SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
March 4, 1955 
Dear Dr, Sclunitt: 
Your letter of the 1st came this morning, I am going to try sending 
this to San Francisco and hope it will reach you there, Mr, Bryant has 
your letter now. He didnH have time to sit down and read it, so I left it 
v^rith him. 
Bundles and packages are beginning to come in from you, havenH 
opened any of them yet. Do you want us to? 
Gordon Gates has just written for information about the Walter Rathbone 
Bacon Scholarship, He wants to apply for it, Mr, Bryant says there are half 
a dozen applications in now. 
Say, getting a little uneasy about Light, In the light of what 
you say about Rofoid, I almost wish I hadnH written Light that letter. He 
has never acknowledged it, and I wonder if he is batting for Kofold Instead 
of you. Or, he may think in case you donH make the Calif, ^cad, you may 
be a competitor for the place Kofoid will vacate at the University® I hope 
you will have a chance to size him up while you are there, 
Mrs, Brooks didnH eat the chocolate pudding for lack of anything else 
to eat. The ice box was full of food — ^fruit, soup, cheese, milk, butter, 
cream, etc. She ate the pudding because it was all there ready to put on 
the table, and ”it was too terribly lonely” to bother to prepare any of the 
other things for herself® I donH drink coffee, you know, and even while 
I was here with her she made an awful hovfl. about drinking her coffee alone, 
I was hard hearted, I said, ”When I^m hun^rj^, 1^11 eat and I donH care 
whether any one else eats or not,” But she was funny that way, SheH go 
without things she liked and wanted unless l^d eat them, too. She tried hard 
to get me to smoke with her, and worked on Mrs, Schmitt, too, but neither of 
us did. She smokes more than any one I know, with one exception, and thatH 
another woman. 
Did I tell you that Miss CochranH mother died one day last week? She 
was burled the second day after she died, and Miss Cochran will not tome 
home before her time is up, 
Ralph Shoemaker told me yesterday that he was furious with Clarence for 
not telling him that you were going to Ecuador, Ralph is anxious to get 
a silver plate or salver from there and said he would have asked you to try 
to get it for him. He asked Clarence why he didnH tell him you were going 
and Clarence said, ”I didnH know he was going anywhere by the Galapagos,” 
Characteristic! I suppose he doesnH know that you’ve been going to Ecuador 
for three yearsi Ralph was so disgusted; he said, ”Clarence never does know 
anything, ” 
