Wuchang, China
Your Birthday
Dearest Abby -
Just a line of greeting for old sake's sake and to wish you many more years of the peaceful pursuit of knowledge. Peace seems ultra-precious to us revolution-tossed folk.
You were a dear to send the girls those jolly cards with nice personal messages on them. They were greatly pleased and will write to you some day.
They are singularly little affected by these days of turmoil and uncertainty. We are having a little makeshift school here and they go about their daily routine busily and happily and quite unafraid. I am helping out in the school to the extent of two Latin classes. Boone opens to-day after the usual China New Year vacation. We are having a large number of applications, which doesn't render the situation any less ticklish, for if only a few agitators creep in we are done for, I fear.
The most encouraging feature of the present situation is that only day before yesterday the central government prevented the confiscation and demoralization of our hospital at the hands of some wild, lawless students. It is all the more significant as every hospital between Canton and here has been ruined and closed.
Our hope is that they will also be willing to protect Boone, especially since our wonderful Bp. Roots has made himself a persona grata to the central government.
Everard [her husband] is so stubbornly optimistic that we haven't even considered packing and planning to leave in spite of three consular injunctions. His courage and faith are an inspiration to me.
I know so little of you these days - or of anyone else of dear old '96. Elizabeth is my sole correspondent and I hear from her only at long intervals. I do hope you are well and happy.
I enclose a clipping for your edification. Sian is the city that endured a six-month siege. The missionaries loyally stood by and helped the inhabitants in many ways only to be turned upon and reviled as soon as the siege was raised. The apostasy of Feng is a great blow.
And here's a poem of anonymous authorship that is going around China
Dedicated to Whom it may Concern.
I'm sick of the Mongol and Tartar; I'm sick of the Jap and Malay
And faraway spots on the chart are no plays for yours truly to stay.
I've had enough under-sized chicken and milk that comes from a can;
The East is no region to stick in for this one particular man.
I'm weary of curry and rice all commingled with highly-spiced dope,
I'm weary of bathing with lysol and washing with carbolic soap.
I'm tired of itch, skin diseases, mosquitoes and vermin and flies;
I'm fed up on tropical breezes and sunshine that dazzles my eyes.
Oh Lord! for a wind with a tingle, an atmosphere zestful and keen!
Oh Lord! once again just to mingle with crowds that are white folks and clean!
To eat without fear of infection, to sleep without using a net,
And throw away all my collection of iodine, quinine, etc.
To know all the noise and the clamour, the hurry and fret of the West
I'd trade all the Orient glamor that damned lying poets suggest.
They sing of the East so enthralling - and that's why I started to roam,
But I hear the Occident calling - oh Lord but I want to go home!
With all the old-time love -
Lucy
[A second note was included with this letter.]
[Addressed to Mrs. Miller on the reverse]
Dear Mother;
You said that I could have a little something to eat every afternoon and since I was ravenously hungry and couldn't have any fruit I ordered a piece of toast and after I'd finished was taking the plate off my desk when my chair tripped over a fold in the rug and chair, plate and I fell over. Here is the plate. Please deduct the cost from my meager acct.
P.S. Father told me to write THIS NOTE.