Dear Mamma:-I have just come in from a trip down to City Point with Miss Brown. She invited me to dinner at her house, and then we went down there. The air was fine. I hope you sat out a little while on the piazza. Ask Miss Butterfield to help you out there, for that is what you pay her for. You wouldn't have to stay longer than you wished to, but the air now will be real spring-like some days and good for you, I think. Mrs. Howes used to sit on Mrs. Johnson's piazza a great deal. You could put a scarf over your head, or your hat on, just as you preferred. It is time for straw hats now. I saw several today! And your fur cape with the steamer rug would be just the thing.
I found a letter from Miss Smith on the table as I came in. Someone must have been to the post-office. She is thinking seriously of going to Dr. Hooker's house next year, but has not decided. I do hope she will, and yet I don't want to urge her, for fear she might not like it. Her mother is much tired out, she says. She is there in South Hadley now and they are enjoying Peterson Lodge. She says Miss Ellis is still at Byron Smith's and well as far as she knows.
As I was walking over to Miss Brown's this noon I saw a man run to a fire-alarm box and ring in an alarm - and I at once saw the fire, a nice little on on the roof of a house. Of course I stayed right by and watched the apparatus come rushing up and the excitement generally. They put it out in no time, but I presume the water went down inside somewhat. The[y] used it only about two minutes and then finished up with the chemicals. The men scrambled right up the shingled roof in great style. They rushed rubber blankets inside the house to protect things there I suppose. The crowd gathered in no time. I never saw a whole fire so to speak, with the blaze right out in plain sight, in the city before, and I shouldn't have seen this if I hadn't taken an unusual route over just for variety. I was only a little late, and the dinner wasn't ready anyway.
Anna Yates is visiting some relatives in Brookline and yesterday I took her to the Mt. Holyoke Alumnae meeting. There was a play - but it wasn't anything great - and then a social time. Lots of people there whom I knew. Anna has been having tonsilitis [sic] and looks very badly, but I hope she will be better now. Three of the faculty were there, but no one whom you know, I think.
I don't seem to think of anything else of importance. Nothing much happens any how except work at the lab. I wrote to Mr. Nixon to have them tell the moth man where our land ends so that he wouldn't clear off Mrs. Underhill's trees and expect us to pay for them! I also suggested that the tenants might clip off the accessible nests with the shears we left, since they have the fruit.
With much love to you,
Abby.