1 The Homestead
2 Friday
3
4 Dear Friend
5
6 I was up all night but feel wonderfully better this morning. Quite
7like writing a book!!
8
9 Thank you dear friend, about Esther. She’s just the kind of girl I
10should like to get if she would care to come: but John has begged to
11stay on so hard till the end of October that I have said yes. It seems
12he is going to marry a coloured woman living close by who has 7
13children!! I suppose it is at her instigation he has been taking all
14the coal &c, & explaining his action in a way. You know its so curious
15one can’t help being sorry for the boy & liking him in spite of all
16his vices, you do feel so he "can’t guide himself" & that he’s
17conscious of it.
18
19 It would be a greater help to me if when I came back from Cape Town
20you could get me a servant in PE, than any anything you could do for
21me, dear heart.
22
23 We shall probably be up in Johannesburg before the end of the year. My
24mind feels quite at rest about it all now, but because I see Cron
25feels it is the only right course & one can’t wish anything for
26those one loves but that they should follow the highest course of duty
27open to them. I know he will be happier there much than on a farm,
28because he feels it is the right thing. You & Miss Greene must come up
29in the summer there. The climate there is heavenly in summer, & for
30anyone there who can walk & bike like Miss Greene it is simply ideal.
31I do hope Miss Greene is doing all she can to eat the most nourishing
32food she can make herself take ^& as much of it as she enjoys.^ She is,
33I am absolutely certain, anaemic (has not enough red corpusculs in her
34blood) & must make them before she will be quite herself. If she feels
35the rheumatism returning she might take a teaspoonful of Calsbad salt
36every morning when she wakes in water, but must not I’m sure, drop a
37stimulating & nourishing diet, till she is quite full of vigour. At
38least there can be no harm in trying a full diet for one month.
39
40 Our movement just now are not quite certain. I may be here till the
41end of October & go to Cape Town then, or may leave next week or any
42time for Wagaaners Kraal or Lemoenfontein near Beaufort West. It a
43sanatorium just out of the Town. I’ll write & tell you when things
44shape themselves any way.
45
46 They say v we are safe to win the Fryberg election that they have the
47names of 180 dead men & men who voted double, & that in spite of the
48volunteers would give us the majority; We it has yet to be proved
49however.
50
51 unreadable A doctor in Kimberley told Cron yesterday that the people
52in Kimberley are mad against him, because they say it is all he, Cron,
53who has caused Burton & ?Sturling &c to take action against Rhodes.
54There is much truth in this, but I fear little will come of the
55actions Rhodes money will flow too strong here.
56
57 I am going to lie down, & have a bit of a sleep if I can.
58
59 Thine ever.
60 Olive
61
62 You know mentally my visit to Port Elizabeth has done me infinite good.
63 Your love & goodness to me, yours both, has been a strange comfort.
64
65 ^Yes thanks, I got the jacket & rug.^
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