Here's the editor of your household department snuggly settled in a pool for the night ride from Illinois to Nebraska. The children packed their suitcase and moved up to grandma's this afternoon as delighted over their trip of a quarter-mile is I am of mine of several hundred miles. It was after dark in the heavy spring chili spring, light rain was falling when daddy took me to the train. As the train speeds on through fog and rain I could see the lights of villages and farm houses and I wonder how many of you readers I am passing on the way.
Later in the night, I woke and looked out the window just as we crossed the Mississippi choked with ice. At daybreak we were at Council Bluffs where the rough and rolling country seems strange after our level prairies. On through Omaha we went and reached Lincoln at mid morning of a delightful, mild and sunny day.
Farming seems to be about the same here as it is at home. Lots of corn and lots of wheat, lots of livestock grazing in the fields where the corn has been picked. The landscapes are beautiful in this part of the country, even at the dullest of seasons. The country is rolling enough to be interesting and there is a thrilling spaciousness about it all. I've just walked from the hotel to Miss Mary Ellen Brown, state leader in the extension service, and she urges me to hurry out to the campus where there is a particularly interesting session going on. So we go by street car out to the edge of town where the agricultural college is located in a beautiful setting. The larger part of the university is located downtown but the agricultural college is on a separate tract of land. It is something like our Illinois campus – a big, friendly place with plenty of room between the buildings and no crowding out of the outspread natural panorama. The older buildings are red brick, and the newer ones are cream colored
Pay Rich Rewards
It is "Organized Agriculture Week" and all sorts of farm and home organizations unite in the programs. There are interesting programs scheduled in all phases of animal, husbandry and dairying and poultry and crops, but no one person can take them all in. So we are limited to the woman's home economic section. That meeting is being held in the big new college activity building. As the day goes by I'll try to tell you a little bit of what is going on in this big gathering of women. Some of them have come from parts of Nebraska as far as from Lincoln, as my home is. Some of them come from grain and livestock and dairy farms, some from enormous ranches of grazing country, but all of them are friendly and neighborly. If any of you have the chance to attend your state "farmers week" or whatever it may be called, try to take advantage of it. I do not know of any other kind of meeting that pays richer rewards for the time and money spent. And now I'm at the campus with the girls of the extension staff all busy helping us latecomers to register and helping us get in touch with the officials in charge to the program, and from now on the day will be so busy that I can't write anymore.
Shares After Christmas Letters
I want to share with you, some amusing and affectionate letters from grandparents and aunties, and cousins that came in the mail just before I left home. They are like the letters of the rest of you are getting nowadays if you are scattered from your people as the aftermath of Christmas. Sometimes I think the very sweetest part of Christmas is the time of the thank you letters, carrying the fragrance of the season into the new year.
My dear granddaughter, we received a nice Christmas box some days ago. Should've answered sooner, but your grandmother was in bed with a sick headache and I had to do the housework, keeping up the fires and act as a trained nurse, besides answering the doorbell and telephone and entertaining callers so I am behind with our correspondence. I really ought to do this on the typewriter, but ours is so poor I don't seem to know how to spell, so maybe you can make out to read this poor hand. Grandma is better today and down by the fireplace but I still carry up the coal.
Had Enjoyable Christmas
We had a real nice Christmas. Uncle Hugh and Aunt Carrie brought a Christmas tree and strings of little electric lights. The boxes were laid at the root of it, and Uncle Hugh picked them up one at a time and called out the names, and I had to pass them down to the ladies present, Uncle Hugh's wife and her ma. I cannot tell you all they got, for if I could reember it would take me so long that you would not get this till the middle of summer. I got a book called "Oh Professor, How Could You", by Harry Leon Wilson, and Carrie gave me a styptic pencil which she said was good to use on my face in case I cut myself with the razor. It would stop the blood and heal the cut, but she said she cut her thumb and tried it on that, but it did not stop the blood, so I am still going to be careful when I shave. My family all join me in many thanks for the nice things you sent in the box -- all original and hand-made, wishing you many happy returns of the day.
Uncle Hugh and myself divided the bag of candy and apples, which were nice indeed, and I especially want to thank you for the nice long string around the box. I saved every bit of it, six and a quarter yards of it. I rolled it into a nice ball and put it in the "string box," and if grandma does not find it maybe we will send it back to you around another Christmas box. We also got your nice letter telling of your presents. We are always glad to get your nice letters. We always like to hear from you, of your studies in the school and in your music and your theatricals. We also enjoy a word of your father and mother and of those darling boys. Don't forget to put in a hint of their daring escapades. Tell us of your father's problems and your mother's career, and of your grandparents on the other side, and of Uncle Will and Aunt Minnie, and Bobby and his folks. Tells us how many pigs and calves and chickens and cats you have. We would also like to know something of your ambitions; what you wish to do when you get big. We are sending your mother a box by parcel post that she will smack her lips over fo r the coming year.
With many good wishes for you and all of your for the coming year, and don't fall down on your schule work, I am as ever, your affectionate Grandfather Needham.
Was Her First Christmas
Dear Wilbert, Sonny and Ruth; Papa gave me this piece of paper to write you a letter on, and mama is writing it for me because I am too little. I shall be a year old the eighteenth of January. (First, I said "I will be." but Margie Ruth is so very particular about her grammar, that mamma thought I had better say shall.) So you see, this is my first real Christmas, and I was very glad to get so many things from my cousins. Did you make the dolly yourselves? Where did you get so many kinds of paint? I wish I had some colored paint to play in, but the dolly is just as good and mamma thinks it is much better.
Perhaps you thought I was too little to enjoy the big picture book, but no, mama has been showing me pictures for a long time. She never would let me turn the pages though and now she does. Even mama was surprised to see how well I can turn them. She didn't think I knew how. I was a little disappointed at first because I couldn't tear the pages. But the pictures are so pretty that I don't mind very much. Mama lets me poke my fingers in all the eyes I can find. Some other parts of the pictures are pretty too and I pat them and scratch them with my finger-nails. But I like eyes best.
Visited a Store
Mama and papa say to thank you for the other things, too. Did Aunt Hope let you help pick them out and buy them? I have never been in a store except when I was in Urbana. Grandpa gave mama some money and then grandma went with us to buy me an orgadie bonnet. Some day when I am bigger I will go to a store again and buy things for all my cousins.
I wish I could go to visit you again. I am much bigger now. I can walk all around if I have something to hold with one hand. And sometimes I let go and take one or two steps all by myself. I have four teeth now, and can bite big holes in my celluloid playthings. I think I am going to have some more teeth right away. Something hurts me most all the time and mama has to give me dollies to play with.
I am going to stand up in my bed now and watch mama take this letter to the mail box - Your loving cousin, Rosemary.