Christmas night.Dear Miss Turner
This morning quite a few cards, letters, etc. came thru the mail for me and among them was your letter. I had already received your lovely Christmas greeting so couldn't quite imagine what your letter could be about. A thrill went thru me and I tho't it must be something very nice, so I saved it till last so as to have the best part last.
I was completely dumfounded [sic] when I read "We haven't any Williston". I thought "What on earth is she talking about?" Then as I read further I almost cried; and all day I have been thinking about the fire and the things that have been lost and I just can't realize that they really are gone. It's just like trying to realize conditions in Europe!
All those slides! and all your slide cataloging! and the skeletons - the dogs and the cats and the sloth and the Martin collection, and the new skeleton with its full set of teeth! and then the chemicals and the books and the apparatus - and then the museum! It's too horrible. And Miss Morgan's summer collection.
Fortunately for me I didn't have much in my desk - just an apron and my lab outline and then a new pack of paper I had just brought two days before I came away, then my notes on the carrel. Dakin Method and Mrs. Rose's "Feeding the Family." The most valuable thing I had there was my last year's Physiology notebook over which I had spent many precious hours, and to which I had expected to refer very often after we began the work on Circulation, Respiration, etc. You see I haven't had a course in Digestion so hadn't used my note-book at all so far. Of course I feel sorry about losing that, but it is such a drop in the bucket that it doesn't disturb me much.
To think of that man saving that bookcase when he might have grabbed a bunch of microscopes! Wouldn't you like to wring his neck?
I know it's mean of me to be enumerating all these things and bringing it up fresh in your mind again. It must be awfully hard on you all who have worked in Williston for some time and know just what was there; and who have put so much into the place.
I didn't see anything in the Washington papers about the fire. I looked in yesterday's paper thoroughly after receiving your letter, but could not find the Sunday paper. It may have been in there.
Now, Miss Turner, if I am needed right away please let me know. I am perfectly willing to come at once and do what I can toward helping get started again. There must be lots of ordering & apparatus etc. to be done right away and I should like to help. I don't know what arrangements you have made, but let me know right away if I am needed. I shall be on the lookout for a telegram. If I don't receive one I shall not leave here till Tuesday night, a week - which would get me there Wednesday morning Jan. 2nd - if the train is on time.
My parcel-post package that I mailed that afternoon you and Mary went for evergreens arrived this morning. The one I mailed the following morning hasn't come yet. I suppose it will be here to-morrow. I think I shall have to send them right back in order to get them in time at South Hadley. I have been wearing my 14 yr. old sister's clothes - rather short!
Well, the best of luck in the work of reconstruction! I wish I had a millionaire uncle!
Won't Miss Clapp be heartbroken?