Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
Dec. 14, 1899.My very dear Susie,
What a good time you must have had during your Thanksgiving recess! I hope you found a little rest amid your good times for by this time the strain of teaching must begin to tell on you. I suppose you are planning to go home at Christmas time. It isn't very far away now, as I know to my sorrow. There is so much to be done within the next ten days that I feel wild when I stop to think of it. Today Phebe Anna and I expected to go to the city to do some shopping, but Phebe did not feel well enough. Next Monday Josie Kear and I are going down to buy Christmas gifts for the Sunday School, and Phebe and I will have to go some day later for our personal shopping. Tomorrow morning a cousin from Chappaqua is coming to make a little visit. She will probably stay two days.
Tuesday night we had a church social here. About one hundred were present, many of them young people, and we had a delightful time.
Last week was truly a week of weddings. Two is more than I usually go to in a year. Mortimer did not have a very pleasant wedding day; the wind blew and the snow was flying some of the time. A large number of persons were invited and the church was jammed. We were so fortunate, however, as to be escorted beyond the white ribbon and placed with the near relatives of the bridegroom so we could see and hear perfectly. Irene was very composed, but Mortimer's voice trembled.
The reception which followed the ceremony was a family affair, almost none but relatives being present. Irene has hosts of relatives, and I think most of them must have come to grace the occasion.
There were beautiful gifts, as a great deal of solid silver and numbers of pictures, besides all sorts of other things too numerous to mention or describe.
Thursday we went to Emma's wedding. It was just a pretty little home wedding, perfectly managed, about fifty were present. The bride wore white silk and a veil. (Irene was married in her travelling dress.)
I came across more quotations the other day which I will give you for I know they will please you.
"Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best."
"True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice."Are they not good? David found them somewhere, I don't know where. Do you recognize the author? [John Webster for the first one, Ben Jonson for the second.]
I have been dismal lately, and feel very wicked when I think how much more I have to make me happy than many people and yet I persist in having "the blues." If I ever get to work again at teaching I know I shall be happy. It is what I need, I pine for it. And yet the
presentlife I am leading at present must be right for me. How I wish you were here to give me a hug!This is a beautiful day, and this afternoon I am going out calling. That will do me good. I know just where to go to find cheer. Perhaps other people would not think of going to those places for brightness, but I get the very best sort. One of the persons is a lady about mamma's age whose husband is dying slowly with cancer. She is in terrible trouble, but she is one of the most cheerful and lovely women you ever saw. You feel her beautiful spirit as soon as you approach her.
The other one on whom I shall call is an unmarried lady about fifty years old who is in delicate health and keeps home for her adopted father who is a very old man. She is lonely and sick much of the time, but she has the same beautiful spirit. I wish you knew them both.
Lovingly,
Gertrude