My dear Jane.
Your birthday letter was such a lovely one that I hated to write one of mere sordid physical detail in answer to it, & kept sending messages by Frances as it seemed dull to write it all twice. As I have told you before it sometimes seems worth all the discouragement of this trying illness to get so much assurance of devotion from ones best friends. I was especially touched by your birthday letter, & have put it away. Nobody except Sarah & you go back that number of years; & I never hear from dear Sarah. If I knew her address I would [page 2] write to her.
I wrote J. C. L yesterday that I might decide to go back before Easter, as Dr. Brown intimates that he has little or no idea of letting me go into a Cathedral crowd. But on second thought that w'd seem rather precipitate for neither c'd I go into an Easter congregation at home; & nowhere w'd I be so sure of getting my Easter privileges without going out. Also I told Dr. B. yesterday that I had about decided to accept the generous offer of my friends of a nurse. Unless I pick up from this more rapidly than I have before -- the other three or [page 3] four times. I shall not feel very fit for scrambling out of trains or, even if it is a "victualing car" as Fred Delano calls them, for pushing open those stiff doors through a long train. And the diet is going to be hard to manage unless personally superintended. [written up left margin] ↑To say nothing of any new antic that I might throw [along?] into the wilds of Kansas. J. C. L. says "think of your being [written up right margin] marooned in Kansas!"↓ As you & Mary & J. C. L. have all offered, you might share it, or settle it as you choose. I have ceased to resist. Dr. B. thinks he can find a nurse to send. I'll ask him this morning how much he thinks it will cost. The weather is beautiful [page 4] now, & people are leaning over their gates. The last snow & freeze killed the elm leaves that were coming out, so there's no green in sight except grass; but I suppose it will come in -- just as I am going. F. H. has also been in bed, for considerably longer than I have this last time, so we only send each other messages & letters. Some people from here go over to see him. I was up & out at the time Mrs. [Scholle] was here, & went over there to tea with her. He was up that day in an informal [page 5] oriental costume. I also went to lunch with her at the hotel but fell ill of this infection a day or two later. Miss [Vamber] never came at all, her doctor not permitting.
Well, that is the tale, "For to behold ↑observe↓ & for to see, -- for to behold this world so wide" & so interesting -- not Ellen's lot. She comes & she goes, no wiser as to geography & archeology. Let us hope with some small amount of interior wisdom accumulated.
Your flowers lasted all the week. Frank sent me a lovely [page 6] plant.
You may send this letter to J. C. L. if you like, or telephone to her the substance.
I shall go over to her first in any case ↑& hope to get to the farm↓; & you may be gone to Boston when I get there. Of course it seems quite a "chore" "right now" to get started, & I like to be a little flexible about the time. By the time I leave for Massachusetts I hope it won't be necessary to be accompanied. Albert will meet me in Springfield & take me up to Chicopee. I shall be sorry to forego the pleasure of Alice's society. But it is so much shorter [page 7] & more familiar, that the advantage of not feeling hurried seems to balance.
Much love to you, dear, -- lasting gratitude for all your goodness to me
Ellen --
& M. R. S.'s.
Frank touchingly had a card, From Jane, put into your flowers!
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