From the Children’s Friend, December 1941 –

Mistletoe and Measles

By Mabel Harmer

Dec. 15

Dear Mrs. Price:

I am very glad to have a chance to write you this letter because Mrs. Hampton said that you would choose one of us from our letters to come and stay with you over Christmas. Of course I hope you will choose me. If I’m not chosen, I hope it will be Janey, because Janey is my best friend here at the Home. And she has very pretty yellow hair. I am sure that you would like Janey.

If you were going to adopt one of us, I wouldn’t expect you to choose me because I am not at all pretty. My hair is too straight and my eyes are just plain gray and my nose is too little for the rest of my face and I have some freckles. People just adopt the pretty girls. I don’t mind that, anyway, not very much, because I have a good time here and I don’t know what Penny would do without me. Penny is only two and I take care of her after lessons and help feed her and put her to bed. if you should choose me, though, Janey will take care of her while I am gone.

Maybe you would like to know something about me. I am ten years old and I can run real fast and can chin the bar three times. I can draw pretty well, but not like Janey. I have many accidents like falling and skinning my nose, but I try to be careful and now I am not having quite so many. I have never been away from the Home to stay over night and I think it would be very wonderful to stay in a real home, especially at Christmas time.

Your loving friend,

Linda Roberts

Dec. 23

Dear Janey:

It seems more like a month than two days since I left the Home because so much has happened. When Mrs. Price’s car came to get me I sat all alone in the back seat and pretended that I belonged in it and that I was coming home from school to spend the holidays. We rode all through the city and when we came to the house, the driver took me inside and Mrs. Price actually kissed me just as she would her own little girl.

We had supper in a room with eight lights in it. There was a bowl of real fruit on the table. It was wonderful. There were napkins for everybody! There is a Mr. Price too, and he is very jolly and laughs a lot. Before I went to bed I had a bath. The walls in the bathroom were made of shiny rose stuff just like china dishes. It is beautiful enough to be a parlor.

The next day we went down town and Mrs. Price bought me a new dress and hat and coat. And what do you think, Janey? She says that I am to keep them for always. Then we went all through the store and saw the toys, and Christmas trees all decorated with lights and colored balls. Honestly, Janey, it was just like fairyland. And nothing happened to me except that I knocked over a pile of blocks and bumped into a man that was carrying a lot of packages and he spilled them on the ground. That wasn’t bad for all the places we went.

I hope that you are taking good care of Penny and putting on her bib before meals. I hope Cook got her corns taken care of and that Esther finished the present for her aunt and that you all have a grand Christmas.

Your loving friend,

Linda Roberts

Dec. 26

Dear Janey:

You just can’t imagine how wonderful Christmas can be in a real home. I didn’t go downstairs until Mrs. Price called me because I didn’t think it would be polite, but I was just dying to because she had let me hang my stocking by the mantel. And my goodness! You should have seen everything! The house was all decorated in some pretty green stuff called mistletoe and the tree was just wonderful! And under the tree was a beautiful doll dressed in pink satin with golden curls. My stocking was stuffed full of presents, some handkerchiefs, a red purse, hair ribbons and locket of real gold on a chain. And then Mr. Price gave me a whole box of candy and said it was all for me. But I will save half of it for you, Janey. It is all chocolates.

I am so excited that I can’t write any more, but I hope that you had a lovely Christmas at the Home and that everybody got a present, you especially. I am coming back tomorrow and we will both make clothes for the doll. Her name is Mathilde.

Your loving friend,

Linda Roberts

P.S. I had a drumstick for dinner. It is the leg of a turkey.

Dec. 31

Dear Janey:

Mrs. Hampton will be cross and say that it is just like me to get into trouble but I honestly didn’t do one thing to get them. Two days after Christmas, the very day when I was supposed to come home, my eyes got red and I had a cough and Mrs. Price said that I had better stay in bed and go back the next day. But the next day my eyes were worse and I broke out in red spots. I stayed in bed for four days. I am better now but the doctor says that I can’t go back for at least two weeks.

I guess I should feel more sorry than I do, but it is so wonderful to stay in a pretty room and wear a soft woolly robe and have nice things brought me to eat that I don’t know the names of. tomorrow I can go downstairs and play.

I suppose I caught the measles the day Miss Schultz took us down town and you all got separated from me. It’s a good thing that all the rest of you didn’t go where I did.

Your loving friend,

Linda Roberts

Jan. 8

Dear Janey:

I am going to stay always and always and some day you are to come and visit me. It all happened the other day when I said I guessed my two weeks were up now and I could go back to the Home without giving the measles to all the other children. But Mrs. Price said that they had a surprise for me, that they were now so used to having a little girl in the house that they had decided to keep me always. Can you imagine, Janey, a plain girl like me getting adopted? I am going to try awfully hard not to break anything around the house. And I’ll try to be very good so that they won’t mind if I never turn out to be pretty.

I am going to send you the half of the box of candy I promised you. If I had only known, I would have saved it all for you. And some day I am going to come and visit you and Penny and all the others. My mother said that she would bring me.

Your ever loving friend,

Linda Price