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The Cottage in the Woods (1923-1926)

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 5, 1923

Dear Mr. Oberg:

I am extremely sorry that you have written two letters in succession to me and that I have not written any letters at all. However, here is my chance—early in the morning, before anybody is up.

I had the time of my life with your Christmas box, and I thank you very much for everything that was in it: buds, peanuts, apples, and a lovely cornucopia full of hard candy. I thank you especially for my jewels: the “throw” (which you fixed with great success), the pearls (which you also fixed with great success), and the lovely little butterfly locket with its gold chain. That, I thought, was the loveliest thing you sent, though everything was so perfectly beautiful, that I can’t decide which I liked best.

I wonder whether the winged insects on the locket are both butterflies, both moths, or the open winged one a butterfly and the other a moth, or just opposite. It seems to me that they are both butterflies, but I will leave it to you, entirely.

I will here go on and tell more about my Christmas. I have been wanting for some time something alive in the house. Some friends of mine gave me two beautiful fan-tail goldfish, one with a round short body and a single tail, and the other a much more graceful shape, of a much more delicate and pale gold, with a double tail. Indeed the single tail, which is much larger than the double tail, is of a very rich, deep, and red gold, while the double tail is of such a delicate color that in some lights he is transparent. I give them food and change their water every day, and they are now in fine condition.

I will here thank you for the coin and the camel very much.

We didn’t have a very large Christmas tree, but as we put less and less decorations on it each year, it gets more and more beautiful. We didn’t have all our lovely beads this time, but only balls and tinsel. But it was as nice as any Christmas I have ever had, and I thank you again for all that you did to make it nicer.

I am enclosing some of my make-up butterflies for you to copy by way of water-colors.

Now I must again thank you for all the lovely things you send, and close, but we’ll hope that I can open again by and by. Remember to write to me before very long, but I should rather have you visit me.

 

Love from Barbara

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 8, 1923

Dear Mr. St. John:

I am extremely sorry that you have been ill, but extremely glad that you have had a chance to climb the mountains of West Virginia.

I had a very merry Christmas, and beautiful presents. We didn’t have such a large Christmas tree as we have sometimes, but as we put less and less decoration on it (as we do each year), the tree grows more and more beautiful. Some friends of mine gave me two beautiful fan-tail goldfish, one with a short body, with a deep, rich, red gold and a long single tail, and the other of a much more graceful shape, of a much more pale and delicate color, with a shorter double tail. It says in my Aquarium book that very good fishes have the tips of the fins wavy, and as to me my fishes’ tails are wavy, I suppose that they are good fishes. I shouldn’t believe that they are the same kind of fish—they are so different. The single tail I named Simplex, and the double tail Douplex—Simp and Doupe, as Mother says.

I thought the pictures that you sent me with your letter were perfectly beautiful—especially the one on Mount Chocorua; that and the one of the river from the lawn at Rivernook I thought were the nicest of them all. I also loved the picture of Shawondasee in summer. How I should adore being on Chocorua this very minute! When you get talking about mountains you make me feel as if I could get all packed up and go with you tomorrow. I hope I shall do that sometime—just go all alone with you—Shouldn’t we have a good time? But that cannot be for a while now.

I thought the background of the picture of myself was very pretty—it is green and luxurious, and very summerlike.

Oh how I should like to be in the pine grove with the birds singing above my head, and all the green summer things about. Though I don’t believe that I should like it very much now—I only wish it were summer.

When I do go up there Daddy and I are going to make a map of all my secret twisting and turning paths. This will be made on a large sheet of paper, and every summer as I make new paths, the new ones shall be added on. When I get to the end of the paper on all sides, I shall take four more pieces, and continue my ground North, South, East, and West.

I am so anxious to know whether the frost has splintered my shells that are buried in my treasure cave, near the shore of the lake. They are common mussel shells, but beautiful beyond words. They have beautiful brown backs and are lined with iridescent purple. If they have been splintered I shall feel rather sorry, though I can get plenty more. I took home two very fragile shells, not daring to leave them up there. They break with the slightest knock, and I gave them to Daddy for a Christmas present. They are light yellow on the backs with brown stripes, and inside they are lined with pale iridescent colors. They are not so common, and I didn’t see many of them there.

I am very anxious to see the red salamanders and enjoy them with you. I think they are the most beautiful small things on the lake.

I am also anxious to see if the minnows are still at the minnow beach, and if they aren’t I should like to find out where they are. Probably they are not there any longer, and yet I suppose they might be. If they aren’t I should like to find some other minnows. They are so pretty with their gleaming silver scales.

Everything I am anxious to see, and I hope with all my heart that you can come to Sunapee to see them with me.

 

With much love,

from your friend,

Barbara.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 8, 1923

Dear Mrs. Coleman:

I am very sorry that I haven’t written to you before this, but various things made me postpone reading Peter and Wendy, and therefore I couldn’t write to you to tell you how glad I was to get it. I will now thank you a thousand times for one of the loveliest books that I have ever read.

I don’t see how you knew just exactly what I liked—I have always wanted to fly, myself, and some one of these days, I am going to have a flying club, and invite all my smart friends to try to think out a way to manage artificial flying. If you are interested (I suppose you are) I will invite you, too.

I have been always fond of flying things: birds, butterflies, moths, and dragonflies; and I have always liked to notice in my walks in the fields what butterflies flew with long, beautiful, and graceful strokes, and what butterflies just fluttered. I also like to notice the way bees move their wings so fast that it seems, unless you look carefully, that the wings are not moving at all. It is very pleasant to me to watch all these things, for I am so interested in wild things. Probably Peter and Wendy flew more like birds.

Thank you again for sending me the pretty tale about Peter and Wendy and all about how they visited the Neverlands.

 

Love to Mrs. Coleman

from Barbara

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 23, 1923

Dear Mr. St. John:

I am crazy about the cocoons you sent me, and I, in spite of the fact that you told me a lot about them, have quite a lot to ask you about them. In the first place I want to ask whether it would be best to keep them in a warm place. Daddy thinks that to keep them in a cold place would be the best idea, so that when the moths got developed we could take them off and let them go without freezing them. Daddy is in great doubt about keeping them after they have come out of the cocoon, unless we could “scrape acquaintance” with a man who has a hot-house. But I really think that the best thing to do is to let them go after they have come out, and we have had the fun of seeing them come.

Do you know what food they eat? If you do I might arrange a cage for them with their natural surroundings and keep them a while. What do you think about that?

I know Luna. Daddy brought her home from Cheshire Connecticut, one day, and then we let her go again. She is the one with the long “feet,” as I call them. I also call them “tails” sometimes. I know that they curve out slightly like little crescents. Luna is a beauty, and I am very glad that one of the cocoons may turn out to be she.

I wish you would tell me something about the way moths and butterflies mate. Suppose I ask you some questions about it and you answer them in your next letter:

Does the moth or butterfly, after coming out of the cocoon, find a mate, or does the mate come out with him? Does the moth or butterfly stick near his mate, or are they two independent creatures? Are the moths or butterflies just out of the cocoon very weak and unable to fly at first, or are they as strong and vigorous as ever? Are the moths or butterflies just out of the cocoon their full color, or does that come afterwards?

I suspect that after trying to answer all these questions you are very tired. I shall have to try you a little more with a new subject now, that will take centuries to straighten out—really a great subject—that, besides writing to you my feeling, I will discuss with you when I see you in New Hampshire, or Lake Sunapee.

Everything is now (except human beings) just as Nature has planned it. Nature did not plan her children to be killed, except sometimes by one another, but she planned them to live and enjoy the earth—the sunlight, the flowers, the trees, and all Nature’s beauties. If only we mortals will wake up and learn a lesson, here is a lesson for us to learn. As Nature has not planned her children to be killed, why do we kill them? Who can answer this question? Nature has trusted to us, animals’ big brothers and sisters, to leave her babies alone. If only some of us could wake up and be brought to see the right side of this very complicated subject, they would think, the way I do, of the person who gets wounded, what he feels like, and how his feelings are hurt. Why do we kill pigs for pork or ham? why do we kill cows for beef? or lambs for their meat? When we kill the animals we are not doing what Nature has planned; whereas the animals do what Nature has planned, no matter what this may be.

Volcanoes that spout up ash and kill plants near by cannot help it, for Nature has planned it; worms we hate because they are ugly— they do nobody any harm, and they cannot help how they look, for Nature has planned it; and the plants they kill we needn’t blame them for, for Nature has planned it; eagles, falcons, and hawks cannot help killing and eating smaller birds, for that is their nature, and that is what the real Nature has put in them. Old Mother Nature must have some bad animals as well as good ones, or the world would never get along. But I don’t think she needs us. For my part I think that we mortals should be cleared off the earth entirely—I shouldn’t mind being cleared off, because I know what harm we do.

How one can look at the fuzzy yellow ball of a little chicken and then want to kill it is more than I can see—even for Easter, which some people think is more important than the lives of chickens. The chicken never did anybody any harm; it is human greed that makes us kill them. I could never see how anyone can do such a thing. How one can look into the gentle loving eyes of a deer and then want to kill him, I can’t understand. Perhaps it would be all right to kill a few, for the earth would soon be overrun with them if we didn’t, but why should North America all over have the same seasons for killing deer? You know in some places this season comes in the mating time. My idea is that every different climate should have an open season that doesn’t come in the mating time. How one can want to shoot ducks is also more than I can see, even for the good meat. They never did anybody any harm, and probably never will. It is only human greed.

Now animals like horses, cows, donkeys, and bees are meant to serve man: the horses and donkeys to carry burdens, the cows to give us milk, and the bees to give us honey. But if man could only be contented with all these luxuries! It doesn’t hurt these slaves of ours to serve us, for that is what Nature has planned, but Nature has not planned minks, beavers, seals, bears, skunks, and muskrats to serve us, and, therefore, it hurts them. For we take their skins.

Nature has not planned naughty boys to throw stones at chipmunks, squirrels, and birds; Nature has not planned us to catch fishes and eat them (something which even I do); Nature has not planned naughty boys to catch lizards or salamanders with crooked pins (something which I cannot bear to think about).

Now about butterflies. If we could only be brought to see as I do. Why do people have to know exactly where every spot on a butterfly’s wing is? There is no need to make collections of butterflies, for why do we have to know just exactly about them? I think that it is much better not to catch them and put them in a sieve and describe them. I think that it is much better not to get their description exact and to let the butterfly live on, in its lovely life, than to kill and get everything exact. This is what I do, and I hope that you think it is better as well as I. Butterflies live such lovely lives and are such lovely things that I couldn’t think of killing them. I simply love them!

Now again, I can’t understand how a boy with any heart at all can bear to take little birds out of their nest. Jays and crows that steal the nests we hate, but it is their nature and they can not help it.

Now again I don’t see how anyone can bear to see flowers die in the heat of a train—I’m sure I can’t.

In other words I am a friend of all Nature save human beings, and for this reason can be brought to see the right side of things.

I, when I see you again, will talk over this subject with you thoroughly, for to me it is very important.

Now about mountains. Do you know the feeling that volcanoes and other mountains are alive and have a sensation like other things? I adore mountains, and hope that when I grow up I shall be strong and able to climb the big fellows. I know that you are going to be my most intimate travel mate, and I hope to travel with you a lot.

Mother has now told me to tell you about The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. This is a book by Robert F. Griggs, about the National Geographic Society exhibition, exploring the district of Katmai Volcano, continuing for five years starting in 1915 and ending in 1919. It was after the eruption of Katmai Volcano in Alaska—the eruption of 1912. The author was a member of the party. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I advise you to get it and read it. I have only just got to the Ten Thousand Smokes part of it (though most of it is about various things that happened before they discover the Valley). Here (in the Valley) the ground is fissured everywhere all around, and from these fissures columns of steam rise up. They are of different varieties: big fissures, small steams; small fissures, big steams, continuing in that peculiar order for a long time.

I have forgotten whether or not you saw the fish pen that Daddy made for me, in which I kept numbers of perch, bass, and sunfish. If you never saw that, write to me and I will tell you about it. The fishes in it all died, and Daddy said that he would try it again next summer. But I am going to tell him that the aquarium is better free, like the menagerie.

 

From your best friend and playmate,

Barbara

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

February 4, 1923

Dear Mr. St. John:

I hope you had a lovely time exploring the mountains of Virginia. I wish you would tell me all about it. As I said before I am perfectly wild to do it with you.

My cocoons have not developed yet, but it seems to me the big one has got fatter, though I don’t quite see how it could be. One wouldn’t think that they could be so heavy, especially as they are so small, and besides I never noticed that they were heavy until just a few days ago. I think that probably the moths will be out pretty soon. I shall be crazy to see them!

A few days ago I asked Daddy what other mountains I could climb next summer besides Cube, which, you know, is north of Hanover. Daddy said that I could climb Chocorua, and possibly Moosilauke, though probably not. If I can climb Chocorua I will do it with you, so we shan’t have to wait so very long, shall we? If you are coming to New Hampshire to see me next summer, I want you to stay longer than you did last summer, so that we can do lots more things.

As I am so crazy to go to Sunapee Mother once said that we should try to go the first of July, but I simply cannot wait that long in this vile place, and I am thinking about the first of June. You see after February, which is a short month, there would be only March, April, and May to wait, whereas the first of July would leave June, too. Though it was in January that I said it with more eagerness: “Mother, if we went then after January had gone (it was early in January) we should have to wait five months, and I cannot wait as long as that.” But I am now saying it in February, which takes away one month. I am now not thinking of the time to wait, for it goes so quickly, but I am thinking of the time that I am to stay there. I want as long as possible in that green, fairylike, woodsy, animal-filled, watery, luxuriant, butterfly-painted, moth-dotted, dragonfly-blotched, bird-filled, salamandous, mossy, ferny, sunshiny, moonshiny, long-dayful, short-nightful land, oh that fishy, froggy, tadpoly, shelly, lizard-filled lake—on, no end of lovely things to say about that place, and I am mad to get there. I want as short a time as possible in this vile apartment house—oh, anywhere, everywhere except here!

Did you know that I have been writing a story, started long, long ago? I will tell you about it. It is about a little girl named Eepersip who lived on top of a mountain, Mount Varcrobis, and was so lonely that she went away to live wild. She talked to the animals, and led a sweet lovely life with them—just the kind of life that I should like to lead. Her parents all tried to catch her, with some friends of theirs, and every time she escaped in some way or other. Toward where I am working now, Eepersip’s ways of escaping grow more and more foxy, though now they have given up trying to catch her, but for the first few times she saved herself by way of the deer which grazed in the meadow where Eepersip lived. She loved the flowers, trees, animals, and all Nature’s wonders as much as you or I do, or even more. She played games with butterflies! If she didn’t like Nature’s wonders as well as you or I, she understood them better, for who ever heard of a person playing a game with butterflies? She often thought that she was going to learn from end to beginning butterfly history.

Have you read the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, by Robert F. Griggs, yet—the book that I mentioned in the other letter? I have now got well into the Ten Thousand Smokes part of it. I will copy one of the funniest passages in the book. The party was trying to find the best place to hold a pan of bacon as they fried it in a fumarole of the Valley:

 

While experimenting to find the best place to hold the pan, we tried pushing it down into the cavern below the orifice, the bacon was whisked out of the pan, flying through the air in every direction, to be eagerly caught and devoured by the spectators, who howled with delight at this sudden turn of events. Discovered accidentally, this trick was repeated again and again till we tired of chasing the flying slices.

 

But really all this will give no idea of how it is in the story, and the best way is to read the book for yourself.

 

February 8.

I was extremely glad to receive your lovely letter, the last one you wrote. I was especially glad to have you answer those rather difficult questions. I was glad to have them answered, for I have wondered about them for a long time. I think that what you told me about the female moths is perfectly fascinating, and I am glad that you agreed with me in the big subject. I hope you think it is “big.”

I can easily answer your question, did I do the typewriting myself? I do all my letters myself both the composing and the typewriting; then if there are any big errors Daddy or Mother corrects them and I copy the letter.

I think the “double” picture is the most amusing photograph I ever saw. Both the “parts” of it are very lovely, though the combination is not so excellent. At first I thought that it was all one, without noticing the figures, and it looked to me like a rock on the shore of the lake. I myself was looking for the photograph of Mother and myself last Christmas, but forgot to ask about it. I think Mother is sorry that she spoiled two pictures for you. She will pay for them. How many quarts of blueberries equal one film? Mother doesn’t agree that they are spoiled, for she thinks they’re very interesting, but for heaven’s sake you don’t want figures in a landscape picture.

I want more and more to go to—of course you know where. I am thinking even now of how lovely the first night is going to seem—I can just imagine the first night—oh, it will be great if it is a nice night. Do you know the feeling that sometimes, when you want especially to do a thing, it is good that it seems impossible, and you can’t believe your eyes when you at last do it? I know that I shall have the feeling when I go to Sunapee, and I really fear that the first morning that I spend there I shall be so full and bubbling over with happiness and joy and merriment that I shall really explode! Oh dear—and now, even now, I am almost exploding even when it is so far off. Please excuse all the dashes. I really forget my grammar when I begin to think about Sunapee. I am thinking now about my first morning there. I shall get up early, say six o’clock, and get my breakfast, consisting of Shredded Wheat; I shall run outdoors in the early morning light before anybody is up, and I shall run to my treasure chest and hurry out all my buried shells and pebbles; I shall dash up into the woods, exploding all the time, to my lovely little playhouse; I shall dash at full speed, nearly falling from more explodements, to the sun-laden pine grove; I shall talk to the nymphs and fairies; and when Mother gets up I shall dash around harder than ever at all my stocks and stores. I shall run over to my playhouse again to see if my moss seats are still there, I shall fly over to the woods on the other side of the lane and see my old friends the red squirrels, I shall run back again to see if my precious chipmunk hole is still by the side of the cottage. But maybe I shall be too tired from the trip to do all these things. If I am not too tired I shall do a lot more things than those just mentioned. I shall go to the Magic Perch of the Nymphs, a rock off one end of the pine grove, which can be got to by way of other rocks, and see if the water is low enough to get to it; I shall sit on the beach in front of the cottage and watch the little spotted sandpipers run along the beach; I shall go to the minnow beach and see if there are still any minnows there—oh dear, I am giving out now. I shall do a lot more things, but it is not worth mentioning them. But shan’t we really have fun when we meet again? We’ll find red salamanders, we’ll go fishing (oh dear, there I am again), we’ll find baby lizards in the lake, we’ll sit in the pine grove and talk over various things, and above all we’ll climb mountains. A little girl, a friend of mine, who has a summer home on Big Lake Sunapee is also crazy to get there as well as her Mother and sister. We have a great game together, and there are nice places to play both at her summer home and at mine. We shall have great fun, and that is one of the things that I am looking forward to, though I forget it when I think of climbing mountains with you. But there is no use in talking about it any more. We can see in time, and it will save a lot of breath.

I have now written a long letter and must close. I really think that we have so many things to talk about that it is not worth writing them all down and that it would be better really to see each other. However, I will write to you some of the littler things. A letter, you see, is only a “false visit”—a real visit is much better.

I made a mistake about writing on this paper, for it won’t take ink; therefore I cannot sign my name with ink.

 

With much love from your friend,

Barbara.

