East Rochester, N. H.
Jan. 18, 1907.Dear Carrie,
My dear little Sunshine, how good you were to write me a second time before your first long letter was answered! Few of my friends have been forgiving enough to do that.
It is really the hardest part of myh life in the office that so little time is possible for letter-writing, and my friends little know how often I wish to write and cannot.
It is so good to know that you are better and able to be at home again. I hope you will gain very, very rapidly now.
The year has been very different from what you had planned, but you seem to have found the brightness in these experiences.
I could almost envy you your privileges in Boston. Trinity Church and the New Old South I know only through reading about them and seeing the outer building. I have a poem on Christian Science which would interest you, I think. It is too long for me to copy tonight but sometime I hope to send it to you.
Christmas Day I had five beautiful, precious hours with Mabel. It seemed a little strange and yet very pleasant to see her in her home. She is ideally happy in her husband's love and in the rich blessings that have come to Exeter people in Raymond's church. Eighty-five have felt the power and goodness of the Lord in a mighty and marvelous way and have yielded so blessedly and fully to Jesus' will for them.
The memory of that Christmas wish has made all the succeeding days happier, there was so much happiness crowded into those few hours.
Our office is now at East Rochester in the new factory of N. B. Thayer & Co. It is much pleasanter than the office in Milton. We have a large force of workers too, eight of us in the office alone. Five of us take our meals at one place, so we have come to be almost like a family.
I have a large and pleasant room quite different from my tiny one in Milton. The walls are covered with red roses climbing pale green trellises. I feel as if I ought to be very loving and very grateful for love whenever I look at my wallpaper. It has had that message for me from my first sight of the room.
When I have a fire I am very cozily comfortable and wish that my friends could be with me for a chat. If they were, I should blow out my light and put up the curtains and we would sit in the light from the electric street light outside my east window and in the warmer, flickering light from my fire. If you ever get so that you can eat beans, pork and hash and hot rolls I shall want you to spend a Sunday with me.
If my stomach were not much better than it used to be I could not get along, though my boarding-place is very good in many ways and the people are really remarkably generous.
Now I must go out and buy an alarm clock and post this letter. The new assistant bookkeeper has just taken the room next mind and it makes him to hear Mrs. Richards pound on the wall for me.
Write as often as you can, beloved and I will love you and try to send you thought messages even if I cannot often write them. I am really leading a busy life at last and am stronger than ever before though not a giantess yet.
With best wishes for God's blessing on all the days of the New Year for my dear heart,
Your loving friend,
Clara.