on't agree
with you. I believe that's true. Not being by nature much of an
agree-er, and having feelings I hope others don't, I would be a walking
argument if Miss Katherine hadn't stopped me and explained some things I
didn't realize before.

Last night, being by myself, and not being able to go to sleep, I wrote
a piece of poetry.

Miss Katherine says it's hard to forgive people who think they write
poetry, so I won't show her this. But it does relieve you to write down
a lot of woozy nothing that is somehow like you feel. This is the
poem--I mean the verses:

1

Out upon life's ocean vast,
With the current drifting fast,
I am sailing. Oh, alas,
'Tis a lonely feeling!

2

Why was such a trip e'er started
On a pathway all uncharted?
Why from loved ones was I parted?
Who will answer? Who?

3

None will answer. So I'll see
What there is on this journey (journee)
That will bring good-luck to me--
I'll look out and see!

I hope Minnie isn't going to be sick long. She is the first girl to be
really ill since Miss Katherine came. It makes you feel so queer in the
throat to know somebody is truly sick.

A lot of the girls have been sick a little with colds and small and
unserious diseases in the past year. But Miss Katherine says it's her
business to keep us well, not just get us well after we're sick, and
she's certainly done it. We've been weller than we ever were in our
lives, and no medicine taken. Just plain common-sense regulations.

I wonder what's the matter with Minnie? The doctor hasn't said, but Miss
Katherine is uneasy, and she won't let anybody come in the room. She
hasn't been out herself since yesterday.

* * * * *

My, but we've had a time lately!

We've been fumigated and sterilized and fertilized so much that we are
better prepared for the happy-land than we ever were before. But the
danger of anybody going to it right away is over.

Minnie Peters has had scarlet fever, and the commotion made her real
famous.

Miss Katherine knew it from the first, but Dr. Rudd wouldn't believe it
until he had to, and Yorkburg got so excited it hasn't talked of
anything else for weeks.

Minnie was awful ill. Two days and two nights they didn't think she
would live, and for three weeks Miss Katherine didn't leave the room. If
it hadn't been for her Minnie would be dead.

Miss Katherine's room has been clos