Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	MacFarlane-Muirhead/10
Archive	MacFarlane Collection
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 March 1895
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To	Bridge of Weir, Glasgow, Scotland
Who To	Robert Franklin ('Bob') Muirhead
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Robert Franklin ('Bob') Muirhead, 28 March 1895, MacFarlane Collection, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to Mrs Hazel MacFarlane for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter to Bob Muirhead, which is part of the MacFarlane family collection of Muirhead Papers, Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library. The address this letter was sent to is provided by an attached envelope.

1:  The Homestead
2:  March 28 / 95. ^
3:  Kimberley
4:  South Africa^
5: 
6:  Dear Bob,
7: 
8:  I enclose a letter which I’ve just cut from a paper. Such letters
9:  are always appearing, & it makes me feel it can end in nothing but
10:  misery for the ordinary delicate working man to come out. People fa
11:  eat & drink in a much plainer rougher way - & are contented with much
12:  rougher housing here than at home. For five years I was governess in
13:  this country, & was for nearly all that time earning £ 10/- a week
14:  with the very coarsest food; a room with a mud floor across which the
15:  rainwater used to stream when it rained, from the holes in the roof. I
16:  had a bedstead made of wood & leather no table or chair, but an empty
17:  soap pot box to sit on & a bigger one to write on, & an old tin box
18:  that I keep my clothes in. For weeks at a time sometimes we did not
19:  see even bread, only unstamped mealies, or pumpkins. They were the
20:  happiest years of my life, because when my work was done I could creep
21:  away into the bush & be happy by myself; but I very much doubt whether
22:  the average English working man accustomed to his good bread, butter,
23:  & milk or tea &c could stand such a life, or would work contentedly
24:  for 10/- a week; & when his boots were worn out mend them with bits of
25:  cloth or leather & laugh all the while! Even now ^I^ I am do nearly all
26:  the scrubbing window cleaning & cookery myself. I have one little girl
27:  to help me, but her time is mainly taken up in doing the
28: 
29:  ^washing &c. I am expecting my little one daily now: and am very busy
30:  getting the house cleaned up before it comes. How is little Waldo.
31:  Send me his photo. I wish I could see him^
32: 
33:  Yours ever dear old Bob.
34:  Olive
35: 

Notation
The newspaper cutting referred to is no longer attached.