 

Bruce T. Simonds (1896-1989), a concert pianist and Barbara’s piano teacher, taught music at Yale for five decades. From 1941-1954 he was Dean of the School of Music.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

March 19, 1923

My dear, dear Mr. Oberg:

Thank you ever and ever so much without getting to the end of the thanks for the two sweet little pictures for my little house. They are very lovely, and I think that they will look charming in my little living-room. Thank you also for the poem you composed about “The Nymph of Sunapee.” You always send something funny at Christmas and something lovely on my Birthday.

I went to the exhibition at the Paint and Clay Club yesterday, and I saw Mrs. Lathrop’s portrait of myself. It is the one she painted of me last summer at Sunapee, and Mother and Daddy like it very much. But I like Herring Gulls by Henry H. Townshend the best. I liked also On the Connecticut River by Elizabeth S. Pitman; The Enchanted Pool and Morning Mist in California by Henry J. Albright.

I had a half nice and half unnice birthday, being sick in bed with the Grippe, but I never got such presents. Marion Peasley of Cheshire gave me a tiny ivory box with a little flower and leaves of Mother-of-Pearl, which I loved enough to take to bed with me. It wasn’t intended to be a Birthday present though. But it was so near to my birthday that I called it one. Then my third cousin, Cousin Helen, sent me a Japanese Lacquer black box, in which I keep some of my treasures. My violin teacher gave me a lovely picture of Wagner, the composer, which I highly prize. From Bruce Simonds came Scenes from Childhood, some pieces of music by Schumann. Mother also gave me a lovely English edition of a book of Beethoven Sonatas, which I just love. She also gave me a nice music case. Ding made me six doilies for my little house. Mrs. Patterson, whom I don’t know, gave me Undine, a poem by herself, which I like enough to read nearly ever day.

Dorothy Lathrop, the daughter of the one who painted my portrait, came to see us Saturday and gave me a little German rabbit of china and I carry him about with me all the time. I also got for my birthday from Mrs. Tilson a little German napkin-ring which I keep in my Japanese Lacquer box.

Every day I perform magical operations with my treasures, but I cannot explain to you now about them. When you come to see me I will.

I am enclosing a sheet of the size paper that you are to put the painting of my make-up butterflies on. Some other time I will send some more for you to paint.

 

Love from your friend,

Barbara

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

March 19, 1923

My dear Mr. St. John:

I was extremely glad to receive your letter and your little book of game birds. You described everything so carefully in your letter that I was nearly with you. The rabbit that you saw trying to get up the bank must have been dreadfully funny; he makes me laugh even now. Seems to me it’s dreadfully early for spring flowers, the snow not being gone. I should have liked to have been with you when you saw the five species of ducks. They must have been very interesting.

A friend of mine came down to see us from Albany telling me that her Mother, Mrs. Lathrop, who painted a portrait of me, had taught four red salamanders to stand on their hind legs and wave their front paws in the air. She asked me for four names for them and I have them made up now. But you should hear her talk about her livestock in the house! They have three dogs, a greyhound, a pekingese, and a collie; you should hear her talk about the greyhound stuffing himself on a loaf of bread and his sides bulging out!

I myself am thinking about what kind of a dog to have in the new house (when we have it). Mother now thinks a collie or a setter, but I like a Chow. I have only seen one, and even then never got acquainted with him, but I have read about them. A good many of my friends like airedales. An airedale is a one-man dog as well as a Chow, but I don’t like them. One friend of mine who has an airedale says that a Great Dane is the one-man dog (she dislikes Chows, and says that they’re a step better than a Pekingese) but a Great Dane is altogether too fierce and treacherous. There is nothing that strikes me more than a Chow. What do you think? Please tell me in your next letter.

I am also thinking about how to make birds feel happy on our new house lot. I want to attract small birds, especially humming-birds and wrens. I want plenty of lilac trees and rhododendrons for the humming-birds. In the winter I want to have luxury on hand for the darling little snow buntings. I am not going to have any cats, and I hope with all my might that the neighbors’ cats (if they have any) will keep away. In the summer I want especially thrushes, goldfinches, song sparrows, orioles, and possibly redstarts. Do you know how I can make them comfortable?

Now I must close, only to open again by and by.

 

With much love, from your friend,

Barbara

 

P. S. March 26: I just received your post card and should be delighted to visit you if it’s possible. B. N. F.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

April 10, 1923

My very dear Mr. O:

I am now writing to send you a few more of those make-up butterflies that you said you’d make illustrations of.

I shall skip a few of the butterfly’s habits in my copy, but leave the description:

 

The Oreecler

The upper side is a beautiful orange with green and black threads on it crossing and recrossing themselves, but not so thick that the orange is hidden from sight. The under side is dark blue, with white circles, bands, and spots on it.

The female is amber colored on the upper side, with lines, threads, spots, and blotches of darker amber. The under side is white with amber streaks through it.

The total width is two and one half inches.

 

The Frillerteena

The upper side is white, with a large yellow spot in the upper corner of each upper wing. Around the head is a little necklace of yellow spots. He cannot see in the dark, but he carries two little lights with him. At the end of each feeler is a little gold ball, and somehow he can turn on a little light inside and then he can see. The under side is plain gold. Strange to say this little butterfly has no mate.

The total width is three quarters of an inch.

 

Please, what were the butterflies that I sent the first time? I should like to know, in order to know what to send next.

Sometime I will write and tell you the news.

 

With fifty million ocean steamers all loaded with love,

embracery, and kisses.

Barbara.

 

Sunday, April 15, 1923

Dear Mr. Lewis:

We have had a most wonderful time at the House of Unexpectedness (I call it that, for everything is so unexpected, everything is just what you don’t expect), staying in and going out, taking walks and playing cards with Toots and Tabby, the cat-and-dog cards (I suppose you know what I mean).

I certainly love the way roosters get into conversation. In the morning and sometimes at night I hear the rooster here, and then from way off (another farm) comes the faint answer of the rooster there.

We are going home this afternoon, though of course I don’t want to. As I said before, we had a wonderful time, and much appreciate your kindness in inviting us.

 

With love,

Barbara.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

April 16, 1923

My extraordinarily dear Mr. St. John:

Excuse me for not writing sooner after I had received the clay tablets. As a matter of fact we have been to Farmington for three days where Daddy had gone to work since April 3rd. Also, we only came home yesterday afternoon, though, of course, much against our will. It was the house of Mr. Lewis, a friend, who had gone to California, leaving a colored man and his wife to take care of the house. So you see we were in luxury, not having to cook or clear up. The house I call The House of Unexpectedness, as everything is just what one doesn’t expect; for instance, the dining room is in the place where you would expect a hall to be. There are hens there, and the loveliest fields to play in.

But now comes still more interesting news! What do you think? A few days ago a Promethea came out of her cocoon, and was discovered as I was going to bed one night. It fluttered about so fast that until it settled down I thought that it was a small bat; and Daddy wasn’t here to decide. Then she hid away, and we didn’t find her until yesterday, when we came back from Farmington. I can’t decide which cocoon she came out of.

I have another question to ask. Some people say that butterflies and moths live only a day; some say that butterflies live a week, and that moths live a day, and other things like that. I want to find out straight from you, and get that off my mind. I mean, of course, butterflies that are not caught and—oh! how I hate these words—chloroformed or pinned. Speaking of that makes me say again that I don’t see why people have to know exactly. Don’t you agree with me that it’s much better not to get the description exact and let the poor thing live? I know you’ve agreed with me once, but I want to be reassured, for the matter is never out of my mind.

Won’t it be nice when we have a Luna moth around? I do so hope that the big cocoon is a Luna as you said it might be.

I am sending you one of my little cards. Mes. is abbreviation for Messenger.

I think that the clay tablets are awfully interesting and also hope that sometime when you write you will tell me all about them. Did you scratch the face on the “baby”? It looks to me as if somebody did. The arrow head is also very interesting.

 

I send love from each little flower, leaf,

tree, and from each little fairy of the woods we

so much love.

Barbara.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

April 28, 1923

My very dear Mr. St. John:

That which we have waited for so long has surely come. Spring! Yesterday I saw eleven white butterflies two of which were bumping and biffing one another, whirling round and round, cutting up all sorts of antics, first one on top and then the other, and whirring round and round across somebody’s lawn. The day before I saw a yellow one. Last winter I was afraid that the flowers were never coming, but now the crocuses have gone by with the tiny blue squills, and nearly every house has a yellow fringe of daffodils around it. As for bush flowers, forsythia is at its best, and the delicate blossoms of the magnolias are lending perfume to the air. Lawns, nearly all the lawns are dotted with bluets and dandelions.

A few days ago the second moth came out of her cocoon, Cecropia. A friend of ours showed us some very remarkable things about him. I didn’t know that moths ever got up a temper, but when she took him out of his box on a little twig he actually got furious and afraid, also. We didn’t let this moth stay half so long in confinement, letting him go the day after he came out. He was simply lovely.

You said that my big cocoon was either a Luna or a something else, I can’t remember the name. A few days ago I drew and painted a Luna moth, from my Holland moth book, and it really looks like a moth. They are harder to draw than you think. First I got the tails too short, and then I got them much too long, then I got them too narrow, and then too broad, and then too round and then too straight, but finally I got them just right. I will send it to you.

As for birds I have only seen sparrows, robins, starlings, grackles, and one bluejay. To be sure the sparrows stay all winter, but I count them just the same. Squirrels skip up and down the trees and across the roads and sidewalks; the maple buds are red; and truly Spring has come!

This is only a little letter, but soon I will write a longer one.

 

With much love, your friend,

Barbara.

 

[Barbara included a poem for Mr. St. John]

 

FOR YOU

When the tracery of leaves on the trees begins,

When the sky turns blue, and the days grow long,

And the bluebirds and song sparrows warble their notes,

All these things make me think of a far-away song.

When the buttercup nods to and fro on the grass,

(I don’t know why it is true);

But the mountains and trees, the rivers and brooks

All make me think of you.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

May 5, 1923

My dear, dear Mr. St. John:

More and more signs of Spring have come! Forsythia is dropping, and cherry blossoms of the loveliest fragrance are coming. I have stopped keeping count of the butterflies that I have seen. I saw one mourning-cloak a few days ago, and see lots of blue ones. There is more variety of flowers now. Tulips and pansies are at their best. But the wild flowers! I will save them for a later part of this letter.

Yesterday Daddy, Mother, a friend, and I went to Woodbridge to look for arbutus. We passed a reservoir on the shore of which we were to meet our goal. We stopped at an open field where there were violets, five-finger or cinquefoil, and bluets in bloom. Then we started down a lane toward the reservoir. Violets, white and purple and blue, and strawberry blooms were sprinkled across the path. We transplanted some white violets. In the woods on our right were the mottled leaves of snakeweed and yellow adder’s-tongue, and everywhere were purple trilliums and anemones, of which we found a blue one. Farther on we turned into the woods to a narrow gorge down which a brook ran in the prettiest of falls, large and small, here pouring down over a mossy ledge of rock, there rushing away to break up into ripplets and eddies and whirls. On the very steep banks grew mountain laurel. We strammed down on the narrow banks, where every minute we expected to fall in. (Mother had stayed in the car.) But the hard task was over at last, and we found ourselves on a very steep mossy bank—oh, such soft moss!—where there were rocks here and there, and we found ourselves shrieking with delight at the fragrant masses of arbutus.

Here we were on the shores of the Reservoir, which we had wanted so much to get to. The easiest way of getting around on the soft, delicious, slippery moss when going down was to slide. This was much quicker, easier, and safer than to scramble. Only, to be sure, no way was actually safe here. I found that there were plenty of rocks to use as brakes. But even then we were never sure that we were not going to fall in.

Just then I made a discovery—some small blue flowers, liverwort, which I later found were the same as the hepatica which you mentioned. Farther eastward I found a tiny portion of the banking covered with it. There were white, pale pink, deeper pink, lavender, and more of the heavenly blue of that which I first discovered. Still farther eastward, where the moss was even more luxuriant, it was a perfect Fairyland. Wood anemones peeped at me from behind the logs and the trees behind us, peeping like little gnomes and fairies; up a tiny trickle of a brook marched stately yellow adder’s-tongue, forming a fairy passage-way; back farther in the woods were the tremendously interesting purple trilliums; on the shores of another brook were skunk cabbages; the liverwort was scattered in symphonies of color; clinging around on the rocks were the fairy-like arbutus, our hearts’ end and aim; and everywhere was cool, soft moss. You would have liked to be with me then!

While Daddy and the friend sat at rest after having picked quantities of arbutus, I played nymph and decorated them with flowers. Then I did them a good turn by having curiosity. I rambled on still farther eastward (I had to cling with all my strength to the moss to keep from falling) and finally came out to a place where arbutus was everywhere. Then, of course, I had to call to the others to come, too. It was hard work getting there, but it was worth it.

I never had such a day, and I’m not sure that it was not a dream. But I still have a right middle finger with a mighty sore edge from picking, to prove it. I wish with all my heart, and I guess you do too, that you had been there. Perhaps you don’t quite believe me about all this. But if I’m real at all, if my whole life isn’t a dream, every word of it is true. Perhaps I’m asleep now and dreaming, and when I mention yesterday Mother or Daddy will correct me that it was a dream. Perhaps when I wake up I shall have no sore middle finger to prove that it was true.

It was very lovely, anyhow.

 

Good-bye.

Barbara.

 

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) was an English writer best known for his children’s stories. His books were among Barbara’s favorites. He was interested in how a child’s imagination developed and must have been quite intrigued by Barbara. He would be quoted widely in the British press when The House Without Windows was published by Alfred A. Knopf in London.

I am very grateful to the Bodleian Library in Oxford for sending me a copy of the following letter.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

May 6, 1923

My very dear Mr. de la Mare:

It is impossible to describe how much I have enjoyed a morsel from Peacock Pie every little while. I knew the book and all the poems practically by heart, but it was only an American edition, and I like the one you sent me ever so much better. I like especially the poems Some One, The Ship of Rio, The Cupboard, and best of all the Three Queer Tales. I also like fully as well your new volume of poems, Down-adown-Derry, and I love the poem called The Stranger.

Of course I simply adore The Three Mulla-Mulgars. I have practically lived on it ever since our friend Mr. Knopf published it, which was when I was five years old. It is exactly the most superb thing in my library. I have read the Mullas so many times that the first copy I had was simply read out—not soiled, but just read to pieces—and I had to have a new one. Please remember your promise and write the second adventure of the three Mulla-Mulgars—

 

“All that befell these brothers dear

In Tishnar’s lovely Valleys.”

 

I have been waiting dreadfully long and very impatiently, and I should be so happy if you would hurry up and start it!

Dorothy Lathrop is one of my best friends. We spend our summers in the same place, Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire, and we see a lot of each other, for we are only a mile apart and are always rowing back and forth. Gertrude, her younger sister, is a sculptress, and last summer she did her saddle-horse, Nelshon (I’m not sure how to spell this), and also a three-day-old calf which she saw up in Quebec. This piece of work is now mine, a Christmas present from Mother. Mrs. Lathrop, her mother, painted a most lovely outdoor portrait of me, which was exhibited here in New Haven at the Paint and Clay Club this winter. The Lathrops love the woods and all its little creatures just the way I do, and Dorothy and I have found many of the little red lizards up at Sunapee, creeping and burrowing in the moss. (There is one of them in the frontispiece of Down-adown-Derry.) The last story I wrote is about just what I should like to be—a little girl, Eepersip, who ran off to live wild, with her animal and butterfly friends. Presently she turned into a fairy. (Daddy says I ought to tell you that the story is about 30,000 words long.) On my birthday I gave Mother a book of poems; the first one was about our summer vacation place on Lake Sunapee. I also did some illustrations for them. And on Daddy’s birthday I gave him a book of sixteen poems, with my illustrations. I am very fond of writing about butterflies and moths, and the first poem in his book was a sort of Ode to a Butterfly. Near the end I also wrote a Song to a Frog. When I write seriously I like to interrupt my seriousness by something amusing. Perhaps it would interest you to know that a friend of mine sent me some cocoons this winter. A Promethea came out of one of them last month, and a little while ago a Cecropia came out of another one. The Promethea I let fly around in the house for quite a while, but the Cecropia I let go in the woods the very next day, when it was strong enough to fly. The Promethea was very lovely; but the Cecropia was the most gorgeous creature I ever saw. One of my cocoons is either a Luna moth or something else. I do hope it is a Luna, because I love Lunas so. When I write about moths I usually write about green ones, and a Luna is such a beautiful Nile green.

I love the sound of your make-up words in the Mullas, and also the monkey talk. This must have been the cause of my making up a language called Farksoo. I once made two poems in it; I will enclose one of them. Nobody can decide what language mine sounds like. Here is an example: Peen flitterveen fis fithic soocun peen urnees. It means: The butterfly is flying over the meadows. “Flitterveen” is the word for butterfly. “Veenic” is the word for beautiful. It comes from Venus, the goddess of beauty, and “flitterveen” simply means a beautiful flitter. I use Farksoo in my books of imaginary creatures, like a scientific language such as Latin. I have written make-up Inhabitants of the Make-up Aquarium, Make-up Butterflies, and Make-up Birds and Animals; and I am writing a book of all the different kinds of fairies that I imagine. Another thing I like to do, once in a while, is to draw or paint a make-up map of a part of a make-up land, naming the places in Farksoo. I pretend that there are millions of different branches of Fairyland. I do this because everybody has his own idea of Fairyland, and it can’t be settled who is right.

I also write butterfly diaries. I catch the butterfly with my net, put him in a sieve, describe him, and then let him go. I would never think of collecting—I am too much a friend of Nature to do that. Some of the names of my imaginary butterflies are Pearleetue, Oreecler, Blueetue, Frillerteena, and Perpander. A few of my imaginary birds are Ashlaroo, Ositeroo, Orine, and several varieties of Finourio.

But above all the things I have told you I love the woods. I long to get away from the city street which we live on, to my summer vacation place. I love to dance out on a small peninsula of woods, on which there is a gorgeous pine grove. I love to play that I’m a nymph—to dress my hair up with ferns and berries—yes, yes, I love to pretend that I’m afraid of everybody except my nymph friends, and that people have to keep very quiet in order to make me appear.

At Sunapee last summer I had some wonderful adventures with red squirrels. Wandering about in the woods at the time when the red squirrels were storing away nuts for the winter, I heard a chattering and a chirring, and, as I don’t like to miss any chances of seeing wild folk, I went toward the sound. Coming to a little open glade, I sat down to watch. In a little while a red squirrel came out from the beech trees on the left side of where I was sitting. He poked his head through the bushes and stared at me. Then with a frightened whirring noise he went scampering off. All the time I was sitting as still as I could. In a little while, from mere curiosity, he came back and did the same thing over. The operation was repeated several times, and then off he went to tell the news. Before many minutes had passed a smaller red squirrel galloped across the glade to the right hand side of me and went into a small hole with a nut in his mouth. Then out he came and back for another. He buried many nuts. Then I went home, and that was all of the first adventure.

The remembrance of the second I treasure carefully, because I saw something that a friend of mine—a person who is as fond of the woods as I am, and who has seen foxes and fox cubs and can read all sorts of stories in the snow—has never seen. I was walking along on some stones close to the water. Above me was a little banking on top of which were the woods. All of a sudden I heard a rustling in the leaves. I stood still, for, although I thought that it might be a red squirrel, I wanted to see it. Finally a little head with its pair of mischievous-looking black beady eyes popped out of the bushes. After he had looked at me for a few minutes he scampered, but still I waited. In a minute he came out of the woods down on to the stones. Then he drank from the lake, exactly like a kitten. His little red tongue lapped the water just as a kitten drinks milk. I shall always remember these two interesting adventures.

Thank you again and again, without ever coming to the end of the thank-you’s, for Peacock Pie. I think you would also like to know that every time I read that incomparable thing, The Three Mulla-Mulgars, it starts me on a new story of my own.

 

With joy and love,

Your friend,

Barbara Follett.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

May 10, 1923

My dear Mr. O:

I am sending you a small box the contents of which you may think are very peculiar, but now I will explain. First, you will find some cotton; then you will see a little red box. Inside you will find a bottle of liquid. It is the ingredients of a very precious charm. Next comes some more cotton and then you will see some amber-colored beads off a lamp and a little roll of string. The beads you must put across the back of your hand so that one end dangles on each side of your wrist; tie the two ends together with the string. I forgot to say it is to be your left hand. Next put on the palm of the same hand some wood shavings from your shop, and then pour the contents of the little bottle over them and with your other hand rub them off. The charm will then be completed and you will be happy.

I am getting crazy over magic of different kinds, and when you come down this fall I will teach you my best charms and spells. At least if you are for good magic, magic of badness and magic of mystery I know nothing about. I have a way of making a healthy-happy summer, happier than any of the preceding summers; I have a way of making a happy winter, but it takes all summer to gather the charm. I have started a winter charm now; I have another charm that I have not yet experienced; it is a charm of good effect on everything; I possess magic over my treasure, the key of my jewel box is kept in such a place that nobody can find it, and even if they poked right into its very box they couldn’t find it. I have to pronounce two magic words when I open the box and two when I turn the key. I have also a charm of making other people happy; this charm affects different people in different ways: one friend of mine went up to the ceiling, Daddy turned into a wild kangaroo for jumping, but Mother I was disappointed in. I have still another charm of good effect for the outdoors, a charm something like the one which I told you before that I hadn’t experienced a charm of good effect only yesterday I did it. The first charm of good effect is a charm of the spring, a charm of:—

 

Snowdrops and the blue-eyed squill,

Of violet and daffodil.

 

I have also many keys which unlock the gateways of towns and cities.

When I have the new house, the idea of which is getting hopeful, I shall have a little house of my own to produce my charms in. When I’m doing magic (then I’m mighty serious) I shall keep my door locked.

In my mind I have the idea of a garden, a little old-fashioned garden shaped like a butterfly with a triangular wing on each side of a path which will be his body. But of course one can’t really tell about a garden until the house is built.

Your correction of my butterflies was quite right and hereafter I will call it the width. Are you ready for some more butterflies? Are you still interested in them? However I will send you some more.

 

The Daylight Fuzzywing.

These butterflies are very common and very well known. They are never very large, and the wings are never too long for the width but are always the regular shape. The wings are very fuzzy, hence the name. They are often so fuzzy that people call them fur-butterflies, but fuzzywing is the best name. The upper side is mostly white, but there is a band of orange around the wings with a row of six silver spots set in the band like precious stones, six of them on the upper wing, and four on the lower one. The under side is light blue with a band of orange around the wings, and there are six white spots set in the band of the upper wings and four on the lower ones. This is the male. The female is plain white and curiously marked on the upper side with a nile green band around her neck, down on the part of the wing near the body, around in a curve, crossing itself, and touching her waist on each side, like this: [rough drawing in pencil here]. The female is so different from the male that some people think it is a different species of butterfly, and call it the ribbon-butterfly, but it is really the female daylight fuzzywing.

Total width is two inches.

 

The Midnight Fuzzywing.

Unlike the daylight fuzzywing these butterflies are not common, and very few people have a chance to know them. This is because they will not go where there is any light, and they stay in such a dark place that nobody ever visits them. Some people chase them with lanterns and flashlights, but even at so much light they will soar way, way up, and fly to the darkest place in a dark forest, and nobody can catch them. The young can stand light and the people who do know them are the ones that have been as skillful as to find a nest of the babies. The upper side is a beautiful shiny white that shows in the darkest night with a border of gold just as showy around the wing. The under side is plain gold very dazzling to the eyes. This is the male. The female is pure white on the upper side with a band of blue around the wings. The under side is brown with a band of silver around the wings.

The total width is eighteen inches. (You can draw on scale.)

 

This is the first copy of the letter and I hope that you will excuse the mistakes, for I didn’t have time to copy it.

 

With much love,

your friend,

Barbara

 

Columbia has twelve of the butterflies Mr. Oberg drew for Barbara. Above are the male and female Pearleetue and Blueetue.

 

708 Orange Street

New Haven, Connecticut

June 12, 1923

My very dear Mr. Oberg:

Oh, how I love those butterflies! They are so lovely that I don’t know what to say about them. There is nothing wrong with any of them, and they are just what I intended by my descriptions. But what materials did you use to make them? They look to me like a mixture of crayon, oil paint, watercolors, and some kind of varnish. Whatever they are made of, we are all perfectly crazy about them, and all the friends that I show them to say the same thing. I am also glad that you find it pleasant work, for I was afraid that it bothered you.

So that you won’t beat me in charms I am sending you still another one. In an envelope, which I am sending in a separate package, and which also has one corner turned over, is some magic pink powder, which you must throw into a basin of water. Then you must say: “Pink Rose, come hither; Wild Winds, come to my summer.” A fairy whom you cannot see will touch you with the tip of her wand, and those words will be granted. During July Pink Rose and Wild Winds will come to you.

Your charm worked beautifully. I see that you are a magician too. Well then, you practice, and I’ll practice, and this fall when I see you again we’ll have a contest.

If any of the contents of the magic envelope fall into the box in which the envelope is, you can just empty the box into the water, too.

Once more I thank you again and again for those precious butterflies.

 

With much love,

from Barbara.

 

Barbara’s mother didn’t go to Sunapee in 1923 due to baby Sabra’s imminent arrival, so Barbara went with Bruce Simonds, his wife Rosalind, and his sister Helen.

 

The Cottage in the Woods

July 19, 1923

Dear Mother:

I am beginning to feel a bit lonely now and have written to Daddy begging him to come up. You see, the Bruces never go off anywhere on trips and adventures. And Bruce doesn’t much like to explore. I like to explore alone, but sometimes I like to have someone with me. I never get that person. I had a far happier time with Daddy and Raymond than I ever can have with the Bruces. So I wish we could change round again.

The place seems to have lost a third of its beautiful atmosphere. For now I feel rather tired of it. It would be all right if Daddy were here. I feel as though I wanted to go somewhere else next summer.

Bruce is now learning to swim, but he never goes to the bathing beach. He will stay on this rocky shore, even when there is not a soul at the bathing beach.

Every day now there are turtles on the rocks which fall splashing off as the tub approaches (sometimes I row over there). Once indeed when Norman and Hildegarde and her sister came over to see us, Norman and I managed to come quite close.

I’m afraid this is a letter of loud complaints, but that’s all there is.

 

With love,

Barbara.

 

Sabra Wyman Follett was born on July 27, 1923.

 

The Cottage in the Woods

July 30, 1923

My dear Mr. Oberg:

I am very sorry that I have neglected for so long to write to you, but you see I am in Sunapee now and there is hardly time for writing any more letters than the ones that I write to Mother and Daddy. It is very lovely here, and I wish you could be here. I will now tell you how Mother and Daddy didn’t come to Sunapee. First Daddy and I went to Hartford where we picked up a friend and came here. We stayed a week, then Daddy and the friend went back and Mr. Simonds, Mrs. Simonds, and Miss Simonds all came up in their stead. Mother was unable to come.

We see minks around here, and a little while ago the place was a Paradise with birds. They don’t seem to sing so much now, and we don’t see as many as we used to. When I wade around among the rocks I see all sorts of little fishes: minnows, with their silvery scales; bass, with their black tail-tips; and pickerel, with their many-colored scales. The minnows keep together in schools; often they are quite large. Sometimes a little fish will turn over and there will be a flash of silver which is his silver belly. The pickerel will dart out from where they have been hiding as quick as lightning, then will stay perfectly still until they are started up again. Most of them are about four inches long though I saw one that was about two inches. They are very pretty.

One can find some very beautiful shellbeds in which one can find heavenly shells. They shine with all the colors of the rainbow always being more beautiful when wet.

Sometimes I see wild ducks swimming around, but mostly early in the morning. Mr. Simonds and I once saw two flying over the lake. One morning before anybody else was up I saw one swimming about in front of the cottage. One morning I also saw one, two, three, swimming around, not directly in front of the cottage, but quite near.

Best of all I now have a little B A B Y S I S T E R born the twenty-seventh of July, and though I haven’t seen her yet, they tell me she is a lovely baby. She isn’t named yet, but I am deciding slowly. Isn’t that joyful?

One day, during the days that Daddy was up here, I was playing around when Daddy whistled for me and I came bounding to the cottage to see. Daddy had a little baby woodmouse in a pail. How he got there Daddy told me he didn’t know—he just found him there, and he couldn’t get out. So we fed him and kept him in the pail until the day came when Daddy had time to make a cage for it. I have him now—Heather is his name, and a very lively sprite he is, though he comes out only when it is dark. There is a woodmouse family living round here and one night when Daddy was here we had quite a merry adventure with them. I was undressed and all ready for bed when Daddy called me down. I found that Daddy had the lantern lighted and was following a little baby mouse that was running wildly round among the beams. The little fellow had just lost his head. In a moment more the mother woodmouse came from her hiding place and, taking the little one by the scruff of his neck she carried him down to a tiny hole in the floor and backing down pulled him in after her. But that is not all. I had gone back to bed and was half asleep when I heard another call. I got up and went downstairs. Daddy said that before I came down the mother had come from her old home (she had another nest up among the beams and was now moving her family) with two little ones in her mouth. He said that while she put one down the hole the other had got away. Now in a minute the mother came out of the hole and took the other little one in her mouth and stuffed him into that hole as if he had been a pillow and the hole a pillow-case. It was very amusing.

 

With heaps of love,

Barbara.

 

The Cottage in the Woods

July 31, 1923

My dear Mr. St. John:

I am very sorry that I have neglected to write you this summer, but you see I am in Sunapee now, and have hardly time to write letters. I wish you were camping in the cut now because there are so many things for us to see and do.

One morning I was playing around when I heard Daddy whistle. I came running back to the cottage and saw that he had a little baby woodmouse in a pail. How he got there we don’t know. Well, I kept him in the pail and fed him on crumbs until Daddy had time to make a cage for him. I named him Heather, and he is the sweetest pet I ever had.

Now for the best news. My little baby was born the twenty-seventh of July. I haven’t seen it yet. But they tell me it is a lovely baby. It is a sister.

There is something wrong with the typewriter and so I have to handwrite. I hope you will excuse my vile writing. I don’t have much practice.

 

Heaps of love,

From Barbara.

 

A Cottage you know

August 16, 1923

Dearest Mother:

I am just wild to see you and Sabra but please don’t come up until you hear from me that I am all well, for, you know, I wouldn’t have that baby catch the whooping cough for anything. I am really crazy to see you, but must wait patiently. It is rather hard, especially as there is a new baby in the family, but worse shall have to be done in the course of time.

I want you to see Heather very much. You would love him at the first look.

You would also love to walk in the woods and see the chickadees chickadeeing about your head.

Well goodbye for now, Mother dear.

 

With barrels of love,

Barbara.

 

The Folletts returned to New Haven in October. Within twenty-four hours the kerosene burner attached to the kitchen stove in their rented house on Orange Street exploded. The building and its contents were destroyed, including Barbara’s Eepersip manuscript, her stuffed animals and violin, and other treasures. The family was lucky to survive unharmed.

Professor George Hendrickson (1865-1963), Latin teacher and chair of Classics at Yale, put them up while construction of a house on Armory Street, which had begun earlier in the year, continued apace.

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

November 12, 1923

My dear Mr. Oberg:

After my books had arrived at the house that we were taken into through kindness we discovered that Eepersip, my long story, had been destroyed in the fire. For many days I tried to rewrite it and could not, but after a while I got a sudden inspiration, and I am now working on it like fire. Every little while I think of rewriting all those exciting adventures, seventy-two pages of them, and when I think of that I almost give it up again. But, as Daddy thought before I began, it is going to be a much better story than the first one and that is partly what keeps me going on it. Before I had this inspiration I had started on a new story, an entirely different one, and I had gotten far ahead in that one. But now Eepersip seems to me far more important now and so stopped The Great Labyrinth of Sarbea, as I call my new story, and have gotten Eepersip still longer. I am also working on a sort of dictionary of my made-up Farksoo language and that is also fun. I have arranged the words that I had before in an alphabetical order and am now adding words. To be sure, we are not as well off as before, but in the midst of it all we grin to see the new house going up.

They have now nearly finished putting on the finish coat of plaster, and pretty soon I suppose they will do the windows, the woodwork, and the cement of the cellar. The house looks very old and beautiful now that they have got all four of those strange ornaments called wasps’ nests on and painted. Before it looked as if it boomed up, but the wasps’ nests in a way drag the second story down. We saw the difference when only one was on. We have had the beautiful arch of the chimney, which was filled up with plaster, cut open again and though it’s not as good as it would be if they hadn’t plastered the wall around it all it is a lot better than to have it filled up and so we feel quite pleased. Another great addition to the house is the thought of using the room on the top floor which we were going to have for a storage room made into a playroom for little Sabra when she is older. It is, you know, an enormous room and Sabra will have great fun running in and out of the big arch, we think.

Sabra is well and beautiful. She is getting very much interested in the curious world around her and grins and smiles all over herself. She tries to talk, too. Sometimes she makes a queer little coughing noise that sounds as if she was trying to swallow her tongue, and sometimes she makes cry-noises and we think she is going to cry, but, we found that she is only trying to talk. We think that perhaps she is trying to say: “I should like it very well if I could only talk.” Perhaps that is just it.

I hope with all my heart that you will be here for Thanksgiving or, at least, Christmas, and I wish you could have been here for Halloween, for Miss Ralph, the nurse, while Mother and I were away, decorated the dining room table with all sorts of things, grapes, candles, pears, oranges, dried leaves, worthless ears of corn, and Jack in the middle of it all. It was very beautiful indeed.

 

With sweet love,

from Barbara.

 

I believe Barbara left The Great Labyrinth of Sarbea unfinished at nineteen pages.

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

November 24, 1923

My own dear Ding:

After we had the fire all my hopes were concentrated on the remaining chance that Eepersip was to come by express with my books. But that chance, too, disappeared mercilessly. Eepersip was lost! One day I tried very hard to rewrite, but I couldn’t get more than half a page done. So I gave it up and started an entirely new story called The Great Labyrinth of Sarbea. Sarbea is the hero of the story—he is the son of a poor couple that lived by the sea. They had in their possession a great blue pearl about the size of a hen’s egg. When they died they handed it over to Sarbea, who, with the aid of the queen of the country, found his way to an uninhabited island and built for its keeping a great labyrinth all doors, doors, rooms, large and small, and a great tangle of passages, long and short. Sarbea found an enchantress who got for him some great dragons who guarded the labyrinth, a dragon standing at all of the entrances and nearly all of the main passages inside. Many folks from neighboring islands strove for the pearl, but always at a great loss. After the labyrinth was built Sarbea returned from the island to his own land and, also with the aid of the queen, and at the same time against the will of the king, married the beautiful princess, Chrysothemis. Then husband and wife returned to the uninhabited island where they built a little cottage and where Chrysothemis worked very diligently in a beautiful garden she was making every day.

In the middle of this new story I had an inspiration, a very sudden inspiration, it came to me while I was working on The Great Labyrinth of Sarbea, and I turned the page out quick as a wink, put in a fresh one and wrote on the top of it: The Adventures of Eepersip, and worked on it like fire for four pages. It is turning out to be a much better story than the first with lots of things taken out and more put in. I think you may remember that in my first Eepersip some of the plans the family made to catch Eepersip were too fancy and ingenious, these plans are much more simple and I think more to the interest of the reader. The two stories now have about the same number of pages; I think it is nineteen to nineteen now, but possibly Sarbea has one page more than Eepersip.

A few days ago my friend Miss Jessup came around to see me and showed me how to draw trees and many other things. So of course, I am so easy to get inspired with new inspirations just at present, she got me inspired with the art of drawing and painting. Before she showed up I had been painting quite a little, but she started me on a fresh outburst. I am sending you a picture with this letter.

How are you, Ding? Are the waves at Sound Beach rolling and thundering on the shore? I should certainly like to see them if they are, for one of my greatest desires just now is to see the sea. Oh, I love it so! with its thunder and lightning, storms and bays, waves, and ripples. Have you seen any of the beautiful white gulls with their long narrow wings sweeping and swirling? When you got to Sound Beach had all the birds gone or did you see any of the birds that you used to? I am so anxious to know! I love them all so much!

Well Ding I’m sure that you would now be perfectly delighted to see Sabra, for, though she grinned a little when you last saw her she grins all over herself now. She even talks a little. She makes curious little coughing noises and sounds exactly as if she was trying to swallow her tongue. She makes another little noise which I think she does by letting out all her breath and then drawing it in again fast and suddenly. When she grins she opens her mouth so wide that I should think that she would choke. The scales which we are weighing her on broke and when they broke she weighed eleven pounds, twelve ounces. Yesterday Daddy fixed the scales and this morning when she was weighed it was exactly twelve pounds. But that is no extraordinary weight for it was a long time ago that the scales broke.

The new house—I suppose you have almost forgotten that we had a new house—is coming along famously. You know, they put on two coats of plaster and now the second coat is all on. The windows are all sealed up with white cloth so that the plaster will dry. But when you try to look from the inside of the house out through the white cloth you can’t see a thing if you knock your eyes into it ever so much. All the windows now aren’t sealed up with white cloth, for they have now put on a good many of the casements and for all I know they may have all the casements in now, for I haven’t seen the house for quite a while.

My, I had almost forgotten to tell you about the Simonds’ baby which will be a month old on the twenty-sixth of this month. She is a very nice baby, but I like this baby a lot better. They play with her a lot and dandle her around, and sing to her so that between Bruce, Rosalind, and Miss Head, the nurse, they are rather spoiling her. But she is very nice, just the same and her name is Elizabeth Treat Simonds.

Well, Ding, goodbye for now.

 

With love from

Barbara.

 

16 December, 1923

Dear Mr. St. John:

Your letter to Barbara was very, very welcome to all of us. I am writing this brief note to you that you may understand why Barbara hasn’t written to you since she last saw you; and it may also explain the delay now, should there be one. Twenty-four hours after leaving Sunapee we were burned out of the little house we had taken out of New Haven for a few months, burned out so dreadfully and so completely that nothing has remained of the horror. Nothing, that is, of the things which were precious to us beyond words—Barbara’s violin, her manuscripts, and a thousand dear treasures including your letters and the pictures you had sent her during the summer. Our loss was total and complete as regards clothes, and all the intimate things one takes [with] him, things too choice to leave behind, and too valuable to trust even to the express companies. As devastating as it all was, and as horrible a financial setback as it was, we can easily contemplate the catastrophe when we look at our glorious baby, for she, herself, came within two minutes of being exploded. It is a great miracle that we are all alive, free of burns, and still in possession of our arms and legs. You see, the stove in the kitchen, fitted with a kerosene burner exploded, and within five minutes the whole house was in the cellar. Nothing was recovered. And we had not transferred our insurance!

