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Potted plants kept coming in all day yesterday until the apartment was full
of them. Then we4 went tea with
the Menuhins5 at five.
When I came home at seven, for dinner, a box from Irene Hays, the very
smartest New York2 florist was on my
desk. "Yehudi6, of course.' he often
sends me flowers from there. When I opened the box I took out the richest
purple violets I have
2 seen
this winter—and your card. I simply burst into tears. It was instantaneous.
Disappointment? Exactly the opposite. Surprise and delight. It was an
emotion made up of many things. One's family do not see one in a "romantic"
light. That is natural. Douglass7
always sent me a gunny sack full of walnuts at Christmas time. It was nice
of him. But no man of my own family ever sent me any flowers before, and though flowers come to me so many, 3so many and so often, these violets
broke me all up for a moment—and filled me with a strange kind of pride.
They were on my breakfast table this morning, and are before me on my table
as I write. My pleasure seems out of proportion to the cause. But the cause
is everything; from the days when we used to sleep upin the old attic8
with the snow blowing in, and listen to trains whistle in that bitter cold
air. And it matters more to me to have you throw me a bouquet 4than to
have all the other flowers that come to me on my birthday and Christmas. You
brought back to me something of Christmases of long ago, when I had so much hope—and so little to found it on. But we
three older ones did love each other, and we found life pretty thrilling
when we went to the South Ward
school9.
A Happy New Year, dear, to you and Meta10.
Willie Mr. R. C. Cather1 First Savings Bank of Colusa Colusa3 California NEW YORK, N. Y. STA. Y2 DEC 27 1938 1030 AM Personal Please let me know where you will be two weeks from now.