Dear Carrie:I was awfully glad to hear from you and know what you are doing. It was a shame that you were not able to come back to college; I hope you can come back next year. But you must enjoy being at home, especially when all three of you girls are there.
I have seen Mary several times this fall. One afternoon I went to South Hadley without telling her beforehand, and I just saw a minute before a recitation, and she decided to cut. She and Miriam and Edith and her roommate came up here one day before Thanksgiving. They called on all their friends, and we all met at Orlana Ranney's for tea. Friday night Heinrich Conried of the Irving Place Theatre, New York, brought a company of German players here to give Grillparzer's Medea in German, and as I was on my way out some one spoke to me and seemed very glad to see me, but I didn't know who it was. It was Miriam Fifield, and I knew her face all right, but couldn't think of her name to save me. Quite a party of Holyoke girls came over to see the play. It certainly was splendid.
I am rejoicing now because there is only a little over a week more to the Christmas holidays, and I am very busy getting ready for Christmas. I want to sew all the time, but I have a few other things which have to be done. I went home Thanksgiving and had a lovely time, only three days was all too short. Our family were [sic] all at home, the first time we have eaten Thanksgiving dinner together for several years.
I don't know whether you know that I have changed my room again this year[.] Helen and I have two little rooms in the Wesley House. The Wesley House is up next to the Haven House, and is an annex to that, and under Miss Pinkerton's charge. The girls here eat in Haven, but Helen and I take our meals where we did last year. Our rooms are very cosy; we have one for a study & the other for a bedroom, and we get all the advantage of being on campus except eating. We have a new college physician this year and as they thought our rooms in the Tenney House could be fixed up very well for her, we were transported. Miss Eastman came to the Wesley with us, and Louise DeForest went to Chapin House.
I felt quite heartbroken at first to give up our big room and closet, but now we are quite reconciled.
Marion Webster is here this year, you know, so there are four girls in Smith who have to maintain the reputation of Pinkerton Academy.
I see the Derry News and Enterprise every week, and keep posted pretty well on Derry doings. Have you visited P. A. this fall? I wonder if they are to have a fair the last night of the term as last year. I don't know as I shall ever go to Derry again. There are so few left in the Academy that I know and I feel so out of place and aged. Oh, no, of course, I would go back to see Miss Parsons.
Flossie Cutler made quite a long visit in the West, didn't she? I wish she would write and tell me something about it. I wonder if Helen is as busy making pretty things for later use as Babe is. When is she going to be married? I expect Babe will be married before a year. She is getting her "love chest" pretty well filled.
Give my love to Mary and Helen and I hope you will write again before long.
Yours lovingly
Elizabeth H. ThompsonWesley House
Northampton, Mass.
Dec. 9, 1906.