Dear Mother:
                    Wishing you many happy returns of the day. We are having a discussion now as to your age. According to the Bible you are forty-five. Papa says you lacked only a few weeks of being twenty-one when you were married. I told him you were a year younger but he said he knew you were not because he remembered of gathering twenty-one different kinds of wild flowers for you on that birthday and he is sure it was your first after your marriage. Perhaps you can remember some--thing about it your-self.
                    Papa wants us to go to church now to hear a lecture so I will finish this later. Well, here I am and it's 10 o'clock. The lecture was by a temperance woman.
                    I guess Grace told you about Lottie's husband. He left on a Friday evening and expected to be home this last Friday. He seemed real nice and hopes that he will be abe to send Lottie down next winter.
                    The Friday evening that he left, (Reub) Wilf, Lillian and I went to a party in honor of that violinist in Huntington Park. The party was at Haedon's and we spent a pleasant evening. The game of the evening was to carry peanuts from one table to another in spoons. It was much like an egg race. Music took up the greater part of the evening . Lemon punch flowed freely during the evening and cake and ice cream was served. We met a great number of young people, but I don't know whether they were all from Huntington Park or not. I sported my green dress.
                    Mr. and Mrs. Jacmin have been here once or twice since you have been away. Mr. Jacmin is not very well at present, but he is able to preach. Papa said that Mr. Johnson with-drew his letter today.
                    We have decided upon our class-play and are beginning to work upon it. I have not a very important part acting as one of the girls in the first act and as the minister's wife in the fourth act. They have no orchestra at Compton, so between acts they will have different kinks of music. Grace and Mrs. Baskerville will in all probability play a duet between two acts.
                    Last Friday, I stayed all night with Cora King. Her mother and father are very nice and like to have people enjoy themselves. I came home Saturday morning and began the washing. The west wind was blowing so hard that the clothes dried quickly. I washed (by) my tan linen dress and it did so, very nicely.
                    Alice and I went out to Barzen's today. I wrote to Mrs. Barzen in the middle of the week and told her we would be out if it was convenient for her and she wrote back saying she would be glad to have us out. We knew the way out this time so we did not have to flirt with the conductors to be landed safely. I don/t think we acted quite so green this time anyway. We met Mrs. Barzen's brother Mr. Sabine, his wife and little girl. They are very pleasant people. Perhaps you remember Mrs. Barzen often called me Edna because I reminded her of this girl. Well Mt. Sabine, Mrs. Barzen and the two Mrs. Sabines and we youngsters were sitting in the dinning room when all of a sudden Mt. Sabine said to Mrs. Barzen, "Do you know who she (myself) reminds me so much of?" Mrs. Barzen asked him who and he said "Edna." She must be a beaut. We enjoyed a real nice meal and spent a pleasant day. We left in time to get home before dark.
                    I received a post-card from Tennessee last Wednesday, wishing me success in examinations. I don/t think they will be hard and I think I will only need to take one, which is American History. I don/t have to study so much since I stopped Physics.
                    The zoology and botany classes went to San Pedro and from there to White's Point on Friday of the evening of Haedon's party. I missed the car so didn't get to go. I didn't miss much so I didn't care and beside I didn't like the idea of getting home with a blistered face and going to the party. It was most awfully warm that day.
                    We had two or three real warm days, regular earthquake weather. I felt two shocks, one at about 9.10 and the other at noon. At noon Alice and I were sitting on the porch talking about what we would do if an earthquake should come and just then it did come. It didn't take Alice and I two seconds to get off that porch and we both screamed. The rumbling frightened us more than anything else. After we got out into the yard we stood there and laughed.
                    Berle Stone wrote to Grace and said that they were feeling shocks right along. She says that all the plate glass in town is broken and all chimneys are down.
                    All the Compton girls and boys who were at Berkeley and Stanford have come home. Madge said that they put here on relief work but when the diseases began to get numerous, she got frightened and came home.
;                   We are all well here at home. Charlie didn't get the measles. Fred Cleland has had them quite bad.
                    I suppose you must be always working in the bees. With this cloudy weather, I don't suppose you have much swarming. We had a swarm come here and they went to the very same place they were before. They came thro'' every crack they could find until the house was full of them. Papa finally drove them away by throwing water on them.
                    It is getting so late that I will have to close. I think I have told you all the news. I tho't I would write a long letter and say all I could while I was about it as I don't know when I will get another chance to write. We don't hear very often from you but I guess you are like us being too busy to write. But write when you can and don't work so hard that you will be too tired to come home and enjoy yourself. I should like to be up at the mountains now to get some wild flowers.
                    I must close now and tell grandma I hope she has her grey waist done, so that she has been able to wear it these cool days or is she busy like the rest and has no time to wear it?
                                         Your loving daughter
                                                  Bertha.

Eleanor has also written a letter.

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