1912-1915 



VIII 



MATTERS did not change with 1912. Father wrote that 

 "the strain of work since Annual Meeting had been 

 very great," including, besides home duties, "Trustees* meet- 

 ings, University Convocations, General Assembly in Bombay 

 — a ten-day absence — and two visits weekly to Jagroon to 

 superintend building." Mother thought "it seemed to agree 

 with him to have to drive about — it took him from his desk, 

 altho' he had plenty of work to do at that." Father wished that 

 he could go home to his "class jubilee at W & J. I have missed 

 every reunion since I graduated." He warned Wherry: "I fear 

 you are overworking your eyes. Your photo suggests the 

 thought." Innocent of the fact that his granddaughter in 

 Chicago had already been struck, he continued: "I hope that 

 awful plague — infantile paralysis — will not reach you. I have 

 been reading up on it. We have nothing worse than ordinary 

 bubonic, and smallpox and measles here!" January 30, 1912, 

 Mother noted: 



A lot of poppies of a large variety have come up in our garden 

 & I'm having them planted in beds — they look pretty when 

 in bloom, and I don't feel as if I am encouraging the use of 

 opium! I have a few chickens which lay nice large eggs, but 

 I think we'll eat up the fowls before we go up hill in June. If 

 left with the sweeper, most of them will disappear — "wild- 

 cats, jackals &c" are said to carry them off, but we know very 

 well that most of them are sold. 



3 1 st One of our Christian women asked me to trade my 

 5 good fowls for the common kind which she has, so I have 

 done it. I had told her that we were going to eat them, so she 

 was glad to make the exchange, as she wants to raise some. 



By March things had grown less sunny: 



. . . Robt Lakewood had to leave the Mission & India — he 

 confessed to having lived a vile life out here. Went home a 

 year ago & came out in Nov, then his conscience seemed to 