Barbara has been a brick about it all; she has suffered as only a sensitive person can suffer, but she has been absolutely silent about it. She became immediately absorbed in Shelley, and has gone quite wild over his poems. The only thing she wants for Christmas is a trip to the sea, a whole day at the sea where it is particularly lonesome and wild. This she wants to do as a sort of memorial to Shelley! I am trying to find a print of him for her. As to the fire, she never speaks of it, and she has avoided writing to any one, I think because she didn’t want to refer to it, and yet was too full of it to be able to speak of anything else.

We are staying here with Professor Hendrickson until our house is ready to go into, that is, if we can hold on to the house at all now. Mr. Follett has been working sixteen hours a day until today when he came down with tonsillitis, and I have been doing more editorial work for him and for the Press. We have the need, and the desire, if we only have the strength.

How are you and Mrs. St. John? We should love to see you, and just take it for granted that you won’t skip us, if by any chance you come through New Haven on your way Anywhere!

Our Greetings go to you with this note, that you and Mrs. St. John may have a very lovely Christmas, and that you may have the best kind of a southern trip.

Yours sincerely,

Helen Thomas Follett

 

 

For the next three Christmases Barbara designed cards for her friends and family. In 1923 she composed a poem, laid out the type and, with her father’s help, ran the press.

 

THE TREE

I know a house

Gaunt, grey, and old.

This house is the realm of Magic,

Whose pages are ghosts so cold and white,

Robed in long floating draperies of foam.

 

But on Christmas Eve the ghosts run away

For fear of the fairies that come;

On Christmas Eve,

Magic works her best spells,

And the house is filled with a golden light,

While round and round the fairies dance.

 

Around the throne of Magic they dance,

And around the great tree, so green

And yet so white with the breath of Magic—snow.

Glittering there in beauty it stands,

While the fairies worship it with song.

 

January 3, 1924

Dear Mr. Oberg:

I am writing to express the thanks and enthusiasm of the family over the Christmas box that always comes in some form. I think this form was just about the best so far. I simply adore the beautiful painted feather fan and the little ivory one that you repaired for me. The apples were delicious, juicy and sweet. We would eat handfuls of peanuts, morning and evening. You should have seen the fireplace, littered with peanut shells. I thank you again for all that you have done for us.

We hope to be in the new house in a little more than a month from now, and, of course, are looking forward to the day when we shall move eagerly. We want to be in there as quickly as possible so that we shall have a place for you. I want to see you any time, but I fear that we couldn’t keep you here. You know, we are living in about three rooms all jammed together.

I wish to see you on my birthday anyway, even if I don’t see you before, which, of course, I would love. I am so crazy to see you and the things that you have been doing for us, in the way of furniture. I have heard so much about the desks and the Grandfather Clock that I am as eager to see them as ten lions after ten hares.

Goodbye, now, and I thank you once more for the things you have sent to us and also for the things that you are doing for us that we haven’t seen yet.

 

With love,

Barbara.

 

From Michael A. Morrison’s book, John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor: “On 15 December [1923], Barrymore played his final Hamlet in New York, and the next week began his first trip into the provinces in five years. The first week was divided between New Haven and Hartford. Barrymore commuted back to New York every evening. According to [Lark] Taylor, he hurried through the play to make his train, ‘shortening the performance almost an hour, to its great improvement’.” As you’ll see, Barbara named the animals she received for Christmas after characters in Hamlet.

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 3, 1924

My dear Mr. St. John:

You may think I have neglected you in the way of letters, and really I think I have, but we have been very excited in the place that we are living in now, and I really must confess that I haven’t had much time. But I have been perfectly delighted to get long letters from you so often, dear friend.

I don’t believe I ever had such a Merry Christmas before. I had a perfectly delightful stocking. I will skip most of the things in the stocking and tell you about the two most important things. A few days ago, well longer than a few days ago, John Barrymore, as Hamlet, came to New Haven, and we went. Now when we heard that he was coming I made haste to read the play, and I was never so crazy about anything else that I read. I was more crazy about the acting and, even if John Barrymore is a great actor, I certainly don’t see how he can remember all Hamlet’s parts, even if he has studied years and years. Then I wanted to have the play with me all the time, and I didn’t have small enough books to put in my pocket. I had the Temple edition which, I suppose you know, is pretty small, but it wasn’t small enough to satisfy me. Miss Ralph, the nurse, who is also our best friend in every way, found out from me that I wanted a little Hamlet, about three inches long, and, without my knowledge the family went down town to try to secure it for me, but when we found one just right, we found from the dealer that it belonged to a little set of all the plays and he didn’t wish to break the set up. They argued and argued, but to no purpose. Then Marion Hendrickson, the daughter of Professor Hendrickson, our landlord, went in town and argued and argued with the dealer, and finally she got the little book and I found it in the toe of my stocking. Then I also got in my stocking a little red pen-knife with two blades, a long one and a short one.

But before I opened my stocking I had another great pleasure, almost the greatest of my Christmas. About a week before Christmas Mother and I went in town shopping and deciding what to get for Daddy. We decided on a nice, warm, fuzzy bathrobe, which Daddy has been miserable without when he gets up in the morning. We also got a box holding ten or twelve packages of Lucky Strike cigarettes, the kind that Daddy smokes. And also we got two packages of Neccos, and a bag of caramels. The things we put in the huge pockets of the bathrobe, together with a green tie with blue stripes in it, which Daddy now considers the handsomest one he has. All these things I put together in paper and a box with about three tags on it and, early Christmas Morning, I crept downstairs from the third floor, where I sleep, and laid the box on Daddy’s bed. I had some adventures before I got downstairs, though. The stairs from the third floor come down to a hall, then this hall turns to right angles and right there there is a door. In fact the hall turns two right angles, for the rest of it turns right angles on the other side of the main hall and leads to an upstairs living room, which we use. Well, I came down the stairs, crept along the hall to the door, put the box down, opened the door, and then decided that it would be better to shut the door before I opened the next door that led into the bedroom so that sudden light wouldn’t come from the main hall into the bedroom and wake Mother and Daddy up, for there was a light going in the main hall. So I had to pick the box up, go through the hall door, put the box down, shut the door, take the box up, come to the bedroom door, put the box down again, and begin to open the bedroom door, very softly. Then I felt the door beginning to stick and I knew that it would creak if I pushed it any more. The slit that I had made was just the size for me to go through, but, how about the box? That was the question. Well, anyhow I took the box up and instead of holding it horizontally I held it vertically and managed to slip it through. The rest was easy. I put my heavy burden down on Daddy’s bed. Then I crept away relieved of quite a heavy load.

Immediately after breakfast we went into the room, which Daddy and Mother had arranged surprisingly beautifully overnight. Last Christmas the first thing I saw when I came into the room was the globe with the two beautiful gold-fish in it. The two beautiful ill-fated gold-fish. It was the same way this Christmas. The first thing I saw wasn’t the tree, it was a large tank with seven gold-fish, one tadpole, and two snails in it. The tad-pole is Polonius, a great gold beauty with tail and fins tipped with black is Claudius, a small brilliant one with a long tail is Gertrude, a small rather ordinary looking fish with yellow underneath and dark brown or maybe black on the back on the back, which, they say, is going to turn silver, is Reynaldo, and a rather large very brilliant fish with a short tail is Horatio. The live-stock has been added to since Christmas, though. There is now a beautiful silver fish, with a double tail, Ophelia; a smaller tad-pole, Laertes; and two more snails.

Then all sorts of lovely gifts were delivered, not forgetting the book of Irish Fairy Tales, which I wish to thank you for. I love them. I have read a lot of them already and think they are lovely stories. Then I also got a Brownie camera, and have already taken three pictures of the new house from various angles.

Speaking of the new house, I must tell you how beautifully it is coming on. We have decided to paint the third floor instead of wall-papering it, and we are painting Daddy’s study a beautiful blue, and the room intended for the maid, which has now come to my possession, a beautiful green. Won’t it be fun to sleep on the top floor? Will you come and sleep up there with me? You see the house is coming famously.

Sabra, my sweet sister, is growing more lively every day. She loves to look at her own tiny pink hands. She moves them unconsciously, but you can see her following their rather jerky motions with her little bright brown eyes, with a little silver star in each. But she has lately learned a new trick. Miss Ralph sits her up straight (for some peculiar reason she likes that position) and she seemed as if she was seized with a sudden rage, for she worked her arms up and down, one after the other. It was very funny, but very cunning. Probably she will discover something new almost every day.

I wonder if I ever showed you or told you about the language that I made up. I can’t seem to remember. It is called Farksoo. I had it on a rough and tumble manuscript, but I decided that I would arrange the various words on cards alphabetically. So I started out to do it and now I have two indices, one of Farksoo-English and the other of English-Farksoo. The language is interesting but the history of Farksolia is more interesting. Farksolia is the land where the Farksoo language is spoken. It is a separate planet from the Earth, and I think it is really more interesting than the Earth. There were eleven great queens over Farksolia and they are in order: Queen Bruwanderine, Queen Lacee, Queen Ibirio, Queen Flitterveen, Queen Rooeetu, Queen Liassa, Queen Atee, Queen Lazade, Queen Herazade, Queen Chrysothemis, and Queen Perazade. Queen Atee, the seventh, was chosen because of her beauty, and when she got to ruling she seemed too harsh for the people. So they waged the great Farksolian war against her and her friends. During this war the Farksolians were extinguished down to two families. One family has a little boy, and the other a little girl. The boy is about six years old, and the girl about six months. I hope that when they grow up they will marry and breed the race again.

Sheheritzade is the big city where all the Farksolians lived together. They all agreed that living in one big, beautiful city like that their planet was much more beautiful because the woodlands were not spoiled by houses. During the reign of Queen Bruwanderine, the first, the people were a little bit lower in their life than we are now. But they became better much faster than we did and during the reign of Queen Liassa, the sixth, they looked back upon themselves as savages. During the reign of Liassa they were much higher than we are now, so it is hard to imagine what they were like.

About two thousand miles from Sheheritzade there is a great sea called the Farksolian Sea. It is at least twice as broad as the Pacific Ocean. But oh, what a wonderful sea it is! Bluer than any sea here, and when you look off into it sunlight sparkles and dances on the horizon, and the sunlight makes it appear blue and gold and green. Oh, what marvelous colors can be seen on that sea! What wonderful fishes marked to match the sun and the sea marked with bands of blue and gold! Oh, what wonderful white sand there is there, and what beautiful lacy sea-weeds are brought up on the sand by the billowing waves, capped with sparkling white foam. These sea-weeds are of marvelously beautiful colours—greens, browns, and even reds. The beaches there are beautiful but I think the rocks may be more beautiful. Great towering rocks, jagged and precipitous, towering into the blueness of the great sky. This sea surely is wonderful, but so is the great plain which borders the great sea on the other side. On it are about two habited houses, and even those are very inconspicuous. Over this great plain run strange little brown animals; over it fly strange but very beautiful little birds and butterflies. All around this plain are woodlands, rich and green, and purple and green mottled mountains, and in these wonderful places there are also strange little creatures and flowers, of unusual colors, red and white together.

But now let us return to beautiful Sheheritzade. Around the city are great green and purple mountains, the Farksolian range, but one mountain, the highest and also the nearest to the city, is called the Sheheritzadian Mountain. These mountains are very sacred.

There is a very strange fact about the snows of Farksolia. Where the snow falls on the mountains it just melts away from the warmth of the spreading boughs of the trees over the ground. And also snow cannot rest on the little twigs and shoots of the trees, because the sap of the Farksolian trees is very warm and it melts the snow almost as soon as the snow touches the branches. Therefore the mountains look a lot greener, though, of course, not as green as they do in summer. But, of course, on the plains and where there are not so many trees the snow lies thick; indeed sometimes the level on the great plain rises to twenty feet.

Don’t you think that the history of Farksolia is interesting? Here is a little poem in the Farksoo language which I will say ‘goodbye’ with:

 

Ar peen maiburs barge craik coo,

Peen yar fis farled cray pern.

Peen darndeon flar fooloos lart ain birdream.

Avee lart ain caireen

Ien tu cresteen de tuee,

Darnceen craik peen bune.

 

This poem is very famous in Farksolia, or, at least, it was, and also very old, and the old Farksoo is quite different from the new. But still this poem is not so different from the new Farksoo as another poem is which I will also send you:

 

Flitterveens, flitterveens, veenic flitterveens,

Cobreebering soocun peen urnees.

Flitterveens, flitterveens, marlershoo flitterveens,

Fithic soocun peen paperteebruee.

 

Soocun peen fileshay, Soocun peen paperteebruee,

Soocun peen urnees fith peen flitterveens,

Cobreebering, fithic soocun peen bines—

Veenic, marlershoo flitterveens.

 

This poem has much more of the old language in it even if it isn’t as old as the first one. I will now translate them for you.

The first runs this way:

 

As the (maibur is a flower that comes in May, and the plural is maiburs) begin to come,

The air is filled with perfume;

The dandelion fluff floats like a (birdream is something very lovely).

Also like a fairy in her dress of gold,

Dancing to the wind.

 

The second poem translated runs thus:

 

Butterflies, butterflies, beautiful butterflies,

(Cobreebering is to flap the wings making no progress in the air) over the meadow.

Butterflies, butterflies, exquisite butterflies

Flying over the brook.

 

Over the mountain,

Over the brook

Over the meadow fly the butterflies,

Cobreebering, flying over the trees,

Beautiful, exquisite butterflies.

 

Both of these little poems have lovely little tunes which, alas, I must see you to sing.

Well, goodbye, dear friend, until some other time, when I hope I can entertain you in the new house.

 

May a ship reach your port full of love and kisses,

from your true friend ever,

Barbara.

 

The Columbia archive has several assignments that Helen typed up for Barbara’s morning lessons.

 

Saturday, 5 January 1924

1. Finish up your letter to Mr. St. John, and mail it.

2. Violin — a good forty minutes.

3. Hamlet: Act I, scene 2. Read the notes and glossary carefully, and use your dictionary.

4. Piano — a good forty minutes.

5. Arithmetic: review Percentage by doing the examples on page 69; then select those you can do on page 71.

6. Read Le Poisson D’Or [an 1878 novel by Paul Féval]

7. More violin, and more piano. Try to do an hour of each each day.

 

Sunday, 6 January [1924]

1. Try to write a letter—not necessarily a long one—to Mr. and Mrs. Knopf, to thank them for Come Hither.

2. Violin — a good long session.

3. Water-colors. See how good a copy you can make of the little picture in a gold frame just to the left of the west window (that’s the window nearest the goldfish bowl). Enlarge the picture if you want to.

4. If you take a walk with Miss Ralph, carry your Brownie and see if you can’t find something worth using the rest of the film on. Don’t forget to turn the film along after each exposure.

5. Piano — I should think you might do an hour without hurting yourself.

6. Read, in Miss Dean’s Keats:

Ode to a Nightingale

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Ode to Autumn

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Last Sonnet (“Bright Start, would,” etc.)

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 15, 1924

Dear Mrs. Day:

I am writing to thank you a million times for the sweet little jar of ginger that you sent me. The jar itself was sweet, but the way it was done up gave me beautiful ideas. It made me think of Sunapee, and the pine trees, and the little bottles of flowers. And it looked as though it had been taken from Sunapee, and I nearly cried to think how beautiful it was up there and how we might go up this summer, but that the winter couldn’t pass quickly enough. Even if we were going next week I couldn’t wait. It seems when you are anticipating a thing, that it can’t come. If we were going to Sunapee tomorrow, tomorrow I would think, “Well, it’s tomorrow that we go.” I could never quite get to tomorrow; it would never be tomorrow—always tomorrow would be one day off. It is that way when a kitten chases her tail or when you try to step on your shadow.

But I am going far off the subject of the sweet package. I never ate preserved ginger, but I fancy that I shall like it very much. If I don’t I can give the ginger to Ding, my grandmother, who is very fond of it. Anyhow, the bottle is sweet and it was very sweet of you to send it to me. I thank you again very, very much.

 

Love from Barbara.

 

This letter was to the Lathrop sisters.

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 29, 1924

Dear Gertrude and Dorothy:

I want to express the feeling of thanks which I have toward you for the adorable little box from India. It fills me with beautiful ideas of beautiful things. It reminds me of a deep dark woods containing one blazing brilliant bush, covered with wild flowers of fantastic shapes and strange colors. It makes me think of Fairyland and a black woods streaked with gold growing marvelously beautiful bushes. Or it makes me think of Queen Atee, who was so beautiful and yet harsh. Or maybe of Queen Flitterveen who was very loving. It makes me think also of a dark green meadow with one flaming bush on which there are strange birds and beautiful butterflies lighting on it. It makes me think of looking over that colored bush in miles and stretches of gold and black woods in Fairyland. It is not only beautiful but it is useful. We keep clips and pens in it all the time.

 

Lovingly,

 

[Enclosed on a separate sheet dated January 30, 1924]

 

For Gertrude and Dorothy:

Ideas flow through my mind of marvelous and beautiful things,

Of the box which you have sent me.

It is a congregation of fairies

Dancing round a solitary blazing bush

In the center of a deep black wood

Where roam the ghosts

Whose footsteps pave the wood with pearls and foam.

But the golden-robed fairies frighten the ghosts away;

And on silent golden wings the butterflies soar in the blue of a sapphire day.

The leaves of the magical bush glimmer like emeralds

And in the entrancingness of the fairy wood

Is heard a wondrous song.

It rings and rises through the woodland green and gold.

The fairies feast around the bush

On emerald and ruby drops of dew.

And still the magic music sounds

And the butterflies flying overhead

Soar up and up into the beauty and the stillness of the

Sapphire sky.

 

Lovingly,

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

January 31, 1924

My dear Mr. Paul:

Thank you ever and ever so much for the beautiful print of Beethoven that you sent. It was lovely in you to have the intention of sending it to replace my other ones if they were lost in the fire. This winter I am taking piano lessons of Bruce Simonds, and you may remember that I took them of Rosalind last winter. We are working on the two Sonatas of Opus 49, numbers 1 and 2. Then we are also working on the Andante of Opus 79. It is a great pleasure. Thank you very much for the picture, anyway.

The new house is coming on famously, and we are thinking seriously of moving in soon. Probably we shan’t move with our things; we may remain here for two or three days after the furniture goes in, but I am thinking how delicious it would be if we spent a night there Wednesday which we are thinking of doing. They have put on the wainscoting in the living-room; the wall-paper in several of the bedrooms; they have put on the linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms. We hope that very soon we can entertain you there.

Sabra is growing sweeter every day. She is flourishing beautifully and weighs 14 lb. 8 oz. She was six months old the 27th. Every afternoon she is taken up to play till six o’clock and her bottle time. She has all manner of amusing tricks but I cannot stop to tell about them all now.

 

Your friend

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

February 5, 1924

My dear Mr. St. John:

Thank you very very much indeed for the box of persimmons that you sent me from Virginia. They had the strangest flavor that I ever tasted, but they were perfectly delicious. I showed them to all the people in this house to find out if they knew what they were. Several of them didn’t. I thought it was quite a joke. Thank you very much for sending them to me, anyway.

