%\it Jlnftiersitii of Chicago 



Department of Botany 



The Botanical Gazette 



December 26, 1903. 



My dear Deane:- 



morning. I shall enjoy reading it hugely. I m going to take it with 

 ir.e to St. Louis tomorrow night, where I go to spend the veek at the 

 Science meetings. I have to preside this year at the B.S.A. Your 

 Christmas remembrances are always so appropriate and so prompt 

 that it quite shames your dilatory friend. I hope to be able to get 

 off for you a package tomorrow night, but if I do net it frill be 

 delayed for a week or more by my absence. 



We had a Christmas of the oln fashioned 3ort yesterday, a 

 hea"y snow falling all day and by evening a gale with a cold wave which 

 sent the thermometer to minus ten this morning. My -ife's sister, 

 Mrs. havidson ; and her family dined with us and we spent a jolly 

 day indoors. The children however, are getting so big now that one 

 misses a great deal of the e Celtic joy of Christmas, but the quiet 

 pleasures never pall. 



T noticed that your package was addressed to my earlie st 

 Chicago residence I You people in Cambridge who^stay put^y^ar after year 

 do not realize what nomads Chicago^ans are. In the five and a half 



years that we have been here we have lived in five places;). which I 



the last three moves were due to our be in - away for nine months and then 

 not being ready to settle down into a permanent place. TrT e are getting 

 ready to build a house , in fact I have the plans and specifications 

 now on my table at home. ' e expect to break ground as early in the 

 spring as the weather permits. A group of eight friends are going to 

 build together. 9* purchased a large lot and have divided it up, 



admit is about as bad a record as ay Chioago\ansare apt to make, But 



