Henrietta Edgecomb Hooker
South Hadley
Mass.My dear Abby Turner
It was a grief to me when I heard you had gone that I had not sought to find when you were going to congratulate you on doing it and to urge you to have a good time - some say "be good and you will be happy but you will have much fun" - I must copy you a scrap some body gave me = and don't get up too early mornings -
"Prone on my back I greet arriving day
a day no different than the one before
where I will be to practically say
considerable like I was the day before.
Then why get up? Why wash? Why eat? Why pray?
O leave me lay!I hadn't ought to want things different
to what transpires every single day
But I keep wishing that I could have went
From this heart-rendering dulness [sic] guile away
And yet, why move? There's always rent to pay!
Oh, Leave me lay!"Something is the matter with my pen or ink - It looks as if the pen, in my absence might have been dropped -
This summer has been a kind of nightmare as I look back upon it and not much different as I passed through I was not away one single whole day but strange to say I seem to my friends to look better than usual and I am well - Jane was gone five weeks and to hold her boarders for her I got a cook and a young maid and held the fort, having six men good fellows they were too, most of the time - college men in the employ of the National Blank Book Co. I like them but I hate work in the house - The cook had to have everything suggested to her in the menu and she was a trial. I had my garden and my hens and all this indoors work extra, will [sic] it seemed to do me no harm - every now and then I went over to the tower and uplifted myself. I would have been especially glad to go up with you - That tower is a wonderful acquisition! I took Joe Cochran and Carrie Olmstead Allen up yesterday[.]
This last week I have played, been to the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield nearly every day - went to Horse show the Cat Show - Dog Show - Cattle Show. And of course to the Poultry show where I had some hens - For the first time the Hens are added to the exhibit - Mine were so shabby in clothes just now I hated to send them but as I had been writing them for two yea[r]s asking why hens were not included in an agricultural exhibit and been informed this year they now had a new building for them - I felt obliged to dress and shine - Despite their shabbiness they one the "display" in their class by 4 points over the nearest competitor - and I got a blue ribbon on a Bantam pullet I raised this year. Childs Play - but I like it[.]
Lots of funny things, and nice things come about I'd like to talk them over with you -
I'll be down to Boston later and it will be fun to find you and so good of you to tell me where to find you[.]
I saw very little of the Clapps this summer - They were away a good deal and I was powerful busy -
Jane is very well. She went to the Deaconess Hospital in Brookline for 10 days and they told her her limitations in food and that hers was not a serious case of Diabetes and she really is better than for a long time - she has a wide diet range but no bread except Uneda biscuits no cereal but oats - saccharine of course, for sugar - she eats much more than she ever has - Dr Joslyn and his assistants seem to know what people ought to do to be well[.]
I am going to Brattleboro with the Lourdry Smiths's in their car and stay away all night the first since last January so I must go to bed - my pen evidently needs a rest somebody has used it badly I do not know any college news yet -
I'll write again someday - I was much touched by your letter and thank you for writing - Don't work too hard -
Affectionately,
Henrietta Edgecomb Hooker.