The new house is coming along famously. We hope to be in very soon now. We are having the men put on wall-paper. My little study has a very beautiful paper with little gold and bronze-colored birds sitting on little gold and bronze-colored leaves and branches. For Sabra’s room they have put on a paper with all sorts of lovely flowers twining all over it. For my grandmother’s room a rather simple paper simply showing red and pink flowers twining around greenish stalks. For the guest room they have put on a paper showing little streams with bridges over them and swans swimming under the bridges. For Mother’s room they have put on a true Jacobean paper which fits the house in every way. It simply shows lovely green leaves of queer shapes twining up and up on slender stalks.

I know that I shall feel like this odd little poem when I get to Armory Street:

 

Ah, silken amber-winged butterfly

Your wings are silent and golden,

You are borne by the wind on those silent amber wings.

There you go into the sapphire sky

 

And over the sapphire lake

Whose drowsy ripples

Make me feel like you

Silken-winged insect;

 

Borne by the wind on silent golden wings

Through the blue of a sapphire sky.

 

It is an odd little poem I know, but it expresses a certain feeling that I sometimes have when I think that everything that is odd is beautiful. I wrote it when I felt that way. That is why it is odd. Here is another rather odd snatch of verse:

 

Apollo’s Arrows

The sky is ultramarine,

The sun and moon have gone to rest,

The stars are shining brightly.

 

Blue Vega in the zenith,

Orange Arcturus in the west

White-eyed Capella rising in the east.

 

Then there comes a golden arrow swiftly gliding

Through the silent bed of the sky

And through the noisy feast of the stars.

 

That is one of my oddest bits of verse, but I can’t help liking it just the same. It refers to a shooting star, and I can remember how entranced I was when I first saw a shooting star. I have a few more odd little bits of song-like verse:

 

The Winter in Fairyland

It is a mountain

Covered with snow

There are pear-shaped flames there

Dancing in purple and blue.

It is a gorgeous garden

Each petal is white and silver.

The sapphire sky floats overhead

And in it is no sun nor moon nor stars.

It is not night or day.

 

I am really surprised how odd it seems, but I think I like all three very much just because they are odd, don’t you? I think this is an odd letter but that is because I am writing it while I am in that odd state of mind.

 

Very lovingly,

Barbara.

 

Mr. St. John wrote a poem for Barbara in February 1924.

 

Eepersip, Eepersip, where are you hiding?

Come from your lurking place in the deep wood;

Play with me, stay with me, nestle beside me:

I am your henchman, the slave of your mood.

 

I am your travel-mate; we will go journeying,

Wandering, wondering, under the trees,

Trailing the rivers and climbing the mountains,

Gay as the sunlight and free as the breeze.

 

Eepersip, Eepersip, child of enchantment,

I will make magic to draw you to me:

I will blend bird notes with play of young foxes,

Flavor of beechnuts, and strength of the sea.

 

Grace of a fern leaf, tinkle of fountains,

Sparkle and darkle of moonlight on dew,

Odors of wild grapes and quaintness of orchids—

These, and your name, will I put in the brew.

 

Eepersip, Eepersip, why do you run from me,

Hurrying, scurrying, through the dry leaves?

Down by the brookside I hear your light laughter:

Do you not care that your comrade grieves?

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

February 9, 1924

Dear Mr. Oberg:

I am looking forward for the house to be finished not only so that we can be in it, but also because we can’t have the pleasure of being together until the house is finished. It is very nearly finished though. For several of the rooms we have picked lovely wall-papers and they have been put on. Isn’t that great. You see, we may be together very soon now.

F A R K S O O ! F A R K S O L I A ! H a r r a h ! Would that the greatest people in the universe would let down their mighty machine which will take them to other planets and take us to their planet Farksolia. Ah, wouldn’t that be wonderful? I wonder how you would like it, for though it is beautiful it is very peculiar and strange in almost every way. It is

 

Where the skies are bluest,

Where the leaves are green,

Where the white-capped wavelets

Glisten with shimmery sheen.

 

Where the waves come rolling in,

Where a song of the sea is heard,

Where the goddess Virodine

Leaps to the song of a bird.

 

Where the skies are black and blue,

Where the stars are shining white,

Where the blackened billows

Thunder with terrible might.

 

Where the grass is soft and green

Where the flowers bloom;

Where the billows blue once more

Mightily do boom.

Where the flower stars are shining,

Where the wind-borne butterflies

Do silently sail

Through the sapphire skies.

 

This is like Farksolia with a sea more wonderful than any Earthen thing, and where more lovely butterflies than ever dreamed of on Earth sail wind-borne through sapphire skies. Ah, Farksolia is surely a wonderful place with its booming billows thundering against high cliffs. I should like a little ship with white fluttering sails to come for me loaded with my Farksoo friends, for I have some friends of Farksoo and they love me dearly. They, if they could, would come for me in the ship that I want. It has a green ship part and the rest would be fluttering sails. They would come for me if they could, and I would gather my precious belongings and then we would be off! Through the waves of our sea we would gently glide and then we would reach an unknown land where the other Farksolians would be waiting for us with that powerful machine and then we would be off for Farksolia! Through the foaming dashing waves we would go with a silent gliding motion and when we got to the unknown land we would be off for Farksolia! And if I ever come back, which would be doubtful, I would never be contented with the Earth again. Don’t you think that it sounds like a very wonderful place and wouldn’t you love to go there?

Thank you very much indeed for the lovely poems that you sent us. I just know what patience you must have had over it and what great care you must have taken. They were very lovely anyhow and I thank you again for sending them to me.

I wonder if you are still working on make-up butterflies. If you have done all that I have sent you tell me and I will send some more, but also if you need more send me a list to keep of those that I have already sent you. But don’t trouble to do that unless you need more descriptions. I am now telling you more or less about what the cover will be like. You see the Farksolian butterflies are about to be one section of a large book on Farksolia. This book will be divided into several divisions on Farksolia. One will be of the main plans and maps of Farksolia; one will be of Farksolian Birds and Butterflies; and one will be of the water creatures of Farksolia and about all that lives under water. Then there will be a section on not only a little detail of the place, but about the Farksolians’ habits, workmanships, inventions, and about what is found in the planet and what kind of fruits are grown, and what kind of foods are gathered, and a good many such details. You may think I expect too much of you when I invite you to draw the Farksolian Birds also! If you do, do not by any means accept this invitation. Come down as soon as you can and we will talk it over anyhow.

 

Love from

Barbara.

 

461 Humphrey Street

New Haven, Connecticut

February 9, 1924

My best and dearest friend [Mr. St. John]:

I would like a little ship to come for me, a little dark green ship with fluttering white sails, laden with my Farksolian friends, for I have some friends of Farksoo and they love me dearly. If they could, they would come for me in the ship that I want. When they got here I would gather up my most precious belongings, and you, dear friend, for you are my best belonging and my most precious. Then we would sail across our ocean and reach an unknown land where some more of my Farksolian friends would be waiting for me with their powerful machine which takes them from one planet to another. Then we would be off for a separate planet. Ah, how wonderful that would be! I wonder what would be the first thing that we should do. I think that the first thing I would do would be to stare all around me for ten whole minutes; then I should fall unconsciously on the ground and would be sick for about twenty-four hours which is not the whole of a Farksolian day. I would be sick from breathing the air of the Farksolians’, for the air is so different from ours. It is so easy to breathe that an Earthen going to Farksolia would breathe in too much at a time. That is why I should be sick, and I think you would be sick, too. Then I would take you and grip you as though I were afraid of losing you, and we would wander out from the city of Sheheritzade into the open fields. Then we would lie down together and gaze from the soft green emerald grass to the sapphire sky, where we should see the swallow-like birds circling. Then I should look a little lower and would see the butterflies. Then I would look down in the grass around me and would see the dear little busy insects visiting first one flower, then another. We would watch the golden butterflies going everywhere on soft, silent, golden wings. The wind would bear them through the sapphire sky over us, and under us would be the rich brown earth of Farksolia. I would feel the soft green grass all up my back and would smell of all the flowers coming within reach of my happy nostrils. We would breathe in great breaths of the warm scented air. How happy we would be. I think that we would be perfectly contented to stay there all day without eating a morsel. Then when dusk came on we would wander into the city again and dine on silvery fruits of marvelous tastes. Then at night we would gaze from the meadow again into the wonderful night sky of a mixture of ultramarine and black. We would see the constellation called “Peen Flitterveen.” It has this name because it is shaped exactly like a big butterfly with beautiful curving lines of stars for the feelers. And a curious thing about this constellation is that all the stars in it are of a golden color. Then we would also see the other important constellation, called “Peen Farksiades.” That constellation hasn’t a very remarkable pattern, but the stars! They are remarkable because they are black, little black stars! Oh, how lovely they are, though they are very inconspicuous against the ultramarine and black night sky! My, but they are lovely! Then we should also see the two moons of Farksolia and their names are Vaireen and Seeven. Vaireen is rather like our moon in coloring, but Seeven is very inconspicuous for it is nearly the color of the day sky in the day and the night sky at night. But both moons are very lovely. Do you think that this is a very true description of what we would do if we went to Farksolia? I do.

 

Very lovingly,

Barbara.

 

To George Hendrickson’s daughter, Marion, from an undated draft (circa February 1924).

 

Dear Marion:

In the depths of a woodland shady and green

Where the flitterveens fly and caireens sing

In one ecstasy of beauty and wonder

There is a fairylike pool.

Around it grows the sweetest, softest and the greenest grass

And tiny blue flowers there blossom

The bottom of the pool is clearest sand, crystal and white,

And over it swim tiny white fishes.

Over the pool hangs a woodland bough

With the dark green leaves and golden fairy fruits,

And by the pool fair Flitterveen, baby, two years old, is sitting!

Her silken golden hair is like the sunbeams

Which now do float in, there.

Around that hair so golden is a wreath which the fairies have crowned her with.

She is gazing at the silvery fishes

Swimming over the sparkling silver sand.

In that wild but too beautiful forest place.

Her fair blue eyes shine like stars of heaven,

Beauty found only in that heavenly place.

Fairy baby, she is more beautiful than ever here.

 

It is true! The highest compliment that I can possibly pay to the picture that stands on your father’s bureau is that you look more like a Farksolian baby than any Earthen baby. Indeed, you do not look at all like an Earthen baby; you look absolutely and from all my points of view like a Farksolian baby. You look in the picture like almost any Farksolian baby, but mostly like Queen Flitterveen when she ran away and sat by the pool looking at the fishes, in the softest green grass with a wreath of dark leaves around her silken golden hair and when the people looking for her saw a baby two years old they were entranced with the beauty of the fairy place. Think of it, Marion! A baby two years old actually entranced with beauty! I know I ought to be able to pay the picture still higher compliments, but it is a high compliment to be told that you looked like a Farksolian baby. Don’t you think so? Even if I cannot express my feelings any higher I can say that I think the picture is beautiful, the loveliest one I ever saw and that I come into your father’s room every day and look at it.

I wonder if my card catalogue drawers came while you were still here. I don’t think they did. Anyhow, Daddy sent to Boston for two card catalogue drawers with small rods to put the cards on (though the cards have to have holes in them). Well, I made quite a long job of punching through my Farksoo cards. I had two catalogue drawers, one to keep the Farksoo-English cards in, and the other to keep the English-Farksoo cards in. Now, my Farksoo is not such a job because I have now no great groups to punch. When I get six or eight cards written on I punch them right then and there so that I don’t accumulate a great bunch, like the bunch that I had before the drawers and the punch came. It is great fun!

We are now seriously thinking of “moving in” soon. The house really is nearly finished. They have put the paper on four of the rooms and maybe they have finished the fifth, but the last thing I heard was that they were putting it on in Mother’s big room, and I really don’t believe they have finished yet. For Sabra’s room they have put on a wall-paper with little flowers on it which has the appearance of black and white but which has many other colors on it. For my little study they have put on a wall-paper with long, pointed leaves, and little birds sitting on twigs all in gold and bronze and brown. For my grand-mother’s room an old-looking paper with just a little pink and red flowers twining up it. For the guest room they have put on a paper with a very complicated pattern: it shows little bridges and streams and swans swimming; then it also shows windmills, and groups of tall trees which look rather like poplar trees; then around and all over there are vines of lovely green leaves. For Mother’s big room they are putting on a true Jacobean paper. It has green leaves twining up and up on twisty and gracefully curving stalks. It is very nice. So you see we are nearly finished, and the speed depends a good deal on us, for they can’t put on wall-paper until we choose and we are having a rather difficult time choosing it. Anyhow we hope to be in ourselves in two weeks or maybe before that, and our furniture may go in in a very short time.

Sabra is perfectly beautiful. She is getting to the point where she can imitate quite a few things that she sees other people do. For instance, sometimes if you say ssssssssssssssssss to her she will imitate that noise. But the funniest thing that has happened yet was once when Daddy was shaking his head at her to keep her from crying she began too, and shook her head like mad. She finds out new things and has new tricks every day. She is dear and we hope she will have a good time in the house, running around the big straddle chimney and chasing herself and other people in the big playroom.

 

With love from,

Barbara

 

Transcribed from a draft to an unknown recipient whom Barbara had met recently. This may be her first letter from the new house.

 

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

March 5, 1924

My dear friend:

I was very glad to hear from you so soon after I had made your acquaintance and I myself would have written sooner if it hadn’t been for the hustle and bustle of moving, for we have moved into the new house that we showed you. Of course most of the bustle is not through with so that there isn’t really much pleasure yet, but I can see that it is going to be ideal living. I know how beautiful the woods are going to be in the springtime with the little squirrels playing around in the leaves. I think that there are going to be some beautiful birds here, too, but now there are only sparrows, jays, and crows. I haven’t seen any chickadees, much to my surprise, for I am pretty sure that I have seen chickadees before in the woods in the winter.

Last night a very exciting thing happened. I was going to bed, and Daddy was leaning way out of the window of my room. He was looking down where the kitchen light lighted up a small area outside the kitchen door. And Daddy saw a great big yellow tom-cat in the circle of light. He sneaked and sneaked into the dark where we couldn’t see him and presently we heard the cover of the garbage-can fall off with the rattle. That was all we saw of him, but after I was in bed I heard some rustles in the leaves, and I fell asleep thinking of that big cat sneaking and sneaking!

A few days ago there were many dogs out in the back yard and all we saw all day were dogs and dogs. In the evening the dogs continued to go back and forth, and the faint light would sometimes show their colors all in black. But there was one dog that was sneakier and blacker and more mysterious than any of the others; and we thought of wolves, wolves out in the back yard. And then I thought how amusing a picture it would be if there really were a pack of black wolves out in the back yard showing black against the outline of the silent house, and against the outline of the dark night sky with stars and stars in it and the great warrior Orion amongst them with his glittering silver armor. Then from inside we might hear them and see them lifting up their dark heads with golden eyes and barking. How thrilling to see those wolves, out in the back yard!

Thank you very much for sending me that lovely photograph of the little pond which you discovered. And to think of discovering it! The thrill of discovering a thing which no one else has ever seen! Isn’t it a wonderful thrill? That you must tell me for I have never discovered a thing. Isn’t it wonderful to go and struggle through the thick woods, bushes, and briars, and then suddenly come upon an open space with a valley and a range of mountains before you, and— in the valley is a little secret pond which is yours. If I discovered a thing like that I would think of Eepersip. She also discovered many little pools and lakelets. And Eepersip, you may remember, is the character of my story. Have I told you about Eepersip?

I wonder which kind of mountain you like the best, the low woodsy kind rich and green, or the tremendously high kind with great precipices and the tops bare solid rock with eagles flying over them. Don’t you think it would be nice to climb suddenly on to the bare rock out from the deepest woods and see in the mountain sky a great eagle with mottle brown and white wings outspread, sailing down the still sky. Close to the ground there might be no wind, but where the eagle was there would be a strong wind blowing and the eagle would sail and sail. And then you would go back into the woods to your little log cabin and sleep and in your dreams you would see the blue sky with only one thing in it, the great brown and white eagle with wings outspread.

Please come to see me here sometime pretty soon, the sooner the better. We can have great fun watching the chipmunks and squirrels and the lovely golden butterflies fluttering amid spring-laden flowers and trees.

 

Yours lovingly,

 

Transcribed from a draft to Mildred Kennedy with “Armory St. ’24” noted on it by Helen. Barbara probably wrote it soon after her tenth birthday.

 

Dearest Aunt Mildred:

Thank you ever and ever so much for the dear little bag that you sent me. It is perfectly sweet and I know I shall use it a lot.

I wonder if you would come and see me here in the new house some time. I should be tremendously glad to have you, because I have so many things to tell you about and because I also think that you would love it here. You know I was very much disappointed when you didn’t come the day that you said you would.

I want to tell you all about Farksolia: Farksolia is a land, in fact, a planet, and a separate planet from Earth. Farksolia is my imaginary land, and I can introduce its history by telling you that I love it much more than any land here and I have a good right to. I hope you will love it the way I do. First, let me tell about its past history.

Now the planet wasn’t so large as Jupiter, but it was bigger than the Earth; and there were very few people living on it in proportion to the size of it. They all loved the woods and wanted some arrangement so that they could prevent the woods from being cut up into little choppy villages. So they decided to live in one big city together, and the name of the city is Sheheritzade. Now Farksolia had eleven queens in succession to rule over it and in order their names are: Bruwanderine, Lacee, Ibirio, Flitterveen (which means butterfly), Rooeetu (which means bird), Liassa, Atee, — Lazade, Herazade, — Creesotheemis, Perizade. Now where I have made the first dash is where the Farksolians stopped their peaceable living and changed it to a war against Queen Atee and her friends. During the reigns of Lazade and Herazade the war lasted. Then where the second dash comes is where the friends of Atee were extinguished and where, during the reigns of Creesotheemis and Perizade, they lived peaceably again. During this war some people from Sheheritzade went across the great Farksolian ocean (about which I will tell you more later) and made themselves a little village on the other side (about which I will also tell you more later) to escape the war. After the last queen mentioned died, there were only two families living in Sheheritzade. I don’t know why this was or why the people after Perizade suddenly began to die quickly and quietly. Anyhow there were only two families left in a short time. One family had a little girl and the other family a little boy, and we thought that the life of the planet depended upon their marriage and breeding of the race again. Well, we had quite forgotten about the few people who were on the other side of the ocean—and a few days ago back they came to Sheheritzade, and amongst them was the lovely daughter of the last queen Perizade whose name was Perizade Juliet. A few days ago she was crowned as the twelfth queen of Farksolia.

And now to the sea of Farksolia which I mentioned before. Never was a more wonderful sea seen than that of Farksolia. The sun shines on it and makes it sparkle and quiver; altogether it is the most beautiful thing on the planet. On the other side there is a great long plain which extends all up and down the coast. Strange little brown animals run amongst the curling ferns and the beams of golden sunlight which stream down. Then also on the other side there is a marvelous forest. It is very deep and dark and choked up with dark green leaves broad and flat. Amongst this forest are strange curling ferns and strangely leaved trees bearing bright red fruit. Oh, what strange fruits grow in this forest, this deep forest where not a sunbeam penetrates. And yet there is not a bramble there. My what a marvelous forest this is!

The Farksolian food consists largely of fruits and wild plants. Hardly any cooking is done. They have beautiful fruits of all colors. One plant is very much like our celery in looks. A person going there would say: “Pooh, this is only celery, I expected to have something marvelous.” Biting into it he would find the stalk filled with a red and purple juice in which flow little golden seeds.

