Dear Pearl,

Louise has been complaining about tiny footprints in the pantry since Christmas and so we have borrowed Lulu's cat for awhile.  His name is Sam and he is supposed to be the world's most ferocious mouser.  Although we have not actually seen him catch anything, he does thunder across the floors with great purpose at random intervals.  And Louise has stopped threatening to quit for the time being. 

Please write and let me know what you are planning for the Snow Ball.  Perhaps we will be able to come this year!

I Remain As Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue

Wintry Minnesota



Just Before April Came by Carl Sandburg

The Snow piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines,
A white pigeon reels and somersaults
Frogs plutter and squdge--

and frogs beat the air

with a recurring thin steel sliver of
melody

Crows go in fives and tens;

they march their black feathers past a blue pool;

they celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug

sits on my hand washing his forelegs

I might ask: who are these people?

Dear Miss Blue,

Very kind of you to forward the postcard from Miso Fine. I had no idea that Gratiot had any other meaning than the one I had known of all these many years.   Honshu, after the sneeze, so euphonic!

Shall we plan a trip to Honshu this Spring, Miss Blue? The delicate ways of the people there will surely be appreciated after so many days of listening to the protesters and their angry shouting. Quietly bowing and gently speaking works wonders it would seem. But now I will send my peaceful thoughts to Miso Fine and I am wondering if she remembers our afternoons drinking tea together as we listened to the most heavenly jazz music being played over the loud speakers in the tea room where we sat at small tables, intimate and secretive, leaning toward one another, whispering, eagerly watching for expressions of awe at our disclosures! All so wonderful.

Until another time,

Love, Pearl

Dear Pearl,

Miso Fine sent this beautiful postcard from Honshu where she is visiting relatives.  Honshu, she explains on the back, is the Japanese word for "Gratiot."  It's what you say when someone sneezes.  It's so nice how polite everyone is in their different lands, don't you think?

I Remain As Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dearest Pearl,

Fannie is babysitting the little girl who lives next door.  She's precocious and a tiny bit obnoxious.  But she amuses us almost to death with her penchant for posing.  Here is Lulu attempting the debutante slouch as practiced by Melba.  Oh dear!

I Remain As Always,
Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dear Miss Blue,So Fanny discovered the smooth but worn out plastered wall in the old pantry! The convenience of the telephone on the kitchen wall, gathering up long one sided conversations, listening carefully, all the while writing the most outrageous comments on the pantry wall, to be discovered, hopefully, by its intended victim, and thus given a place in the history of the old house, Issues forgotten otherwise. We studied the wall as we planned to move away from our childhood home, wanting to break it into chunks for display in our next home. But then again, we knew that would not be the right thing to do and now you tell me about Fanny's discovery and her desire to be an archaeologist. All because of the storybook wall. Fanny, the Archaeologist!

 

We have all but forgotten the lasagne scare, sausage or no sausage. Frankly, the left over lasagne has been turned into a new kind of soup, Chocolate Chicken Lasagne Soup, the sausage being removed, of course. Everyone exclaimed over the taste, actually standing up from their chairs, clapping and cheering until I had to invited them to sit down and continue eating, which they were happy to do. Oh, Miss Blue, the trials of life are so overwhelming at times.

 

Love, Pearl

Dear Pearl,

It's our last day in the old house and Fanny has discovered the wall in the pantry with all our names on it! And the red plates! She says she wants to be an archaeologist now. So impressionable! I do hope the diner is open again after the lasagne scare. How could you have known about the sausage maker's feuding family and the lengths they would go to discredit one another. . .

I Remain as Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue

Captivating story, Miss Blue, for it seems like only yesterday that I brought Melba downstairs in my old house by the lake to show her the ancient, genuine Norwegian snowshoes hanging up on one of the rafters, worn by a distant relative from Norway - yes, certain times skiing and the other times show shoeing. In and out among tall pine trees went the wooden snowshoes with rawhide webbing. Melba loved the snowshoes and tried them on. She just stood there, motionless, afraid to lift one foot for fear of bumping the snowshoes together and falling. I had to bend down and separate the shoes from one another and still, Miss Blue, all I heard from then on was Melba's blabbering about how she would right then and there buy herself snowshoes and for all I know, maybe she did just that. We never talked about it again. So, I am not surprised with your news about Melba in Ithaca and the "rather blue" but kindly gentleman who has nurtured Melba's interest in snow shoeing. In love again Melba! Write again soon, Miss Blue, and I will reply with haste for our letters are a lovely source of pleasure for me.

Pearl

Dearest Pearl,

Here in Ithaca the snow has created a fairyland of beauty and wonder.  Melba is learning how to snowshoe with the nicest man who showed up rather suddenly sometime after we arrived.  He is very kind but mysterious and prone to turn blue rather easily due to the cold temperatures, I suppose.  Melba is devoted to him and walks about in a state of bliss.  Perhaps he is the one!

I Remain As Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue

 

It is wretched weather here no matter that all Hell breaks Out in Cairo and the snow keeps snowing and the ice keeps icing and the small creatures here in the backyard have hidden so far down in their little earth houses that they might never know when the bleakness of Winter is over.

 

Love forever, Pearl  

Miss Goodrow and the Consonants

Miss Goodrow never ages, almost as though she had been teaching first grade for years and years; so knowledgeable with the vowels and consonants; why, she told me once that I had three consonants in my name and that they were hidden from the vowels, and she called on me one time to come to the blackboard to point out the vowels and consonants.  (We had to raise our hand to be called on) I wanted to come to the wonderful slate blackboard because the pointer with its brass tip always made an exciting sound when it touched the slate.  I wasn't sure which letters were vowels and consonants outside my name and the beautiful sound I made as my pointer touched vowels and consonants, without knowing which was which, had Miss Goodrow upset and I was sent back to my seat. We were friends, Miss Goodrow and I, even though the vowels and consonants were difficult for me to understand.

I hope she remembers how much I loved her and how sad I was to tell her the news that my family would be leaving the city and that I would be in another teacher's first grade room.  And so she picked me up in her arms and hugged me and kissed me and even cried a little; so sad a scene, Miss Blue, and never would I see her again.  Never!  And now you tell me that she is teaching the after school class all about understanding the needs of poor children and helping them along the way. Be sure to tell Fanny my story so that she will love Miss Goodrow too. 

  

Give my love to Fanny and all the family for I do so miss all of you, Pearl 

Dear Pearl,

Your story caused quite a stir here.  It so happens that little Fanny is enrolled in an afterschool program called "Charity:  Overcoming a Financial Advantage" that is about just what you described at the Ives School.  The students are encouraged to try to think of poor people as being a bit like themselves.  They role play various supplicatory gestures and practice distributing canned goods amongst themselves.  All in all a very good grounding in real world conditions and so very nice of the school to think of it.  Oh - the classes are led by the charming Miss Goodrow.  She still remembers you, of course!

I Remain As Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue