Tougaloo University
Tougaloo, Miss.
Apr. 15. 1906.Dear family,
I wonder what kind of an Easter Sunday you are having. As for weather and flowers and birds nothing could improve on Tougaloo today. The Cherokees are in full bloom and the church was decorated with them and with long-stemmed pink ones from the campus.
Did those Cherokee roots that I sent you get there in good condition. I suppose it is too soon to know whether they are going to grow or not. You are not forgetting the Crimson Rambler and the grape-vine that I layered last fall, are you? I should think they might be cut off and set out now.
How is Orlo? [Susie's sister Mary's husband] Your letter and Ruth's were rather indefinite as to date so I don't know whether it is time for the boys to be coming down with them or not. I suppose of course you will have them, they being a favorite disease of yours. If school closes a week or two earlier I would drop out Commencement, and go home and help you keep the boys in bed a few days. I don't see why it isn't a good time for them to have the measles if you can get help. It seems to me much better than to have them when they are busy men, as George Harvey and Orlo did. I suppose Earnest has never forgiven me for giving them to him, but he ought to thank me.
School closes May twenty-third, and the favorite topic of conversation among teachers is what route to take home, and among students where they can get a job for the summer. Do you want me to come straight home?
Justitia ought to have a dog like Rover and a telephone. I don't see that the much-maligned South is any less respectful of the law than my own state.
Stone Cottage gave me a chocolate cake on my thirty-second birthday. It contained a ring, a thimble and a tiny black doll. The person who got the ring is to be married within a year, the one who had the thimble is to work for a living, and the one who got the doll to return to Tougaloo next year. The ring went to Grace Wild, the thimble to Mr. Wild and the doll to me.
I have three butterflies for George M., none of which I caught in the net. Dr. Woodworth says that no butterfly would be caught in such a highly colored net (it is bright yellow) but I argue that they are attracted by bright flowers, etc, etc.
Miss Miller - fourth-grade teacher is very sick at the hospital with heart trouble. The doctor says she is liable to die any minute. She has been very gritty about keeping at work till the last possible moment.
I had birthday letters from George, Ida, George, Donald and Clement. George II told me how he took a "barth" by falling into the brook.
Clarence W. has two pet rabbits that he simply worships. They eat all the time, like ducks. The boys must have some when they get a little older, just before the goat stage you know.
Yesterday I went to Jackson, with eleven others. My chief purchase was goods for a skirt, as I have nothing in that line fit to wear home. I shall have to make it myself, but there is no pleasure in serving twenty minutes and then going to hear some body rehearse, then a few minutes more, and having some melancholy girl come in and say "Miss Losson, I jis' nachel-bawn caint do this example", then a few minutes more, and another come with "Please fine me a piece to speak, please mam."
I am going to write to Harvey and George, so I'll stop.
I hope the measles will come out all right.
With love.
Susie.