Dry Bayou Plantation
Malvina, Miss.
Friday Afternoon

Dear Mavis,

After you read this letter I know you will be so homesick that you will catch the next train back to Mississippi.  There is so much happening around here that you can't afford to miss it.  Don't you remember how we used to put all our engagements in a book so we wouldn't forget our appointments?  Since you have been gone I have had to work hard to keep all my appointments.

The letters have begun to come in all right now.  Received another one this morning and I am glad that you are doing so well.  By the time you get this letter you will be thinking about leaving the hospital, if you continue to improve.  I am glad that everyone finds little Johnnie such a pleasant companion.  I wonder what he will look like when I get to see him again.  He is the "Poor Little Orphan Boy" now, but I hope his parents decide to re-adopt him someday and give him the kind of home that he will be proud of when he grows up in life.

After thinking about it, about me coming after you and Johnnie, I believe it would be better for you all to make reservations on the train, and get a Pullman, I know it would be cheaper that way.  It would also be a good excuse to spend several more days there.  I would like to meet you in Memphis.  By meeting you there you would have only one change in Atlanta.  Wonder if that is right?

Leon came home form the hospital this morning and said Tommie was unconscious last night, they are very worried and uneasy about him.  I certainly hope he pulls through.

Rain and more rain, that is the weather now.  The floods that they are having are up in Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma.  The people who are farming over there have already lost the things they had planted over there.  There is no danger of any water here except what rains from out of the sky.

Today is "Three M Day".  You know what it stands for, they are waiting for me to carry them after it now.  They are always in a good humor when you are giving them something, but when you make them go to work they stick out their lip and sulk. I wish some of the people who are always writing about the racial problem could associate with some that we have around here.  They could get a pretty good education ina very short time.  They are paying $2.50 to $2.75 per day for chopping.  If it keeps raining it will go higher.

Ruthel has written you a letter, so maybe she has given you a better idea about our social life here on the Bayou.

I am going to send this letter to you in care of the hospital but will change the next one back to the old address.

I must close and carry them to town.  You will have to read between the lines if you can for there is nothing to write about.

With lots of love to you both,

Ruel