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Dear Mother, Father, and Pete:
Before I forget, Thursday is Lucy's twenty-first birthday. I think she would appreciate it very much if you were to congratulate her, Pete.
Please don't forget to deposit the money for me, Father. The reason I think of it again is that Lucy promised me to tell me what books she wants for her birthday. I ate lunch with her today and spent a solid hour talking to her. I got a business letter from her Father enclosing a five-dollar bill and asking me to order a corsage for her. I couldn't spend all his money. I could only spend four. The only other possibility was to suspend one lonely little two dollar orchid in the cneter, and somehow or other, that didn't sound artistic to me.
I have gotten more dope about Wellesley. The girls cannot get over the way they were treated. One thing certainly struck me funny, and that was that most of the audience wear evening dress and that they all come out in it every Saturday night! Some dudes' institute. And to think that we are starting a campaign here trying to make people wear decent dresses to dinner Friday nights instead of sloppy sport clothes.
It wasn't a question of Wellesley's dropping out of the league of their own volition if they did not win anything this year. It is part of the constitution that any college that does not win one debate in four years must drop out, and they have an unbroken record of three years behind them. So this year, they started out an intensive campaign for debate. No girl who had not been recommended by the faculty could try out, and hence it was a very much coveted honor. No girl could work on committee who had not been so recommended. The committee spread debate literature broadcast and everybody in the place was reading about immigration. The debaters had to read about ten books on the general subject! Their course in immigration was given by Fairchild. Etc. etc. So we can almost be kind-hearted enough to be glad they won. Is it true that you had to pay fifty cents admission? In previous years they could never get an audience, so I hear.
What did you think of the delegation when they walked in? Don't you think they were a pretty good-looking bunch. They said they marched in singing, "Down the future's cloudy way". Did you see our time-keeper. She was chairman of our class debate.
Really, I don't know what my letter will be like when I haven't any debate news to write.
I went to bed at eight-thirty last night, incidentally, slept two hours in the afternoon, and got up at five this morning to study for the chem midsemester. It was "rather worse".
No letter from home since Saturday. I am anxious to hear how you are, Mother.