Now I’ll tell you more about the eleven queens. Queen Bruwanderine was very dark-haired; Lacee was with snowy hair; Ibirio had pale gold; Flitterveen, deeper gold; Rooeetu—nobody here is certain about her. Liassa had dark hair, so had Atee, Lazade, and Herazade; but Creesotheemis again had snowy white hair; and Perizade had the most beautiful hair of all, dazzling gold. During the reign of Liassa, which reign was the reign in which a census of the people was taken, it was calculated that there were about 40 people with black hair, 145 with auburn hair, and about 500 with golden heads. A good many of the golden-heads had very dark eyes, which point added a great deal to their beauty. Perizade did, she had very dark eyes, and I told you that she had golden hair.

Liassa was a peculiar queen. Maybe it was because she was the queen before the war and because she felt the war brewing in the air. She loved dark colors. She always dressed in black or very dark brown velvet. Her handmaidens wore uniformly neat little white dresses with a huge brown gauze shawl tied round the head with a black band sweeping down at the sides and round the front so that there was very little to be seen of the white dress.

Creesotheemis was just the opposite. In her palace everything must be white and delicate gold. The dress of the queen was sometimes of black velvet (opposite to what I have just said) on which her snowy hair shone out beautifully. This was very rare though. Usually she wore a white and very delicate gold dress hung with white beads which gave it a rather milky appearance. When Creesotheemis felt very dressy she wore a sparkling golden dress. Because of the difference between Liassa and Creesotheemis the Farksolians sometimes spoke of night and day as Liassa and Creesotheemis.

The beautiful queen Lacee wore a white dress of beautiful shiny material trimmed with light but sparkling gold beads. Lazade, on the other hand, wore black or brown and, during the reign of Lazade, some people wore strange bead ornaments on their foreheads with loops or strings of two contrasting colors, beads like black and white coming down over their eyes. They must have tickled and felt funny certainly! Herazade was much the same. Queen Flitterveen’s palace was about the gayest, for it was decked out with gold and green and those were the colors of almost all the dresses. About the costume of Queen Rooeetu we know little, but we know well that her handmaidens dressed in long dresses of green with a sort of Arabs’ headdress arrangement of bright red or lavender shading off into almost white like the scarf that you sent Mother. A very picturesque combination of color!

Beautiful Queen Atee, for whom the war was waged, had pitch-black hair and sometimes wore a milky blue dress looped with white beads which was a marvelous background for her hair. Perizade usually wore a blue dress with a few twining patterns like clover leaves in white-gray. She wore a crown of bluish leaves held in place by a golden band. On her lovely robes her golden hair looked like, ah! I cannot express in words the beauty of that golden hair on the dress. Her colors were gold and blue. Of blue and velvet was her throne, and her handmaidens were dressed in robes of silver. Perizade’s beautiful sister, also Perizade, was quite different from the queen. She had black hair and very dark eyes and in her dark hair she wore a wreath of golden leaves. Her dress was of silver, long and not full, and she had beautiful arm-droops of gold cloth. Indeed some people preferred Perizade’s sister to Perizade as for beauty. I did indeed mention the queen’s beauty, but as I think it over I think maybe I prefer Perizade’s sister.

Perizade’s fairer sister had a palace of her own. It was adjoining to her sister’s palace. The sister loved the woods near Sheheritzade. She often went to the forests, and one could see her in her gold and silver dress standing out clearly with a back-ground of dark green leaves and glossy red berries. Now I must tell you that about six miles from Sheheritzade there was a beautiful grove of trees bearing beautiful blossoms of pink and white with very slight tints of blue. Here was the favorite haunt of the dark-haired Perizade. During the fourth and fifth of the eight seasons (of which I will you more about) the lovely blossoms grew; and during the sixth, lovely smooth-skinned golden fruits hung like lanterns overhead. This grove was famed for its intense beauty throughout the Farksolian world.

These seasons of which I was speaking are eight in number. During the first and second the snow melts, during the third buds begin to come, during the fourth birds and butterflies come. Then the fifth is the loveliest. The fifth bears blossoms and rather pale greens. The sixth brings the fruits and still deeper green grass with hotter weather. The seventh turns very rapidly to first snows, birds and butterflies vanishing, buds and blossoms withering, leaves slowly falling and bare winter. The eighth, first, and second seasons are the only months of cold weather. If the snow does begin to come in the seventh season the weather is still quite warm. In the middle of the second the snows go tremendously quickly, and in the third it is a little like our April and May.

The fishes of the Farksolian Ocean are very beautiful and very strange indeed. There is one little fish striped with alternating bands of blue and gold, another all gold, and another all silver. The silver one likes shelter in the rocks, long windy passages in the rocks lined with sea-plants and shells, some of which are very lovely. The blue and gold one wants almost bottomless depths and no rocks, just “plain water” as one might say. The gold one is at home in a deep slime-lined green grotto in the rocks or on a narrow sandy beach place. When you see it swim all you see is a flash of gold. Then it stays still a minute and then darts swifter than a golden arrow again. Then it stops, pivots on still flipping fins of sparkling gold, then rushes on again. Some of the marvelous fishes love the twisty gardens of plants. There are little hard miniature tree effects of white and red which stick very tightly to the rocks or pebbles.

If one could only see the Farksolian sunsets in the evening, or “Sarabeeine” in their language. They are marvelously red and if there are little clouds they are no longer white but dull gray outlined with crimson. From the very red near the ball of the sun the colors shade off through orange, purple, and yellow, to a dull gray outlined with orange and then the dull blue color of the evening sky. The sunset is all the more wonderful when seen reflected in the sea. The evening or even midnight sky is not the dull gray-blue of our skies; it is just blue, a deep blue yet a bright blue, but not at all gray. On this background the stars are marvelous.

I will now say some more about the stars. One of the most beautiful constellations is “Peen Flitterveen” or in our language, “The Butterfly.” It consists of rows of golden stars arranged in such a manner as to form a perfect butterfly all in golden stars. Another constellation, a very odd constellation, is “Peen Farksiades.” That consists of a small pattern in the form of interlacing rings of quite black stars. But they certainly are bright and don’t they show up well? The Farksolians have two moons, by names Vaireen and Seeven. Vaireen is very inconspicuous, for it is almost the color of the sky, but Seeven! Seeven is bright silver, a gorgeous moon.

I told you, I think, about the great joy of Perizade Juliet coming across the ocean. She has now two little children both also Perizades, Perizade Creeso and Perizade Bruwine. They are called Creeso and Bruwine. Now they are twins, only four years old, but we think that they are going to look like their great-aunt, the first Perizade’s fairer sister that we were talking about not long ago. We will talk about her some more now.

Now Perizade’s sister was a queen too! She helped her sister rule. Her palace was connected to her sister’s by means of a passageway, but for the most part the passageway was not used. Perizade’s sister’s palace was more beautiful than her sister’s, and her throne was of blue velvet. One handmaiden sat on either side of the queen all the time on cushions of blue and gold velvet. These handmaidens wore beautiful dresses of green and purple gauze. The chief maiden who had charge of the costumes and the dresses dressed in a straight dress of purple velvet trimmed with a braid of brilliant silver. Some of her maidens wore neat little dresses of pale yellow, others wore flouncy dresses of silver braid. Still others wore sweet little dresses of yellow and white trimmed with little sparkling gold beads. Her messengers wore little dresses of yellow covered quite with sparkling golden braid. Still other maidens wore flouncy dresses of white all covered with delicate white beads. More maidens wore plain dresses of yellow and white, and still others of milky blue. Some maidens wore straight skirts of green stuff covered with a thick skirt of gauze. One of the queen’s pet maidens wore a sleeveless dress with a tightish waist of pink and a skirt of pink with a more flouncy skirt of pink gauze over it with the bottom trimmed with little rosettes of pink gauze also. Another chief maiden wore a dress of the same kind with some sparkling golden beads on it. One maiden again wore a flouncy skirt of green gauze with a lot of golden beads sparkling in the waist. The feast bearer wore a flowing beautiful dress of bright carmine with some silver and gold beads which whitened off the rather alarming color. The pretty girl who scattered the flowers wore a long, slim dress of pale yellow and blue. The maiden that took care of the queen’s jewels wore also a dress of carmine, but of paler carmine than that which the feast-bearer wore.

In the midst of all this splendor so sat the queen. The walls of the palace were all hung from top to bottom with gauze of a mixture of pale green, purple, and yellow. The window near where the queen sat looked out on to a garden of pink flowers. From the ceiling there hung a light decked with gold braid which cast a marvelous gold light over all the splendor. This light was kept burning all night, but not at day.

Now for the queen’s chamber! It had an arched ceiling of pure white material. The bed was made of silver and draped with gold. On it was a pink puff. The walls of the room were of silver ornamented with a great variety of precious stones. A little maiden dressed in blue and yellow was waiting for the queen to go to bed. She pulled open the bed, took out the roses which had lain there a while to keep the bed smelling sweetly; then the maiden pulled off the golden light and went out. At the dawn the same little maiden was in the chamber again helping the queen to dress and also to straighten the bed. Then the queen would walk down the hall to the throne room and there she would order the breakfast. After breakfast every morning the queen gave her orders and mysteriously disappeared, nobody knew where. But we know well that she went to the woods to gather marvelous golden fruits, and sometimes she went to the shore of the little lake which was there near the palace.

Maybe we have worn out Perizade’s sister. Let us turn to something else besides just queens and costumes. What else is there? Oh, I haven’t told about the writing and mailing arrangement they have there.

In somewhere about the middle of the city there is an electric mail station. There runs from this mail station underground tunnels to every house. The person from the house places the letter or package on an electric slide in the tunnel, pushes a little button and shoots the package along the slide to the mail station. There the man takes out the letters and packages, reads the addresses, and sends them through the tunnels that lead to the house to which it is addressed. Now the writing materials that they have are very peculiar. The pen is of wood sharpened into a very sharp point, and it is hollow. Just above the point there is a very tiny little hold. Now the writing fluid is placed inside the pen and to wet the point you press a little rubber button near the end and it trickles down out the hole and over the point; when it gets dry you do the same thing again. The writing fluid is composed of the sap of a certain tree which is dark green in color. But of course it goes through several operations before it can be used.

Now I would like to turn back to queens and costumes again, because of a sudden I have thought that you might be interested in the lovely queen Ibirio. She had very pale golden hair and very dark eyes. She usually wore a pale blue velvet dress sometimes plain and sometimes trimmed with silver or gold braid. She wore blue velvet slippers to match with golden buckles. She occasionally wore a dress with a brown velvet waist and a skirt of satin covered with another skirt of brown gauze. Her handmaidens wore very flouncy skirts of green gauze trimmed with gold or silver braid and sometimes with gold beads. Indeed sometimes they were left plain. The walls of Ibirio’s palace were of some amber-colored material, which spickled and speckled and glimmed with all the possible shades of amber.

The chamber of Ibirio had sparkling blue walls hung with golden drapes. Two cherubim of coral stood one on either side of the mantle-piece. On the bed there was a great blue and pink puff. On all the floor there was a great fleecy white rug. This chamber I think is almost as beautiful as Perizade’s sister’s. Ibirio’s chief waiting-maid wore a long flowing pink dress with a little artificial pink flower in the belt.

Now I will give you a sample of the characters of the Farksolians’ lettering.

 

 

Now that means: Peen Flitterveen fis fithic soocun peen urnees. And that means: The Butterfly is flying over the meadow. You must perceive that I do not write well in it, for as you see I cannot keep those unfamiliar letters of the same size.

The Farksolians believed that there were real mermaids in the sea and that they had gold but not glittering hair. They had dresses of that pulpy sea-weed that hung down straight by their sides. They played on very sweet-sounding, strange-appearing instruments. They believed quite truthfully in these mermaids, and I as a favor to the Farksolians believe in them quite as truthfully.

The Farksolians had one goddess, Virodine, who had charge of all Nature. In fact she was Nature. She took the same place as Nature does on our planet. On the range of mountains around Sheheritzade they worshipped her. Ah, how they loved her.

I have one more costume arrangement to tell about before I leave off. It is of Queen Bruwanderine, the first. She wore a bright blue dress with gray trimming and long gray sleeves and on the dress were gray in all sorts of twisting leaf-pattern effects on the blue. It had a belt of deep blue satin. Queen Bruwanderine sometimes wore a band of blue leaves held in place by a golden band. On other occasions she wore a black velvet band around her head and on it a strange brilliant red flower. She had auburn hair.

Now I think that I will leave off about Farksolia for a while, because I fear that at this rate it will get tiresome. I will say a little about how happy we are in our new house. Extremely happy—except for one thing. Mother’s siege of boils. They began up in Sunapee and she has held out against them bravely for the past eight months! The one she is having now she has almost given before [sic], she has had one hurting, paining, fussing, tinkering, puttering doctor in to see her two or three times a day for a week now. That is why she hasn’t written. But when that is through with I think we shall be very happy indeed here, all surrounded with the happy laughing woods and the gay frisky little squirrels, and the flitting, fluttering little birds and butterflies. I have been a nymph in these woods many a time and I never in any place found so many hiding-places, lurking-places, peeking-places, peering-places, in my life. My it is great fun, and I earnestly hope that soon you will be here to enjoy it with me.

 

Very lovingly,

 

Two more of Barbara’s school assignments.

 

Thursday, 6 March [1924]

I. Practice on the piano. You must have a good lesson for Bruce. See if an hour of practicing is too much. Remember that the other children in school don’t have this chance of getting in some good music during the early part of the day.

II. At 10 o’clock begin the following French: Review lesson 28, see if you can write the forms of the verb given in that lesson. Review the vocabulary in that lesson. On page 43 write the short sentences under Oral Drill. These sentences are very good practice for your verb forms. Review the poem you memorized, and try writing it. Then learn the vocabulary under lesson 29. This will get you ready for me to take up lesson 29 with you. Time yourself in doing this French. Use every moment hard.

III. At about 11 o’clock begin your violin. Time this also, and tell me exactly how long you can keep at it well. I imagine that an hour on the piano would not be too much, but that an hour on the violin would be.

IV. Page 89 of your Arithmetic book do over again examples 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27. I am anxious to get through with this commission business and get into interest with you—banking, etc. But we can’t get alone until you have got the idea of discounts and commissions.

V. This is a good morning’s work. See that the work you do is neat enough to show Mr. Oberg. Let him see what kind of lessons we can do when we get started. This afternoon is your play-class, remember.

 

Thursday, 27 March, 1924

Violin

Science: Write for me an account of what you read yesterday. I have kept all your science sheets, and they make a very good condensed version of the book.

Piano: Do some good work for Bruce this week. Really get somewhere with your practicing. You can work at least forty minutes at a time now.

French: Page 45 in your Grammar. Write in French the sentences at the top of the page. Write from memory the following phrases: (1) What is that? (2) That is... (3) How is the...? (4) What is ... ? Then turn to page 11 in Easy Lessons in French and fill in the blank spaces in the exercise at the top of the page. Do the same to the sentences at the top of page 12. You had better write all these sentences and not mark up your book. Review Les Trois Souhaits and look carefully at the constructions as you go along so that you can answer simple questions.

Read: Take the National Geographic and look at the pictures of Geography and Some Explorers; then read the article what ever interests you, but especially read beginning on page 272 through to the end.

Arithmetic: Page 92, do ten examples beginning with example 8.

Piano

Write me a page of description. Make it a page of Sunapee if you like; or make it up entirely out of your imagination. Make it either poetry or prose. And give a title to it.

After these things are done, then do what you like with Eepersip or read whatever you like.

 

A letter to Mr. St. John from about March or April 1924.

 

My dearest friend:

I have been intending to write to you for some time, and tell you how sorry I was that Mrs. St. John has had an accident, but this and that have prevented me. I hope you will tell her for me how terribly sorry I am.

I remember I wrote you one letter on Farksolia, but now I would like to tell you a little about how my story, The Adventures of Eepersip, is coming along. Of course, you know about how she ran off to live wild on the great meadow, but I don’t believe I ever told you about how she got a little bit tired of the meadow and one evening saw the sea from a high peak and went there, to the sea. Well, that is what she did in the fourth summer that she had spent wild. And there she spent her time playing with the waves and the sea-gulls, being in the water probably a third of her time. She spent five summers doing this kind of thing all the time and in the spring of the sixth summer that she had spent at the sea and the tenth summer that she had spent wild she went to a great pasture where the “steeple-bush made the air golden” and where it was fresh and beautiful with the scent of sweet fern. This is what I wrote about this pasture. “There were lovely ferns and nodding golden flowers and the air was scented with the intoxicating fragrance of steeple-bush, the steeple-bush which makes the air golden with smells.” To quote actually that is what I wrote. And there Eepersip got so wild that she could receive messages from the fairies, and one day they came to her clutching her dress and kneeling before her and telling her that she had a sister, five years old, and her name was Eeverine. And Eepersip went back to her old house and without mercy on the parents she took Eeverine away, to live wild with her! And oh! I love Eepersip so! I have suddenly been having quite an outburst of Eepersip all of a sudden.

And do tell Mrs. St. John how sorry I am, won’t you?

 

With love and full of wishes that we meet soon,

goodbye, dear friend.

Barbara.

 

[On a separate sheet attached to the above]

 

To My Dearest Friend

The poem I send to you, my friend, is from the land of water-nymphs, robed in waterlilies and soft green.

 

May every single butterfly

And every single bird,

Bring you my love unbounded,

Like a vast—vast sea.

 

May every single bird that chirps

Sing love from me to you,

May every ripple of every river

Bring you happiness and joy.

 

May every silver rain-drop

Bring you tidings from the water-nymphs,

The water-nymphs so beautiful,

The water-nymphs I live among.

 

May nothing harsh or ugly

Enter into your life, my friend,

May everything bright and beautiful

Come flocking with love to you.

May your life be like an appleblossom

Or a wild rose bud.

 

May a ship loaded with butterflies

Of blue and fairy golden,

Come sailing to your port someday

Each bearing love to you.

 

A plea from Barbara to her parents. (“Armory Street about 1923,” Helen wrote on it, but if Armory Street it would be March 1924 or later.)

 

Talk about something! Get rid of your female friends who talk about nothing but their children and your gentlemen friends who talk about nothing but books and colleges and automobiles. Or, if you can’t get rid of them, make them talk about something really worth while. The worst part of this dull talk is that the listeners are interested! Instead of listening intently and gossiping about everybody with your female friend, Bess Sheldon, why don’t you say: “I’m not interested, can’t you talk about anything but other people’s affairs?” (I don’t mean that you should be really rude, though.) Now think what an effect that would have. You might be able to make your friends real friends instead of pretend friends. Now, why under the sun does Daddy listen so intently when everybody talks about books, books, books with never a moment’s rest. Sometimes they do talk a little about automobiles, but these authors are made of books anyhow and they can’t talk about anything else, even if they tried. Make them! Get it into them that they must talk about something else. You say you have business to do—well do it! You could get it through with in five minutes if you really tried. But you string it out to the last possible detail, as if you really enjoyed it. I can’t believe that you do enjoy it, it is so stupid. Now if I were leading a conversation, I would first say a good deal about Farksolia, but before my audience got tired of it I would say something about how vile the slaughter of trees is getting. Then I would go back into Farksolia a minute and mention how disgusted a Farksolian would be with this slaughter. Then I would say a little about the gorgeous swallowtail that I saw resting so long amid the green leaves before he flew away. I would ask this one what kind of flower this was, and if he knew anything about this variety of bird, and I would say a little about books and poetry. Not that I am putting an abuse on the books. I love books, but this everlasting talk about them all the time (and mostly not interesting ones at that) drives a sensible fellow mad. At least I should think it would.

