p- 
Yesterday was Mr. Shoemaker's birthday, and we cooked up a 
good one for him* He had told me that he was going to the dentist's yester- 
day morning and would be late* Fortunately, he was good and late, which 
gave us time to fix up a lot of things* I had made him a little box of 
fudge* I went up to Garrison's and got a little rubber model of one of the 
three little pigs — he's as fat as he can be, dressed in blue overall$^^. with 
a hole cut in the seat for his tail to come out* Also I got a small potted 
lily made of silk, and a little china stork* We did them all up in tissue 
paper packages with appropriate cards in each one. The card with the pig 
said, "When people overeal:, this is what they look like*" [Twice recently 
he has overeaten and has been right sick at his stomach for a day or more 
afterwards, and he was foolish enough to tell me about it both times.] 
With the lily, the card said, ’^Some people have to die to get a lllyj others 
just have to die from the neck up." With the stork, "We couldn't find a 
bat for your belfry, so here is a stork for your chimney*" 
We had those three packages, the little box of candy, and Mr* 
Kelly did up an empty box in tissue paper, also* Andrew was in here, and 
he hurriedly wrote up a little description of a new family, new genus, 
new species of amphipod. The family was Aselligammaridae, the genus and 
species Humbugus shoemakeri . His description was right funr^r; he had it 
resembling Asellus in some respects, Gammarus in others; hence the family 
najne. At the botto^m of the^4escription, which was written on a fold of 
paper to resemble a separate some publication, he added, .''Written in 
honor of your birthday." We plie\ everything up on his desk and put a 
big white card in front of it on wn|.ch I had written "Happy birthday to you, 
from your (dis)loyal subjects*" 
7/hen he came in, he thought it was all a joke and was afraid 
to open the packages. He finally got up courage to open them, and we enjoyed 
it very much* 
I hope you^ finally got your wife’s letter telling about Waldo 
taking the exams* She was quite concerned because she hadn't heard from 
you, but I think the letter must have missed you* She said Waldo feels he 
did pretty well on the exam, but that they made a note of his off eye and 
he may fail on the physical* He said he'd rather fail on the physical than 
the mental. 
^‘ir. Graf is having a meeting of supervisors in 42 this morning 
to discuss the possibilities of using some profession^Hielp from 
among the relief workers. 1^11 try to get us a cataloger and maybe another 
helper of some kind* I know you could use a couple, but I don't know just 
what you would want to do with them. We could use a cataloger for a long 
time* Write me quick and tell me what else you could use a professional 
person for — rearranging the stack, helping Maloney with the library, filing 
specimens????? I'll not mail this until after the meeting, so I can add 
whatever I learn. It is at 10:50, and it's 10:15 nov/* 
11:50* Am just back from the meeting. It seems that a new 
relief ]Dill is about to pass Congress which will make possible the employ- 
ment of professional people now out of jobs* President Roosevelt has com- 
plained that many professional people are out of work and there is no 
