your stocking feet. Instead, however, you go to see "Heart's of the World", a movie of the present war, for which you have to pay $1. a seat. You aren't interested in movies but I'll send you the program because it's interesting. [If she sent it in this letter, Abby did not return it to the envelope.] Of course there is a lot of the usual movie melodrama and the scenes in the trenches are horrible and there are some reels showing the German dugouts of officers filled with dancers from Berlin that come close to, - or to my mind rather go beyond the point of decency in a public exhibition. The treatment of the heroine by one of the German officers was beastly enough to convey all that those tales of "Officially Pregnant" would suggest and I was relieved to stop where we did. The guns & advances and retreats, liquid fire, gas attacks, hand grenades, etc. were splendid The music, as in the "Birth of a Nation" was especially adapted for the picture. One of the strains that came in at intervals was from the music we heard last Easter at Carnegie hall. I can't place it exactly but I know that's where I heard it.
I was going to tell you about my room, wasn't I? In the first place it's a large parlor, must be 16x16x16 at least. Mrs. Keiser, who has the apartment is a "decayed" gentlewoman who works in a store all day and hasn't Powell & O'Malley's knowledge of the things that are essential for lodgers. Consequently I have a large book case full of family books, three large vases, a multitude of gilt framed pictures - Romeo & Juliet, landscapes, awful dogs, - two small tables, one of them an old fashioned washstand with a china bowl under the cover which lifts up, a marble fireplace with a fire screen with a peacock on it, two rocking chairs and some straight backs, old fashion with leather seats, a spinning wheel, a large mirror, a tiny chest with three small drawers in it and a homemade ward robe née large packing box. It reaches just to my shoulder and my dresses have to be bent at the waist in order to get in, while I have to stand on my head to get anything out. This box has been covered with white dimity as to sides and a large doily as to top. Fortunately my trunk is convenient to use. There is no closets.
Another drawback is the fact that Mrs. Keiser's room and mine connect by folding doors. In order that she may have some ventilation the doors are open 1 1/2 - 2 feet and an entirely transparent set of curtains hangs over the opening. In order to get to the bathroom I pass through the absolute middle of her room, through the kitchen and through a curtained off corder of Dr. Newell's room. That would seem uncomfortable but we live in such absolute disregard for usual convention that it doesn't trouble me at all. Dr. Newell's room opens into a porch and she calmly hooks the screen door and goes to bed regardless of any people passing by on the street. One of my two windows opens onto the general front porch but I keep the bottom shutters together and leave that window down from the top all the time.
Fortunately the prevailing summer winds are from the south and both windows face that direction so I have a breeze most of the time. Really I'm very comfortable and enjoy the room but I'd so much rather have a closet than a spinning wheel! However, Mrs. Keiser feared I'd never stay because of the inconvenience of getting to the bathroom, etc., so that she didn't like to lay out money for useless things so I'm going to be patient and see if wardrobe, drawer space and a table suitable for a desk won't come in time. As it is now there isn't a place to put letters, papers, pencils, ink etc. It's really amusing.
I set up a series of Dr Noguchi's tests yesterday and thank the Lord they came out well. I was worried for fear that with the way we jumped from thing to thing at Rockefeller, I might be missing some important step. I did write down a protocol toward the last of being in New York that covered everything from inoculating rabbits to reading the tests but I've had a feeling that maybe I'd missed something I ought to know. Dr Graves comes back tomorrow.
We have been out to Cherokee park, the aristocratic part of Louisville. Gray Street is in the old part of the city, the part where old family mansions are becoming apartment houses. I believe Dr. Newell said it was just as well not to go in some localities near us, though I don't remember now how far away those are. Yesterday I cased an express bundle with an idea of getting it myself and I must say I'd not go through one set of streets again for a form - all negroes and terribly rough looking.
The streets in the town run from 1 to 10 east and west and then continue from 1st. as Brook, Floyd, etc. We live between 1st. and Brook. Our relation to the university medical school & the hospital is as follows:
So it's about a 5 minute walk to the hospital. Just at present there is a political row on in the hospital and city so the papers are full of "Poor Conditions at City Hospital," replies by the superintendent, etc., which make it it [sic] exciting to say the least. There seems to be no war here at all though I've seen practically no one where the subject might come up. Little Miss Peck, the bacteriologist, hopes for a telegram daily to start for New York to join her unit but it hasn't come yet. If you think of it, mention her name, Helen Peck to Dr. Welch and see what she says about her. She's a pretty, sweet little girl but the place here doesn't have enough work to keep her busy and she's terribly attractive to the internes, I judge, and she's crazy to start for France, so she isn't happy here.
I'll get your Sunday letter about next Thursday and I hope you'll be telling me about your new school. You'll have a good time - but it won't be exactly a vacation. Much love to you, dearie,