If you try the plan I have adopted I think you would get many more friends, and more interesting friends at that. There should be nothing to make a man or a woman happier than a pack of real, honest-to-goodness friends, who will always stand by you in your troubles of which you are sure to have many. Make your talk really bright and interesting. Have you ever known—could you ever imagine Helen Winternitz to come in saying: “I saw the loveliest butterfly yesterday,” or “I found a marvellously dainty little bird’s nest as I was coming along to your house.”

This page and a half that I have written can be expressed in just a few words: Make your talk more interesting. Just try this and see if it doesn’t work. Of course if it doesn’t work you needn’t keep it up, but I think it will.

 

Barbara’s other grandmother, Cordelia Adelaide (White) Follett (1859-1952), lived in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, with her husband Charles (1855-1928) and granddaughter Grace (1911-1995). Grace was Wilson’s daughter from his first marriage, to Grace Huntington Parker, who died two days after her baby was born.

 

[undated, but early April 1924]

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Grandmother Follett:

You know that at present that there is no delivery here, and some of our mail is sent to Daddy at the Press and some just stays at the post-office. Your lovely package of cookies was among the unfortunates, I am sorry to say, for, by the time I received them, April 2, the doughnuts were a little too hard to be eaten, but the cookies were still delicious. I felt dreadfully at the thought of all that care of putting them up going for nothing, but there was nothing I could do about it. The cookies however were perfectly delicious. They make me think a little of tarts, they are so rich and filling! I was very glad to get the box anyhow.

I do so much want to see you. It seems as if I couldn’t wait any longer. We have a wonderful place here and I am sure that if you came you would enjoy it thoroughly. Especially Sabra. Sabra Wyman Follett, my cherub of a sister. She gets one more trick every day and sometimes two. She is eight months old now, but she is not creeping or even sitting up. She adores the sitting posture, however, and I think she will be sitting by the time she is nine months. If you are fond of babies at all you would be fond of her. She is—well, you couldn’t have anything better as far as health is concerned. She is outdoors in the back piazza all day when it is pleasant, breathing fresh, woodsy air. When she comes in her dark brown eyes shine and her cheeks are fiery red. She is beginning to do her first plays in the bath-tub. For a long time past she has been kicking on the bed, but she has just begun to play in the bath-tub. She is lovely.

I have so many things to tell you about when you come to see me, you will be bothered to death with my talking, because when I have a lot to say my tongue runs fast—so be prepared for it. For I have ever so much to tell you about my delightful ideas of Eepersip and Farksolia.

 

Lovingly,

 

A letter to Mr. Oberg. Grant Showerman (1870-1935) was a Classics teacher at the University of Wisconsin.

 

June 19, 1924

New Haven

Dear Friend:

I know how shameful it is that I haven’t written to you, but I think you know how it is when one is so busy that one doesn’t know where or how to begin. I am now a lot freer than I was before, because tomorrow is my last piano lesson and I have already finished for the summer my violin. I have been lazy at getting Eepersip going again (for a few days ago I let up again), but now I have had another outburst. I wonder if I made [it] up [to] this point when I saw you last. The fairies told Eepersip that she had a little sister, and Eepersip went home from the sea, miles and miles it was, and she took her sister (whose name is either Eeverine or Belldina) away to live wild with her. You see, Eepersip was rather hard on the parents. Now the Igleens (the parents, of course) loved Eeverine (I shall call her Eeverine, not Belldina in this letter) more than they had ever loved Eepersip, but they said nothing about Eepersip to her for fear that she would run away, too. That would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Eepersip’s knowledge of her sister. If Eepersip hadn’t known that she had a sister of course, she wouldn’t have come home to take her. The Igleens were more determined to take back Eeverine than they were Eepersip but, though there were many clever tricks, Eepersip’s slyness avoided them all. And Eepersip loved Eeverine dearly, and wove dresses of ferns for her, as she had for herself. And Eepersip now had a gift from the fairies, and it was this: that flowers that she wore would live, no matter how long they remained on her dress or in her hair, and also Eepersip had that power over the flowers on the dress or in the hair of any person she wished. So, of course, Eeverine’s flowers lived as well as Eepersip’s.

But now, the Igleens, finding that they could not catch either Eepersip or Eeverine, had another child, and her name was Fleuriss. Now Eeverine and Eepersip both had auburn and golden-brown hair mixed, but Fleuriss had the loveliest black hair, which was adorable when she wore a wreath of yellow flowers. The Igleens told Fleuriss about Eepersip and Eeverine, thinking to persuade her not to go. But she went all the same, and I am telling about an adventure in a marvelous place of her own. Eepersip had not stolen her away; she went quite of her own accord. But there is no use in my describing the place she went to, for it is copied from a really true place where I go very often! Instead of telling you about Fleuriss’ adventures there, I will tell you about my adventures there, and it will be about the same.

Two or three days ago a friend of Daddy’s whose name was Grant Showerman came to lunch and supper to see Daddy. He was a very interesting person, and when he had done his business with Daddy he wanted to go for a walk with me. So we went down the street a little way and then turned under the tall fence, where it was broken down to build the houses, to where we went to take a picture of the house. But we weren’t content to stop there (I had been to this place many times before, but this is the most exciting adventure I have ever had there). We went on through bushes and briars and up terrible rocks and cliffs (I must add that this gentleman is a mountain-climber), and finally got to the top. And there was the great, round ogre’s castle (the water tower), and we were bold enough to go up and knock on the great door, and it sounded hollow. I don’t think the ogre was at home. Well, we went on and such a lovely place it was! There was every kind of land possible. There were bright shiny patches of deliciously soft grass, and then there were hard patches of rocks and disagreeable brambles, choking vines and such. Well, we went on towards the house on top, and as we approached it it looked a little more landscaped as there was a neatly graveled road bordered with roses, and a bright, beautiful [missing word] also bordered with them. We went a long way until we saw the house, but we didn’t look there long—our attention was too much distracted by the place itself. There were the loveliest flower beds one could imagine, but we didn’t stay there long, for we had been too long in the wild part of the place, and the folks at home must have wondered where we were. But there was no hard rock climbing on the way down; we walked slowly down a little winding path, a very easy way out, and we were rewarded for all our trouble to get up.

Little Fleuriss had the same adventures, except that she didn’t come down. No sir, she stayed for a long time. I have now left my story at a very exciting point: Eeverine captured, and Fleuriss there. I think that in the end they are all united again, for now there are three and yet none of them are together, because Fleuriss is far from Eepersip, and Eeverine is also far from Eepersip, in a cage, and Eepersip doesn’t know where. But, by a chance shot of Nature they are going to be united again, more happy than Eepersip ever was. The question is: shall they meet at Eepersip’s place, or at Fleuriss’s? Of course, not at Eeverine’s, the farther away from there the better. I think I shall make it Fleuriss’s because Fleuriss’s is the loveliest of all the places in the story, much lovelier than the places Eepersip found with Eeverine.

Now let me say a little about Sabra. She is terribly funny. She gets funnier every day. This morning especially so. She now kneels in her crib when she takes her cereal, and instead of kneeling she sometimes stands, holding on to the bars, of course. This morning she exaggerated this a little, going so far as to do it in her little bathtub.

Thank you ever and ever so much for everything, the pictures, the drawings, and the pencil, that especially. I have reloaded it a lot for the practice, and I succeeded beautifully. I love it very much. And thank you again ever and ever so much.

 

Very lovingly I sign my name with the pencil I love it so

from your dear friend,

Barbara.

 

Helen, Barbara, and Sabra went to Sunapee for the summer. Wilson joined them about a week after writing this letter.

 

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

18 July, 1924 (Friday night)

My dearest Barbara:

It was terribly nice to get your letter at the Press this morning—your little note about the warblers and the silvery minnows and the perch with a grin on his face. You will have the books in a few days, and a paper supply along with them. And me not many days after that!

It is frightfully lonesome here, living alone as I do, and you can have no idea how I miss Mother and you and the Brat.

The goldfish are all right and seem to be thriving; I am sure I have given them enough to eat, and I only hope I shan’t kill them with kindness. Also, there is a flock of quail living in the woods just west of us, and they are so tame that I almost run over them with the Pierce when I drive in by the cartpath from Prospect Street.

One week from to-morrow! Won’t it be grand!

 

Daddy.

 

An incomplete letter typed on three index cards (I suppose the paper supply hadn’t arrived).

 

From the Woods

July 23, 1924

Dearest Friend:

I suppose you know that I am now in the most beautiful place in the world. The home of nymphs and fairies, gnomes and elves, birds and butterflies, bees and dragonflies, moths and flowers, fishes and frogs. It is not only the home of all these things and more, but it is the home of Nature and Beauty. You know all that.

I wonder if you have ever stood on a beach throwing crackers to a merry, happy little school of silvery minnows. I do almost every day. The minute the piece of cracker lands among them they all rush at it, and for the next several seconds the water is solid with the lively little fishes. Finally, when the cracker is small enough for one fish to seize it, the one fish does, and then, unless he wants to lose his prize, he has to do a very breathless deed: swim as fast as he can and eat at the same time. I have never tried that, but I can guess that it is sort of tiring. It is all very amusing.

Last night a handsome visitor came to our garbage box, all dressed in black and white. In the morning we knew he had been there. There were two reasons. The most prominent of them was that our friend had got angry with some mischievous animal that was foolish enough to come near him, and had gone away, wiser and smellier. The other reason was that a piece of bacon rind which Ding was watching had disappeared.

 

Also typed on three index cards and unfinished.

 

From the Woods

July 25, 1924

Dearest Friend:

I wonder if you know, by any chance, that I am now in the home of Beauty and Nature. This is where nymphs, fairies, gnomes, elves, live. Nowhere in the world, I believe, is there a place so fertile and luxuriant. On the sand-bars and shallows of Sunapee are minnows which can be reckoned only by hundreds. These minnows gleam like the jewels in the crown of Creesotheemis. (Creesotheemis is one of the queens of my imaginary land, Farksolia.) Beautiful dragonflies, their wings gleaming like shimmering opals and moonstones, glide through the air, swerving with a speed which seems impossible for such small flimsy wings. Great orange butterflies go flittering through the air, on those noiseless wings, which seem to have gathered an unimaginable beauty and mystery.

It is a windy day. The silvery white-caps bring me tidings from Nature, tidings from the mermaids. For this is the kind of day that one hears the wondrous and mysterious songs, sung in praise of the goddess of the lake, in those soft, round voices, which thrill every heart with their silvery music.

I have never experienced any such evenings as those we have here. The mystery which is part of the evening is not interrupted even when the silvery tones of that incomparable singer, the wood-thrush, break that indescribable stillness.

 

From the Woods

July 31, 1924

Dear Mr. Oberg:

Needless to say, I am now in the land which Nature loves so much. It is the land of the lake of beauty unsurpassed, it is the land of the little shy nymphs and fairies, that here one sees all the time. Of course, it is Sunapee! Sunapee, the loveliest land in the world! Now of course, that isn’t saying very much, for I have not seen the whole world. I have not even seen the whole of the New England States. There may be lands which are more beautiful in scenery which is always the outside of a land, but there is no land equal to it when you take it from the inside. Now no one really knows what the inside of a land is, but, even if you don’t know, you can always be sure that it is the inside of a land that counts, not the outside. Also, even if one doesn’t know what the inside of a land is, one can usually tell by magical signs whether the inside of one land is better than the inside of another. But that is not of importance. I think Sunapee is the nicest land in the world, let that suffice.

I am swimming so much better than I did last summer, that I really [believe] that there must be some magic concerned in it. The first time I was in the water this summer I swam much better than last summer. The puzzle is this: that peculiar change didn’t come gradually, it came over the winter, and, of course, I had not been in at all in the winter. Yesterday, for the first time, I had the nerve to go in head-first. Then I did several other times in rapid succession! I guess I dived twelve or fifteen times, and only two were bad, and then, not so very bad. I thought that I wouldn’t like the sensation of going in head-first, but oh! I do! Daddy persuaded me all the time to open my eyes under water and see things, so I’ve decided that I will the next time I dive. The children that play out at the raft jump off feet first and feel around when [they] want to bring up some of the fresh-water clams, that are so common there, but, when I get to bringing up clams, I’m going to dive and look for them with my eyes open. Helen Stanley always dives when she goes for clams, but I think she feels about for them. Eunice Stanley jumps off and stoops over to pick them up.

 

Barbara and Sabra at Sunapee, 1924

 

If you could see Sabra, you’d certainly see something that would make you feel happy. She loves Sunapee, especially in the morning and afternoon when Mother turns her loose with Ding or me in the sand. She likes to feel the nice sand run through her rose-bud fingers. She is a little apple-blossom. Thank you very very much for the dear little cards you sent her. I’m sure that when she gets [to be] three or four and I show them to her and tell her that they were her one-year-old birthday cards she will be highly pleased. I’m going to keep them very carefully until that time.

 

May a great, big ship, with jeweled sails and mast of gold reach your lonesome port loaded high with love and kisses,

from your loving friend,

Barbara

 

To Mr. St. John.

 

From the Woods

August 6, 1924

Dearest Friend:

I was very glad to get your letter, the picture of the silver fox, your account of your search for orchids, and what you are going to do at Shawandasee. Then, of course, I was glad to hear about Mr. ’Coon. I like them very much: they are so pretty with their black masks, their dainty little feet, and their gorgeous tails.

I would like to tell you about an adventure I had this morning with one of our feathered friends. I was over at the Secret Beach—I had been watching the pretty sparkling minnows, the little golden-colored perch, and the sometimes solitary, sometimes in school, bass. The three kinds of fish sometimes mingle together, the ones at the Secret Beach being about the same size. As I said before, I was over at the Secret Beach watching them all, when a great flapping of mighty wings reached my ears. I looked up and saw a great bird fly to a tree and alight on one of the limbs. He looked like a great dark splotch, but, as I had seen him alight there, I knew it was he. I crept along through the bushes stealthily (afterwards I discovered that there was no need of being stealthy) until I got out on the path over which passed the limb on which he sat. One leg he held tightly against his bluish grey breast of a very pale color. He was all pale grey-blue with some brown mottling on his back and throat. His under tail parts were almost white. I bet he’s still sitting there on the limb. The whole family has seen him—and he just sits there and looks at what is going on around him. I don’t know what kind of bird he is.

I hope very much that on the way to Passaconaway you will stop in the Gravel Cut.

 

With ships, with fluttering sails and jeweled masts, of love in baskets woven and embroidered with flowers,

from Barbara

 

From Sunapee

August 14, 1924

Dear Rappe:

Thank you ever and ever so much for sending me the Herbarium. As you wish I certainly shall try to start a collection here, the way I did ferns last year.

Daddy and I are planning to make a big net of some kind like a seine to catch a whole big school of minnows in and transfer them to the Secret Beach. In the school there are two or three that gleam with a strange-beautiful green light. I think they must be the daughters of the mighty leader.

Thank you again for the Herbarium.

 

Yours,

“The Spirit of the Brown-Tailed Moth.”

 

A letter to Mr. St. John describing Barbara’s first extended expedition into the wilderness—a weeklong canoeing trip with her father ending in an overnight stay on Mount Chocorua, one of New Hampshire’s finest peaks.

 

October 5, 1924

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

Dearest friend:

Dear me, here it is October and I haven’t written to you since August I think, and then it wasn’t really a letter. I was very glad to get your nice letter, telling me so much about the things you’ve seen and done. I know all the flowers you mentioned I think, except the Cardinal Flower, and that I’ve heard of but never seen. I know the witch hazel, and have heard about its popping across the room, but never have happened to see the last.

I have not been writing about Eepersip and Eeverine, Mirodine, as I have renamed her. I can imagine them dancing away happily in that fairy-like spot amid the stalks of the Cardinal Flower, which, I hope, has golden seeds.

The best event of this hectic summer was—a week’s camping trip alone with Daddy. I hope you won’t feel hurt when I tell you that I really couldn’t wait—to do the long-looked-for climb with you—and so I did it with Daddy, the last thing in the trip. But I shouldn’t mind doing it again with you, in fact I would love to, so I hope we can manage it or some other trip next summer.

We too were very much disappointed not to go up to your place at Passaconaway. I hope that we can do that too next summer, amid many, many other things we have postponed time and time again.

Sabra simply adored it up in Sunapee, and simply adores it here, except that she hasn’t got a beach to creep on. Up at Sunapee she was just beginning to walk quite rapidly when one held on to her, and two or three steps alone, but the climax so far came today. In the morning she walked eleven steps alone, and so I thought she wouldn’t be long then. But this afternoon, when we partly undressed her and put her on the floor of Mother’s room to creep as usual, she didn’t creep at all—she walked! Every few steps she would sit down hard, but only to get up and try again. I am thankful, and shall be more so, when the creeping stage is over. Perhaps it is the cunningest stage of all, but she gets so dirty. And, though it was better in Sunapee of course, here there really is no very nice place to let her do it out-doors. Well, I certainly wish you could see her.

Now as to the long camping trip I told you about. I feel sure you would be interested to hear about it, so I will now begin. Daddy and I started north-ward with the canoe firmly lashed on to a trailer we borrowed, and the tonneau of the old Pierce Arrow loaded with things such as we needed. That afternoon we arrived at the little town of West Ossipee, which, perhaps, you have heard of. That afternoon we took the canoe off the trailer, loaded it with the things in the tonneau and put in at the small Bear Camp River which flows under the bridge at West Ossipee. That evening we camped on an island. But before that I experienced the real thrill of the river—somehow the rushing current, still unusually high from the big two-day rain, the treacherous snags and golden sparkling quicksands held an almost endless fascination for me. Before that I had experienced another fascination, that of pausing a moment to watch before a large bay of Winnipesaukee far, far off, the last thing visible—part of the Sandwich range, faintly outlined in the blue immensity of space. But then, they were outlined in pale misty blue, and I never dreamed they were topped with the white granite that they really are.

Well, to go on with what I was saying. We camped on this island—that night made an island only by the fact that the big rain had caused a back-channel around the part that was once mainland making it therefore an island—for the most part an open meadow, swampy in places. After we had put up our big tent, our two army cots, and piled our stuff in a neat corner of the tent, we set out to find a house with some water, for we hardly liked to use the river water, as it did come out of West Ossipee. I had a couple of canteens and Daddy a cloth water-bucket.

We paddled across the river and landed at a steep mud-bank on the other side. Through a thick border of bushes we pushed out into the open meadow, where I thought every shadow was a rain-pool on the grass. Directly ahead there was a big double maple and by this we land-marked the place where the canoe was. Finally we came out on the street where we looked first down one way and then the other, and at last we spied a house, and briskly set out towards it. A very kind old farmer welcomed us, filled our canteens and bucket, took fifteen cents for a half dozen ears of corn which we were to take in the morning together with two hills of potatoes, only he said to take eight or nine ears.

At last we got back, getting supper and Bed quickly. The several fascinations and charming visions had got me nervously excited, consequently I did not sleep very well but hoped to do better after I got used to it. It was very difficult to get up in the morning, but I did, and was mightily glad I had, for I had a grand time skipping here, there, down to the river, back, going down on the beach to wash hands and face and dishes! As I was washing the breakfast dishes I spied several shoals of the tiniest fishes I ever saw. Oh, they were darlings!

