Dear Hope: The summer is past and autumn far spent and yet not a word of that promised write-up of Hope and her family. We have lost track of her baby boy. Hope, your daughter must now be the same age you were when you started out on this long adventure of keeping peace and happiness among the Household writers. If I'm not mistaken, the new poultry editor must be a neighbor to you. Do all the good people live in one spot? The pictures make me think you are sisters or at least the same age. Thanks for all your untiring efforts and as a reward may have peace of mind and soul happiness. -- Claddy, of Illinois.
There just hasn't been room for that write-up! We have even held back some excellent travel stories for a slack time that has never materialized, and you may have noticed that it takes some weeks to get a letter into print, but -- After all, it's Christmas! and whose column is this?
One of your sentences startled me. It hadn't occurred to me before that Ruth is, as you say, almost exactly at the age and stage of life that Hope was when she took the helm of the Household. And she has three children, just the age ours were then: a girl of 7, a boy of 4 and a boy of 3. I wonder, among the several readers whose families corresponded with ours then, how many happened to have grandchildren grouped the same? There were several--one was even another "Jim's Wife" -- and in spite of myself, I think of them still with a lapful of babies, even though mine are all grown up. But Ruth's life is considerably different than ours was then, for she lives in town instead of on the farm and she had baby sitters and diaper services and other modern innovations that we never dreamed of. And so far she has never met up with those "seven lean years" that we all faced back there in the early thirties. Remember? We even made "depression flowers" of cinders and iodine.
The two older boys are on their own, having finished college and done their stint in the war; neither one married and neither one farming, though they are both in jobs related to agriculture, one in farm management and one in educational work for a big co-operative. The postscript son, Joe, is off to college for his freshman year, and his course is not even related to farming, in spite of all his 4-H and FFA enthusiasms. He is enamored with chemical engineering.
So our family has waxed and waned, and we are alone again as we were in the fall of 1916, but considerably richer in worldly goods, experience, memories and blessings. The crops this year are with us as with many of you -- yields are down but price and quality are up. Farming, as one of you once so wisely stated, is a hard but happy life. Our greatest wish right now is that, somehow, everything could be distributed so that everyone, everywhere, could be as comfortable and contented as we are on this American midwest farm. -- Hope.
Christmas!
It's Christmastide. Let's clean the slate
Of every year-old grudge or hate.
Let's pin a sprightly sprig of holly
Upon dull care and melancholy.
Let's reach out friendly bands and grip
Each other's in warm comradeship.This world's a pleasant place. Let's smile
In mellow retrospect awhile.
Let's feign we're young again, elate,
With hearts attuned for any fate.
Let's sing the old songs, ever new,
When we were heroes on review,
Before the fairies yet had brought
The stars and garters that we sought.Ah, me, some gentles are not here
Who glorified the yesteryear;
Whose jocund jests and merry quips
Were ever ready on their lips.
Let's sing the old songs, ever new,
Then here's remembrance, hale and true,
To those forever passed from view.
Lay wreaths of holly where they sat.
And tender tears, remembering that
It's Christmas time.-- (Author unkknown.)
Memory Gem
What e'er the hidden future brings
Is helped by hands divine.
Through all the tangled web of things;
There runs a clear design.
What, though the skies are dark today,
Tomorrow's may be blue,
when every cloud has rolled away,
God's providence shines through.--Selected.