April 22,1919, 
®1|e (Ontario 
JUaBljittgtmt. 0. 01. 
Dear Will: 
Well,another faster has oome and went,and ao far as fine weather is oom 
oerned nothing more could be desired.The children with their baskets of eggs 
swarmed all over the *hite House grounds as usual,and the @oo was black with humarl 
ity of all shades of color,if I may be permitted an Irishism,and all conditions ofl 
life.The forest has responded wonderully in the past few days to the call of spriq 
and in a very short itme all signs of winter will have passed.This reminds me,for 
no very obvious reason,of the fact that John Burroughs has been stopping in this 
house for a few days with a friend,a Mr Patton,whom I have often met but have not 
known well.I had a ohat with him the other day, and he told me, to my great surprise] 
that he was a ohum of Slliott Goues and Prentiss in their collecting days.He knew 
Burroughs in the old Treaury days,having been for many years connected with that 
department.. 
I enclose a letter of Mrs Parley's which I dm sure cannot fail to interest 
you.She has a vein of mysticism in her ,and is given to attempts to penetrate the 
hidden meaning of things and to look for signs.Quip meeting, however, after so many 
years is out of ; the ordinary,amd may well recall the days that are gone.I should 
like a ohance to talk with her a bit alone,and probably shall have an opportunity, 
""he malaria business is not to be lightly dismissed.If the neighbors are not lie- 
ing, however, nad if for several years t.jere has been no malarial patients in the 
locality the danger is practically nil,as I have written her. u alarial mosquitoes 
do not originate malaria but only pass it on from one human to another,and if thej 
there are no oases in the neighborhood then there is no danger till some one 