After breakfast we broke camp very neatly and quickly, considering that that was the first time we had done it, loaded our stuff into the old canoe again and pushed off. Across the river we went to get our corn and potatoes, and, having collected them, we started off for Ossipee Lake into which the Bear Camp flows. That morning we got there and it answered my dearest hopes. It was a great round lake with not any coves to speak of in it and no islands either. We had dinner on a beach there, composed of sand which looked as if it might make good Wheatena if poured into boiling water. After dinner we started towards the spot where a very inaccurate map told us The Narrows were.

But we had an adventure before that; in fact we had it as soon as we entered the lake. Those wonderful mountains again revealed themselves, but now we saw them quite near and the sun flashing on those pure white granite peaks and we looked at them long and longingly and then—we dipped our paddles into the blue of the lovely lake and sped on.

Now the Narrows, or, as we found afterward, Lake Paugus would have been the beginning of the Ossipee River except for a dam a few miles below which caused this part of the river to overflow, making swampy luscious ground in through there, a perfect labyrinth of coves and islands, indescribably lovely and enchanting. And as I passed through there, gliding gently onwards, so entranced that I could paddle only two or three strokes and then stop, for a long time, everything seemed bewitched. It was there that we saw the first loon of the expedition, though altogether we must have seen several, for later we saw that one joined by another, and later still we saw two others scouting round on the other side of the lake, and after that we saw several at various times.

After having visited several camping sites we decided upon a moderate-sized island, but quite different from the other. For the other, as I said before, was an open meadow, and this second one all strangled with bushes and saplings, a good part of which were poplars. The next thing after pitching our tent was, of course, supper, and—goodness, there goes the top of the ribbon-spool on my type-writer—hot cocoa, big hunks of cheese and slabs of Mother’s excellent nut-bread tasted mighty good. Then we went to bed and there we chattered together for ten or fifteen minutes, and every little while we would say in the midst of our chatter, “There goes another loon!” and would listen while the strange cry would echo again and again in our ears. After a few moments of happy chatter we told each other we wanted to go to sleep and so we rolled over and went quicker than before.

 

 

The next morning Daddy was up before I was. He went out to see what was to be seen and called me, telling me to slap something on my feet and come. I went out quickly and looked to where he pointed, and there rose Chocorua, that long-hoped-for peak with the sun shining all over it making the whole thing, not only the top peak, that same unhuman dazzling lightning white. And all morning with the sun on it the mountain kept changing—sometimes only the peak would be shining, the rest in wonderful shades of black, green, and blue. It was then that we named the peak Arakaboa, the Dream Mountain. And the lake, Lake Solitude.

Soon we started off for Effingham Falls where the dam was, but without breaking camp this time, for, you see, we had planned to come back there, collect our things and go back. But ill-luck had also been planning, and had been planning otherwise. For, we came back from Effingham Falls in a smart little shower, turning to a constant drizzle all afternoon. So we stayed there in the tent on the lonely little island, laughing, chattering, playing games, and listening to the lapping of the wavelets and the strange, weird cries of the loons playing in the rain.

That was surely a lazy day. But I was glad of the afternoon rest because next day there was to be harder work than we had bargained for. The next morning Daddy was up early, in fact at dawn, and he got the cocoa on the little gasoline stove, the very lighting of which takes quite a while, and when breakfast was almost ready he hauled me out of bed, still storing soundly. We had breakfast, then we broke camp and started about the time we had risen before. We paddled the five or six miles back to Lake Ossipee and, as we went around the last bend of the Narrows, we saw great breakers topped with white spray come rolling in.

Then, as we went around the bend we saw Ossipee in the sharpest gale I had ever seen, even on the ocean. We landed on a sandbar, drew up the canoe to get a couple of photographs and consider things. Daddy said that, as the next mile or so across the lake was a continuous sand-bar, where it was only about to Daddy’s shoulders, most of the worst would be right there, because of the shallowness, therefore from that we could determine whether or not we could do the rest of it. So we dug in and tried. We made famous progress considering the circumstances, a heavily loaded boat, a canoe at that, only one really strong paddler, not to speak of the wind and the breakers and squalls. Well, we managed it very well, neither of us missed a stroke, and we didn’t ship enough water to unload and turn over the canoe for—and, to our surprise, the canoe carpet soaked it up very well. It really didn’t seem very long, I thought about an hour, but the terrific labor made it seem years. Daddy said it was probably a two-and-a-half or three-hour job. Well at last we got across and there we experienced the utter happiness in stretching out in the sun, for it was very sunny, resting and relaxing every tired muscle, and drying out, for I was wet up to my elbows.

We had dinner there, and we saw three ducks, swimming around the little point where it was quite calm, and out into the magnificent gale, which was still raging. After dinner we went to the mouth of the Bear Camp, whose current was still fiercely raging and paddled all the way back to West Ossipee that afternoon. Whereas before, with an even stronger current helping us we had done it in almost an afternoon and a morning. Then we got the bus and the trailer, unloaded the canoe, put it on the trailer, and loaded the tonneau of the old Pierce.

And now comes an event which may amuse you. Daddy intended to camp on the shores of Chocorua Lakes, so that we should be near Chocorua for climbing purposes next morning. We started on the road towards Chocorua Lakes, only instead of turning left on the road that went to the lakes in a few miles he went straight on over Washington Hill, and on and on until the signs told us we were coming out near Silver Lake, in quite the other direction from where we wanted to be. So we stopped, and hand in hand, we walked up to a square house with a glassed-in porch on two sides of it, perhaps three. Daddy walked around to where he thought the back door was, but there was no back door to be seen. Then we walked around farther still to where we thought there might be a side door, but there was no side door to be seen either. There was a door on to the glassed-in porch all right, all right, but there simply wasn’t any door into the house. So we christened it: “The house without an entrance,” and moved on to the next house, where there was an entrance, a very nice little old lady, a Canada lynx, beautifully stuffed and mounted, on the piano, a nice pet of a collie dog, and lots of information.

So we merrily go back to Chocorua Lakes, and pitched our tent in the same place where Daddy and Leo Meyette, a friend of ours in Sunapee, once rolled up in the bushes on a mountain trip.

The next morning we had breakfast, fairly late, and broke camp, together with something additional—packing our packs for the spend-the-night. Three blankets were all we could conveniently carry for bed-clothes, only Daddy planned to keep a noble fire going all night. Then off we drove for Clement Inn, at the foot of Chocorua. When we got there, we left the car, put on our packs, and started up the Piper Trail. It was not steep at all at first, indeed it was almost level, but up above Chocorua Brook a slight change began. Still farther there was quite an abrupt change, and the hard climbing began. Then we were I think about half a mile from the cabins. We began to get tired, and our discomforting packs pulled back our shoulders, and tried their best to make our feet fly out from under us. At last we got to the cabins—Camp Penacook and Camp Upweekis. We visited them both, but found Penacook much the preferable. The view from Camp Penacook was the picture you sent me from Chocorua—I recognized it as soon as I looked down from the camp.

After we had rested and deposited our packs we went on towards the summit, intending, you see, to come back to the cabins that afternoon and spend the night. I was pretty well done for after the climb to the cabins, and Daddy had his doubts about my getting up to the summit that afternoon, but, strange enough, after I was freed from the heavy burden of my pack Daddy couldn’t keep me in sight all the way. I ran up precipices of granite, and caught up to and even led some people who, a long time ago, near the foot of the mountain had passed us while we were resting. On top it answered my dearest expectations. Fold after fold of mountains rising range beyond range into the cloudy sky. Of course, Washington was in clouds, but even what I saw of it, its huge base, was enough to convince me of its tremendous height and size. And the peaks of granite—the very peaks of granite I was standing on! It seemed impossible that I was now standing on that very peak which I had seen so far off at first! Then after a long talk with the fire warden up there, we went down to the cabins again and there we spent the cold bitter night, but thanks to a fire Daddy kept going all night we were reasonably comfortable.

The next morning, after taking a picture, we went down, crossing the seven brooks we had crossed coming up, stopping at the foot to pick a pail-full of blackberries from a huge patch, which were greatly relished at home.

Then we started for the cottage, but, of course, not without an unpleasant break-down. Thus ended our wonderful trip. Sometimes I surely want to do a trip like that with you alone, dear friend.

Lovingly,

Barbara.

 

William Sloane Kennedy (1850-1929) was a friend of Walt Whitman. (See, for example, Debating Manliness: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William Sloane Kennedy, and the Question of Whitman, by Robert K. Nelson and Kenneth M. Price, American Literature 73.3, 2001.)

 

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

October 8, 1924

Dear Mr. Showerman:

Goodness, you have written me many, many nice letters, and I believe I have only written you one, two at the most! I’m very sorry, but there have been many things that have had to be done first, letters to be written to people that I thought might get hurt if I didn’t, whereas I thought you would understand.

Thank you ever and ever so much for sending me those precious, precious photographs. In my envelope I have another envelope, which contains only my most precious papers. They include some colored photographs—I mean paintings, of strange exotic butterflies and moths, sent to me by another friend, William Sloane Kennedy, a check for fifteen dollars—my first earned money, and those pictures. I shall keep these few things always, always, and they may, of course, increase.

As you see, by the above address, I am now back at Armory Street, in the oak forest. A few days ago I again climbed Mill Rock, where we went together, but did not dare to go as far as we went together. It made my heart sick to hear the sounds of hammering and an axe, for I knew they were building up those wonderful forests. Even if there is a city up there, I shall never, never forget the time there wasn’t, that glorious day that you, my friend, were here!

Shall you be here again this winter? I certainly hope so.

 

Lovingly,

From

 

An undated draft to Mr. Oberg from about October 1924.

 

Dear Friend:

I am now at Armory Street again. Of course the confusion isn’t over yet but we are getting help soon, and then I think it will be over in a short time.

I think you have written to me several times, with no letter from me in between, but you have no idea how many, many things there are for me—no, all of us, to do. Thank you ever and ever so much for your nice letters, the little French book, and especially the lovely, lovely butterflies and moths. Most decidedly they are Farksolian. The wonderful jewel-like colors! The thin fairy-like, gossamer wings! The odd shapes! Together these strange beauties form the loveliest design possible. I am simply wild to come and see the humming-birds you speak of, and perhaps real specimens, of those magnificent fairy butterflies.

Little Sabra is perfectly adorable. She is now walking when you hold on to her. She likes it here, but prefers, as I do, Sunapee. I feel sure she misses being turned loose in the sand. But maybe sometimes we can take her down to the beach on the sea sometimes and let her play there. There, I think she would like it better than in Sunapee, because while in Sunapee you only find two or three kinds of shells, at the sea you find hundreds. Sometime we shall certainly do it. I hope soon.

Well, goodbye, and thank you again for all that you have sent me.

 

With love,

From

 

An undated draft to Marion Hendrickson, later marked “Nov. 1924” by Helen. The S.S. Leviathan, which crossed the Atlantic between New York and Southampton, was one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners of the day. Helen and Barbara were seeing off Leo Anthony Meyette (1894-1974), their friend from New London (near Little Lake Sunapee), who was on his way to the Philippines.

 

Dear Marion:

I am writing to tell you many exciting things, but mostly to thank you ever and ever so much for the dear little tea-set. Your father brought it up one evening. I love it, and love to look at it in the dining-room corner-cabinet. It doesn’t show off the way it did in your father’s living-room, but people that come into the dining-room usually notice it the first thing. I wonder who could read the Chinese figures on the little cups. They are fascinating, aren’t they? I am crazy about the “semi-circle” tea-pot. It is a queer thing, the weirdest tea-pot I ever saw. Perhaps, when you come here sometime we can have tea in it together. Wouldn’t that be fun? I shall keep it in my little house (when I have it) and when you come we can make tea in the little house!

Yesterday Mother and I went to New York. It was the first time I had ever been there. We went for two reasons. The first was to see a friend off on the Leviathan, and the second was to see the Aquarium. As I said before I had never been, and Mother hadn’t been for several years, so we were expecting the worst things to happen. We expected to get lost at the very least and probably run-over or something like that. But we faced the prospect very happily. We found the first rather more difficult than we expected and the second rather more easier.

When we arrived at the Grand Central Station, we took a taxi-cab to the Leviathan, which was at Forty-sixth Street, Pier 86, I think it was. We got there safely and saw the monster. And it surely must be the biggest one afloat. I expected it to be big but not half—yes, just about half the length it is. We went all over it from top to bottom, and at last we found our friend. We talked a long time, watching the great flocks of gulls circling about and the smaller boats going around in and out of the wharf. At last the time came for it to sail, and we saw the four tugs push and pull and get it straightened, with the crew waving and shouting on board. We saw it off and then retraced our steps several blocks to Fifth Avenue, where we had something to eat.

After we had our lunch we rode in a bus to the elevated train, and in that we went to the Aquarium. There we stayed, watching the strange things for about an hour and a half. On the lower floor there were seven or eight big floor pools. In one there were a lot of gigantic turtles, in another a solitary penguin, in another a pelican, in another a group of alligators and snapping-turtles. Around the tanks were rows of little tanks, filled with strange, small fish. Around the walls was a row of big tanks, built into the wall. In about three of these were fancy goldfish, and in others were strange flat-fish of many different colors, sharks, muskellunges, bass, perch, angel-fish of gorgeous blues and yellows, with white ones and red ones; butterfly-fish, of creamy-yellow with fins of red-orange. Almost all of them were flat-fish, except a few which were quite the opposite. Some of them were striped, some were marbled, and others were spotted and mottled with all the colors of the rain-bow. There were some baby angel-fish, thin, transparent, and of a lovely sapphire blue. The angel-fish, pork-fish, and butterfly-fish, including many other varieties, were, as I said before, flat-fish. There were strange sea-robins with actual claws, sluggish rock-fish (almost all flat) whose heads stuck strangely out of the rocks here and there. There was one big tank which was devoted to three or four great sharks and shark-suckers (which were small blue fish which cling to the sharks all the time). The pork-fish are exquisite. They are a pale cream-colored species with very blunt heads and two shiny green stripes. Then there was a variety called the “queen-trigger-fish” which were big white flatfish with transparent white fins and blue-green eyes which circled strangely in their orbs. Then there were rock hinds of red, green, blue, and white, which hung about the rocks all the time. In one tank was a number of small brownish sea-horses. Have you ever seen them? They have long tails, a little fin on their backs, and a head which looks exactly like that of a horse. They grow about seven inches long. When they go it is always (or, at least, almost always) along the bottom. They go along upright somehow, and that little fin just spins. They look exactly like tiny hobby-horses. They like to wind their tails about the grasses when they rest.

But almost the most marvelous part of this Aquarium was the way the tanks are arranged. Each tank is arranged to represent as nearly as possible the natural conditions under which the fish lived before it was captured. There is running water all the time. In some the bottom is rocky, in others sandy, and in others muddy, all overgrown with plants. And in some the sides and the bottom are solid rock. In one of the tanks in which are a group of trout there is an artificial water-fall tumbling in.

After we had been at the Aquarium all we wanted to we took the elevated train again back to have something to eat. Then we just got the five o’clock train, instead of the six, which we had planned for. In this way we had done everything about, and yet got back home one hour earlier than we expected, instead of waiting around for another hour. We had done a lot, and had a very good day, you see.

I certainly hope you will be here soon. We will certainly have tea in that delightful manner when you do. Thank you again for the little set, ever and ever so much.

 

With much love,

Barbara.

 

176 Armory Street

New Haven, Connecticut

December 12, 1924

Friend Leo:

Are you really there, safely? Did you see anything more exciting than angry waves and swooping gulls on the way over? Perhaps you caught sight of some strange fish (though I don’t exactly see how you could from so high in the air), whales, or sea lions. You probably did see one or two whales spouting.

Perhaps you’d be interested to know that, listening to the radio one evening, I heard from a station in New York that the Leviathan, on its return trip, had encountered a terrible storm, that fifteen people were injured, and that waves over ninety feet high covered the decks. Those few who dared to try to get some sleep were thrown from their beds with dislocated ribs and whatnot. It made me hold my breath, when I first heard it, for I thought that possibly it was on your trip, but no, it must have been coming back.

Did you have fun living for five days on that big hotel? Did you like the pleasant rolling, tipping sensation of the waves (though it must take pretty big ones to rock ‘the Monster’)? I think, though I have never experienced the sensation of being on such a big one, that to lie and feel the vast bulk of it rolling and tipping must be one of the pleasantest sensations there is.

Is it not fun to lean over the railing of the high deck and watch the waves slosh and leap up on the side of ‘The Monster’? When they really begin to get excited they must leap pretty high, on touching the steep sides. On Thanksgiving Day, when we went down to the shore, the waves were rising three or four feet, and the gray foam and spray that rode on them leaped up on the rocks so far that they touched me, standing twenty or twenty-five feet back as I was. Daddy and I sat on top of a small precipice, and watched these waves come bounding in, covering the rocks and the dark green sea-weed, and then rushing out again, and smoothing the sea-weed out in its direction. There was a place in the rock, where there was a narrow ravine, draped from the cliff with sea-weed. And the waves would come sloshing in and would wash the sea-weeds back and forth, and would cover quite the highest point where the sea-weeds hung from the rocks.

At New York Mother and I had the greatest fun! We went to the Battery, and saw the remarkable, remarkable, remarkable, remarkable fish that are kept there. There were butterfly-fish, angel-fish, pork-fish, rock-fish, porcupine-fish, sharks, queen-trigger-fish, and everything that can be imagined by man, and more too. Many of them, such as the angel-fish and the butterfly-fish, were flat-fish, but there were one or two like the rock-fish and porcupine-fish that were quite the opposite. There were some rock-fish whose heads stuck strangely, inconspicuously, and very suspiciously from the cracks between the rocks, and they had great bulging eyes. The queen-trigger-fish were great white flat-fish with oval eyes of blue-green, and the latter rolled strangely in their various orbits like planets around the sun. Oh, they are just too ridiculous to exist, anyhow, and I’m not sure that they do exist. Then they had, besides these remarkable, remarkable sea-fish, common lake-fish, perches, muskellunges, pickerel, and many others. Then there were five or six big floor tanks, in which were turtles, gigantic ones (one of the back of whose shell was about three feet long), alligators (of which you will meet in Africa, I think), and one tank had a penguin, another a pelican, and another a seal, sea lion, or manatee, I don’t know which. Yes, it is a very remarkable place.

Do tell me what sort of experiences you had on the Leviathan. I am very much interested to know about it.

Goodbye—luck and joy be with you.

 

Love from

Barbara.

Silver Magic was set on mottled silver paper.

 

Christmas greetings and a poem from Barbara Newhall Follett, 1924

 

SILVER MAGIC

On Christmas morn,

Children, first looking from the windows,

See how desolate and bleak the garden is.

Withered the flowers, butterflies flown,

Summer gone from the woods.

But hist!—magic!

Out there, the leaves that flutter down

Are elfin butterflies, pearled with frost-patterns.

Flowers and ferns of the garden

Have come in fairy lace on the window-panes.

And what is this,

Wound about with climbing vines of the garden all turned to silver,

Lighted with candles that make fireflies

In every shining ball and glazen pendant?

Summer has come into the cottage!

It is May in the hearts of the children:

And sweet as songs of the thrush at twilight

Are the Noels raised by their happy voices.

Fairies, oh! fairies,

Come dancing soft as shadows,

Set the wood a-whirl with snowy wings.

Weave your iridescent webs,