March 17, 1927
Dear Two Beloved Ones:
I am heartily ashamed of March 10th. I think it all started from my friend the enemy, the New York Times, who had in the "morgue" the date and remembered it.
I woke up with a cold, [illegible,] a carbuncle, sixty years old and everybody knew it. Terrible! I will never do it again. When I saw your beautiful flowers and the lovely vase, I nearly wept at your extravagance, even though the flowers were beautiful and the vase right in color and in shape, and then the directors' dinner was made important because of your letter.
I consider it quite a joke for them to have a party for me, but you know that that habit some people have, and what's to be done? The nicest thing of all was coming home at ten o'clock to find old friends of the Settlement gathered there, and the serenade on the street in which the policemen and the firemen and the tenement house neighbors joined in singing, "Mother Henry." Then I went to the door to thank them, one lad said: "Many thanks Mother Henry, and here are your children's pennies for your beloved work," whereupon a box was held up to me with one hundred and twenty-two dollars and two cents.
One other thrill was to have a telephone call from London with congratulations. Being sordid and knowing budgets, mixed with the thrill was the unhappy thought that it was costing $75. ↑(over)↓ [page 2]
Ramsay [MacDonald] and Ishbel are coming. Do you think you could both be here for the dinner, a little one I am giving and the others to follow. He is determined not to make this a speaking tour of engagements and I bet you anything he is sorry he ever said that he was coming. The newspaper men and people who want to entertain him and want him to speak telephone, cable and write to him. I too do not escape importunities since announced the fact that he was stopping at Henry Street.
I am glad you are down in Mississippi, and thousand thanks all mixed up with love and loyalty for all that you are and all that you give to me.
Devotedly yours,
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