To-morrow she sails for America, and we are all going down to wave her good-by and good luck.

She is married all right.  There will be no further ceremony.

I would not dare tell you all the stories they told me.  For I would never stop writing and you would never stop laughing or crying.

The end of all things comes sometimes.  The beautiful afternoon ended too soon.  But for the rest of time, this day will be crowned with halos made with the mightiness of the love and the dearness of the girls who were once my students, always my friends.

It took some time to assort the babies and make sure of tying the right one on the right mother’s back.  Not by one shaved head could I see the slightest difference in any of them, but mothers have the knack of knowing.

Out of the big gate they went and down the street all aglow with the early evening lights twinkling in the purple shadows.  Their geta click-clacked against the hard street, to the music of their voices as they called back to me, “Oyasumi, Oyasumi, Go kigen yoro shiku” (Honorably rest.  Be happy always to yourself).

My gratitude to this little country is great, Mate.  It has given me much.  It was here life taught me her sternest lessons.  And here I found the heart’s-ease of Jack’s love.  But for nothing am I more thankful than for the love and friendship of the young girl-mothers who were my pupils, but from whom I have learned more of the sweetness and patience of life than I could ever teach.

November, 1911.

Mate, there is a man in Hiroshima for whom I long and watch as I do for no other inhabitant.  It is the postman.  You should see him grin as he trots around the corner and finds me waiting at the gate, just as I used to do in the old teaching days.  I doubly blest him this morning.  Thank you for your letter.  It fairly sings content.  Homeyness is in every pen stroke.

Please say to your small son David that I will give his love to the “king’s little boy” if I see him.  My last glimpse of him was in Nikko.  Poor little chap.  He was permitted to walk for a moment.  In that moment he spied a bantam hen, the anxious mother of half a dozen puff-ball chickens.  Royalty knew no denial and went in pursuit.  The bantam knew no royalty, pursued also.  The four men and six women attendants were in a panic.  The baby was rescued from a storm of feathers and taken back to the palace with an extra guard of three policemen.

I have been very busy, at play and at work.  We have just had a wedding tea.  My former secretary, Miss First River, as she expressed it, “married with” Mr. East Village.