Gates Cottage,
Shelburne, N.H.
August 29, 1919Dear Mamma:-
I bought a little pad as I came through Gorham yesterday so I can write letters. I can't say Gates Cottage is very lively, for there isn't a soul here who ever walked anywhere - but some of the familiar people are here and I am glad to see them. Miss Gates is very kind and inquired at once for you. Mr. and Mrs. Dewey are up at their house in the pasture, and Mrs. Southwick is here of those we knew the year you were here. The others happen to be either strangers or else those here two years ago when Grace and I were here. Do you remember at Mrs. Lovell's Edna Sturtevant and Sue Pillsbury who roomed together and came from Somerville? Sue Pillsbury's mother and father are here in their machine with two other Somerville people, very pleasant. Several leave early next week. I have written to Jessee to know if it would be convenient for her to have me go there Wed. or Thurs. and stay until Sat, the 6th. I'm sorry to have this week such an idle one - but I can walk over to the mail and up Crag! I went up there this morning but a shower drove me down. There are showers all the time. I don't dare stir without my poncho. Just this minute I am up in the pasture where there is a seat, fairly high up, and the top of Washington is clear, the first time I have seen it since we were on Moosilauke, even though I have been on it. The sky looks as if there might be a fine day tomorrow, but one can't tell at all. Never mind, Grace and I had a fine time, much better than two years ago, and we got in quite a bit of tramping if not as much as we wished. I miss her very much.
I'm glad the thunder storm last Sunday did not spoil the garden. We had some corn today that was delicious, the first I've had since leaving South Hadley. I wonder how the lima beans are coming on. I think my kind does not have big pods. Miss Safford had better take a look at them. I'd like some this minute. And the melons may be coming on, though I don't know.
At the Ravine House there are the loveliest flower-beds, all pink and white. There is a fine sweet alyssum border around each, just white with blossoms, and then phlox Drummondii, the low kind, of pinks and reds in the middle of the small beds, and in the border against the house the same and taller pink things, gladioli, &c. The boxes on the rails are mostly pink petunias, and the whole effect is so lovely. The Randolph season is very short but they get things to grow somehow.
I'm glad you had the call from Flora and Laura, even if Walter could not come up. You have certainly seen a lot of the family this year - about all there are who could possibly come.
The train has come along which means that it is near supper time, so I'd better be going down to the house and getting washed up. I can't do much in the way of dressing up, but no one will mind here, I think.
With love to Miss Safford, and to you,
AbbyTell Miss Safford not to bother over the blankets. If I can get them, all right - if not, never mind. We slept under them at Lost River Cabin and while they are heavy and far from soft, they are warm, like that old Civil War blanket we used to have.