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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold3/1904/7
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date29 January 1904
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToBetty Molteno
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The name of the addressee of this letter is indicated by salutation and content.
1 Hanover
2 Jan 29 / 04
3
4 My dear Friend
5
6 I got a note from your nephew asking me to send the meerkats to Cape
7Town, but they are such little things I don’t think they could
8travel so far without food & water. I’ll send them when Cron goes to
9parliament. Emma has some more little ones born yesterday in the hole
10in yard. Tommy has worked so hard at that hole to have it all nice &
11ready! It has two entrances While Emmie comes out to get food he stays
12deep in the hole under the ground, ^looking after the little ones.^
13Indeed he never has come out today & yesterday except hurriedly to get
14a little food, with such a look of anxiety & preoccupation on his face!
15 He is the most absorbed-in-his-fellows animal that I ever knew. He
16has no life for himself. And he does look so sweet. And the old party
17is getting sweeter & sweeter.
18
19 We have had splendid rains here & all is looking better. One woman
20died of fever last week, but all the others are getting better. The
21air is beautifully cool & fresh, so clold cold last night I thought we
22should surely have frost. At one o’clock it is just pleasant walking
23in the sun; & the morning & evening are cold. Nothing could be more
24lovely. I am much better too. The doctor says what I have had has not
25been typhoid but influenza of the stomach. Any-how I don’t want to
26have it again whatever it’s called.
27
28 How are you? I have a feeling you are not really better, & it is
29distressing me.
30
31 //Cron’s clerk has been on the spree. I am going to have a talk with
32him & beg him to stay away from the hotel tomorrow. unreadable Cron
33had a meeting at Prince Albert Rd today; but is back at Beaufort West
34tonight. Please Please send me a post card to say how you are.
35
36 Thanks for the £2 it will be of great use, especially as I know you
37won’t mind my spending some of it in buying some proper food for the
38sick coloured people. They die so with typhoid because they can’t
39get the right food. Did you see my little niece Dot passed 11th in
40Matric?
41
42^I’m always thinking of you & Miss Greene.^
43
44Olive
45
46
47