Thursday

Dear Ruel,

I think I have the nicest husband.  He tells me all about his Sunday night trips - about the people with whom he spent the evening and about the delicious supper.  If there weren't a good many miles between us, I think I'd wring your neck!!!

Your Johnnie has about put his Mama through the works today - I still think he needs an Amazon for a mother or an entertainer.  He was very good this morning and sat for a long time and played and looked out the window.  He really wan't bad this afternoon, but I had to carry him or play with him all the time and I'm tired now.  His cold is so much better today.  If the weather stays like it is today I think he will get along all right.  It was almost hot enough to carry him outside a little bit.

Victoria came over with Jewel and Jerry this afternoon.  Jerry is so rough with Jewel, but she seems to like it.  Johnnie wants to play with him, but he looks at him as if he doesn't know just what to think of it.  Jerry bit his finger when he was playing with him.  Jewel and Johnnie are so cute together.  Johnnie gets Jewel's foot when she kicks and puts it in his mouth as if it were his own.  We still haven't found any film to make their pictures.

I'm glad you worked the garden.  I would surely like to be there to stick a hoe in it.  Mama had cabbage for dinner, and I told her it tasted like our meals in Mississippi.  She has been working in the garden all afternoon - Papa has been harrowing over the cotton.  He said to ask you about the cucumbers.  He has been telling people you planted two acres and he wants to know if you really planted them.  It has been bad on them being so dry.

I'm down to the last sheet of paper so I'll have to use both sides, however I've written about all there is to write.  When you have to stay in one room about all day there isn't much to write about.  I have seen a rose bush burst into bloom since I've been staying in.  Yesterday there were only two or three blooms of pink - today it has become a mass of color.

Maybe you will be in a better humor when you get the cotton hoeing off to a good start.  I hear that they are going to send some German soldiers over to American farms, so there's your chance to get somebody you can really "boss".  YOu may have to live for a little while like you did in '41, but please don't lose all your gentler(?) habits you have acquired since you married me.  I'll be back some day and I don't want to have to start in reforming you again. (Hope you believe all that)

Love,

Mavis

PS: Johnnie is asleep and about the sweetest look on his face I've ever seen - Your (worser) half