My Dear Sister Georgia:¹

I’ve been so busy I feel I’ve not half answered your last letters. I do appreciate the fact you are sending me a box. I’m sure it will be a nice one though you say it is not large. Miss Burpee² says she thinks she ought to be present when I open it. She is very nice—remembers Homer³ very well she says. She is our community nurse but Dr. Avison claims her time when the foreigners do not need her. That is how she happens to be in a Presby. Hospital. I’ll write the ladies when the box comes.

I am sending you a bunch of invitations & programs to let you know what we have been doing lately.—The girls are about weeded out only about 15 left—perhaps 20. How it is raining—much too cool for the rainy season.

Our Commencement was just fine from beginning to end—these are the days of first things and I did not really expect the girls to make me so proud of them.⁴ Next year we will have a class of perhaps 12—Our music was just fine—no thanks to me of course for Mrs. Miller who was once Miss Pierce of our W.F.M.S. worked hard to train them. They sang the four parts—really it is wonderful how the Koreans can learn music when they have only two native tunes.⁵

I am some better I think, though it is hard to tell if some extra worry comes along—I collapse. I never used to be this way, but of course I need not expect to get well in a day.

I enjoy wearing the shirt waists & other things you send me. Am almost ready for another veil. The damp weather is hard on them. They get sticky & stringy in a much shorter time than at home. Perhaps you can get a kind that hasn’t so much glue in it.

I have enjoyed the Gen. Conf. Advocates (daily).⁶ If you have never read them I advise you to take it next time, it is so interesting to read the proceedings taken verbatim, nearly as good as being there. Of course they are nearly a month old when they reach us.

Page 240 →I hope you are having a pleasant vacation. Mother is happy in the old home, I presume. She can’t get weaned from it as easily as a younger person can.

With lots of love—

Lulu.

I wish you would go to see Mrs. Paine some day. She was so good to us.

Dear Georgia:⁷

I’m just home from a call at the Chinese Consulate. I wish you could have seen the pretty embroideries and the lovely chrysanthemums. Now is the season & every body is raising them except us. I haven’t had time to go out and buy any. We went also to the German Consulate. They have a beautiful large residence—tile floors, high ceilings & rich furniture. Our poor little Legation looks insignificant in comparison. Uncle Sam does not put much in his foreign buildings.

I’ve been quite gay this week for a semi-invalid. Saturday I went to a garden party given in the palace grounds by the Japanese Red Cross Soc. in Korea. After speeches galore we heard the fire bell begin to ring & we ran to find a large framework with paper front painted to represent a house. The smoke was coming up behind & soon all was in a flame. The fire department arrived and the door was burst open & Koreans came running out at full speed some fell down apparently exhausted, others were rescued then appeared the relief corps with stretchers and they were carried to a temporary hospital ward. Nearby over a gate, we saw “Temporary Red Cross Hospital.” We passed from ward to ward & saw the victims bandaged up in various ways. In the operation room we saw them do the bandaging with all rapidity just as if it were all a real emergency. The doctors, nurses, & patients all played their parts to perfection. They even had the news boys on the scene with the latest about the fire in both English & Chinese. Besides this there were bands of music—Japanese & Korean side shows. And of course the eating at the end—tea, sandwiches & cakes.

The week before I went to the opening of the new hospital.⁸ That was a big affair—Japanese—A thousand sat down to dinner in a big tent beautifully decorated with paper flowers—The hospital is a government enterprise built by the Japanese at Korea’s expense. 600,000 yen 300,000 dollars. It takes some of the pleasure away when I think of the money they are using in various ways making Korea more & more indebted to them. They can never free themselves. Page 241 →It is pitiable. Tomorrow we go to the Japanese Consulate Residency they call it to a garden party in honor of the Japanese Emperor’s birthday. Last year it fell on Sunday so we could not go but this year it is Tuesday. I am so glad to be well enough to go a little. Miss Marker & I had planned to go to Japan for a week or ten days, but I am afraid we will be disappointed for Mansu is sick & I was depending on him to buy and attend to Kimtchie making for me. I do hope he will be better in a few days. He will not live many years at the most & what I shall ever do without him, I do not know. He is so faithful. We have not used him in the kitchen for some time on account of his health.

Sunday we had a little diversion at our foreign service. The Salvation Army have lately arrived, three couples & one lassie.⁹ They are English & very nice people not illiterate like so many of them. They can sing so well—

I hope Mother is with you and well. I had a nice long letter from her today. Will answer it soon.

What are you planning to do this winter?

Tell Homer I am trying to teach a class in Physics.¹⁰ I take the girls over to the boys’ school once a week for experiments because Ewa does not own any apparatus. Some day I hope we will have.

The Mission box has not yet arrived, though I’ve heard it has been transshipped from Japan. Will write you about it. Mis Burpee asks to be present when I open it because it comes from Dorchester Church.

I feel so sorry that Miss Paine’s mother is gone. Her father too was very low. She has heard nothing since. She is on a country trip. I think she will be up for our Thanksgiving dinner. This pen is too hard for this thin paper.

Yes—I presume it is best for me to stay here I am not thinking of going home until my furlough is due. I want to round out at least one more term of service on the field. I presume I am quite as sure of my future as anyone. None of us know what awaits us. I am sorry Mother worries about me. She writes me to not write if I am too busy & then worries for fear I am sick if no letter comes. I try to get a letter off to one or both of you once a week.

Well good bye—

With love—

Lulu.