Anna V. Blough letter to Ida and Everett, June 9, 1918

              Ping Ting Hsien, Shansi, China
9 June 1918

Dear Ida and Everett, -

Ida�s long letter came telling so many things about your getting started in housekeeping and how you have things arranged. I am so glad you go into such detail, for it is so much easier to think of you in your work, and to se you in the minds eye by knowing these details. Your library is surely an interesting place. I am anxious to see it all.

Yes I should have liked to hear the old music. But I expect to before such a long time. That amuses me that you were not quite willing for me to learn �The Old House by the Lindens�, guess I never knew how you felt about it. Two years ago when I was in Shanghai and heard some Victrola records they played �The Flower Song�. It sounded so good, for that was one I always liked so much and have not heard it since you played it. If you do not get in too big a hurry about the attic and its contents perhaps I can help you rid it out. It would certainly be interesting to go thru things. I am fully planning on being home next summer. The time seems so short, much shorter than four or five months used to do when away at school.

Since you folks are interested in birds you surely have a most ideal place to study them with all those trees. I wish I had learned more about them and en oyed them while among them there. Will be glad to have you teach me next summer. How much the Field Glass must help in observing them. I have been giving the girls here some nature study. Among other things we had the subject of birds, and they were much interested, but we have not much opportunity to study them, for we have no trees in the school court, tho there are some started now. A few birds are the same here as at home, but some are different. One bird gives four very distinct notes in the early morning. Then there is the Hu Pee, a brown bird with a beautiful crest. Magpies are quite prominent, also hawks.

We have had two very hot days now. Our house has been very comfortable. It has thick brick walls, and during the day we shut the doors and keep the heat out. At presetI can spend a good part of the time in doors but it will not always be so. I was counting very much on going out to some villages during summer vacation, but I guess I too must learn that our plans do not always work out. I feel very much dissappointed [sic] about it, and hope maby [sic] I can go the latter part of the summer. In place of doing that I am going to l arn to do knitting and make a sweater for the Red Cross. I can not knit, but I can learn. Doctor thinks my first duty is to get a little strength built up before I go out and rough it. I think that will be coming now soon. Cod Liver Oil and Kerosene ought to do something for me.

A little more than a week of school and then we close for the summer. I have a very unpleasant piece of work before me, at least I anticipate it as unpleasant. The last girl that entered school has not unbound her feet yet. Her father is getting anxious, for the authorities are getting after them and fining them, so he wanted to know what to do. I said that is he gave me authority I could manage it. He gave permission. So I have ordered shoes and stockings made with plenty of size. I expect them in tomorrow. Then there will be a scene when she is asked to take off the bandages and put these on. But I mean to take the old shoes and stockings away, so that she will have no other plan but to do it. She is a big tall girl, sixteen years old. She is the one that would not take a bath till I told her that I always gave a bath to those who would not do it themselves.