Glencarlyn, Va.
Nov. 27, '06My dear Jennie:
[Note at the margin of the following paragraph: "I don't mean that high school and college brains compare, but some girls can get so much out of high school as others can out of college. I made in [sic] broad enough to include all girls."]
Time has just gone a-flying this fall. There have been so many more things to do than I have found time to see to, that I feel that very little has been accomplished after all. It has certainly been a rest to be out of school - still I am very much inclined to take up some sort of studying next year. Simmons College looks attractive when in book form - still I have always felt that one ought to be able to acquire the domestic arts through absorbtion, if she had the brains that an ordinary high school or college graduate ought to have. At any rate I think that I'll have to take some French and German after Christmas. Leland sent me a text book of French, written by the language professor at "Stevens", for my birthday. Both he and Mother think it would be nice for me to study French as it will be useful, they feel sure, to me later. As for me, I should like to know Latin, but the rut comes when I have to study it. I should like to read some German classics with Miss Rupli - I could read a certain amount between lessons and then get her to help me with hard parts, or listen to me "tell the story". That's inclose in quotation marks because it's a phrase that I've known and trembled at for so many long years.
As Will is going to Rochester to spend Thanks giving, John will be alone. Last evening we packed a box for him. There was a pair of running shoes which he wanted very much, a large box of crackers with peanuts and frosting between from Constance, about two pounds of fudge from Jamie, and a pound of old fashioned stick candies - the kind that come in tin boxes and are all flavors[.] Auntie wanted to make something but didn't have time so she got some figs and dates and packed a lunch box just as stuffed full as it would hold. She labled it Hunda [?] plum pudding to go with the dinner I sent him. Susan had a real cute little market basket about 6 in. long x 4 in. wide x 4 in. deep with a cover on it. I got a cardboard turkey the other day and a lot of little candies. I had one paper bag of tiny red candies for cranberries, another bag had salted peanuts in it for beans another some round clear candies with white stripes around for onions. Another bag was bursting open with nut meats for nuts and still another had candied cherries, for rosy apples in it. I spent most of yesterday afternoon making some little cardboard cans. We fixed them with rubber bands so that John could open the bottoms. There was a can of Campbell's Soup with "6 plates for ten cents" and "Just add hot water and serve" on the outside, then another was highly decorated with vermillion red tomatoes and grass green leaves - still a third was a can of corn with some good looking ears on the outside - on the inside, the cans and turkey were stuffed with the little round candies that I had gotten. Just for effect I made some rather poor paper celery. It was green however and the color was all that counted. A tag addressed the market basket to John from the "Plant Market." All the chins of the box to John were filled up with Grandma's donation - oranges. If he isn't happy when he opens that box - why he ought to be ashamed of himself.
We had to wait for Auntie's "plum pudding" quite a while. As Jamie and I had nothing to do and saw a large advertisment [sic] surrounded with twenty turkeys about three inches in diameter, and another advertisment surrounded with fourteen turkeys about an inch in diameter, we thought we would cut them out for exterior decoration so we did - and we pasted them on that box good and hard. I dont believe you could have rubbed them all off if you had scraped systemmatically [sic] for an hour. The card with the address was beautifully bordered with small ones. All the small ones were on top and six large ones. There were three large ones on each side, and two on the bottom of the box. Susan thinks the box will be mobed [sic] and raided long before it gets there, but probably the expressmen are used to such things and wont pay any attention to them.
Saturday I went over to your house to practice a Thanksgiving hymn. Ella was canning cranberries and had a cake mixed partly and I think there were several other things going on too. They told me they were getting off a box to you, but they might as well have saved their breath - that was self evident. I asked Ella if she was going to make candy. "Oh yes - after the cake was in." Then I asked about salted nuts "Well I hope to be able to salt some almonds this afternoon. I want to make some beaten biscuit too if I have the time" At this juncture I beat a hasty retreat, my mouth was beginning to water all ready an d I expected that I would be of no possible assistance as they expected to send you a regular grocery store minus the turkeys without my help. By the way Mrs Curtis, Dr Backus' sister had a boy at Cornell once upon a time, and she sent him a roast turkey for our Thanksgiving. He asked all his friends in (both girls and boys.[)] All the invited ones wore small hatchets so as to assist Mr Curtis in the carving. There wasn't any table big enough for so large a number of guests so they spread a cloth (I wonder where they got it, perhaps it was added as the story grew from one person to another) on the floor and all feasted on turkey. Wasn't that Jolly? If John asks very many to help him eat his dinner, there wont be much left for himself, as the dinner is only a dinner for one (or two)[.]
Three weeks from tomorrow and you'll be home! Well I said that the time has just flown. My Christmas presents were all going to be made long ago and I was going to leave the last two or three weeks to help Susan in. But alas! I have as much to do as ever.
Mrs Lane was to come out on the two o'clock train but didn't. I went down however and came up as soon as the train had gone, before I had gotten halfway from the station to our steps a spark dropped from the train had spread to about the size of our sitting room. I stayed down on our bridge and watched the fire awhile[.] It was in that little place bounded by the stream and railroad track. In about five minutes half of the space was burned over. Mr Schackelford came down in all the dense smoke and gallantly stamped out the fire by the steps and our bridge. I never realized how powerful a fire in the grass, like that, could get.
The news column is rather slim so you will have to excuse the display of the almighty ego in the first part. There is some news however (I expect you have heard it all before, but I'm going to tell you just the same) 1. Constance has received her appointment. She is to begin next Monday and have an afternoon school during Dec. In January she will have a morning school and will have to board in town as she can't get in in time. The Tyler building, where she is, is over near Annacostia [sic], so she is quite convenient to the Davenport's. She has a first grade and a very bare N.E. room, so all her ferns will come in handy. She has been in every school day since last Wednesday, when she got her appointment.
2. The missionary meeting was up here last Saturday. Mother and Mrs Truesdell (the lady whose cabin we had our summer at Bluemont) went in. They certainly did enjoy the informal talk and little service. We have learned a lot all ready, so we have gotten something out of it if we never have another meeting. The next is to be at May's.
3. Mrs Walter Jones has gone to New York and will go right into the city when she returns. Mrs Gomes has a very pretty flat about opposite the Y.M.C.A. on "7" st. and has gone in.
4. Cousin Mary Stocking teaches dress-making and millinery at the Y.W.C.A. and Aunt Sarah has given me a course in either I wish, starting the first of December, for a Christmas present. Which would you take?
Well as I have to write Thanksgiving letters to John and Leland I guess I'd better start them, so good by from
Yours most sincerely Margaret Plant.
I hope that you are having beautiful weather and a joyful holiday. M.M.P.