Eleanor Randolph Wilson McAdoo to Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre

How happy it makes me to get your sweet letters, you will never know I think you are just too dear to write to me so much, and I love you so. Sometimes I think I can't wait to see you and all the rest of the dear family. My goodness, its seven more weeks and these two weeks have seemed like a dozen! All our ink has given out and I can't get any on Sunday so do excuse the pencil. I'm afraid you will have to put up with pencil most of the time now because I have to seize spare moments, like an uninteresting class for instance, to write letters. I can't seem to find a single whole hour in the day, except on Sundays, free to write letters in, and it's queer because I haven't got a heavy schedule at all. It's just that they cut up the day so much, with bells ringing every half hour, and something you have to do every time they ring nearly. Oh, Detty, I must tell you right now about what a grandglorious time I had. On Thursday I took my first horsebackride,! and oh, it was the grandest fun that ever was. Aunt Rose saw about getting a horse and a man to teach me and so on Thursday, which was “All Saints day”, a holiday, Rainsford DuBose, who is a splendid little rider, and the man, a Mr. Woodall, who keeps a livery stable here and who is very nice and reliable, and I all went out, and took a long ride in the country. Mr. Woodall showed me how to sit and hold the reins and all, and I stuck on very well and didn't fall off once, though I didn't ride very gracefully, by any means! I had the dearest horse named Billy, and Rainsford had the cunningest little pony, and Mr Woodall had the most beautiful, frisky, adorable horse you ever saw, that had taken several prizes at the fair. Rainsford rides astride, and I wish to goodness I could too! It must be so much easier. I am going to get Aunt Annie to see about my habit and I hope I can get it soon because I have to ride in my ordinary black skirt unitl I do. But Aunt Rose says it doesn't matter at all in a place like this, for the present, and besides I don't know a soul in town, so I don't care at all. I certainly did have the best time and I can hardly wait till to-morrow when I hope I can go again, since it is holiday. You know, we have Monday instead of Saturday for a holiday here.

On Hallowe'en we had a masquerade ball, which was great fun. I went dressed as a Japanese lady with Margaret DuBose who was a Chinaman All the costumes were splendid. Two of the girls went to the penitentiary here, not because they had committed a crime but to have convicts clothes, or rather the trousers part, made to order. They could get coats that fit all ready made there, but they had the rest made for them. Wasn't that the wildest thing? They bought chains down street and fastened them to their ankles and then just as we were starting the german thay jumped in through the window, making the most awful noise and scaring us nearly to death!Two of the teachers, one of them the art teacher Miss Fenner, who is just as nice and jolly as she can be, dressed up as laundry bags and they were just too funny. But I must explain. They have just started a laundry here which isn't working at all well and which has even broken down once or twice. The girls used to send their things out to washerwomen but now this is started and they have to send them here. Consequently some of them had a month's wash still in, others three weeks and the rest two weeks, and it was a standing joke that no-one had anything to wear. Things are begining to come in now and people are getting a little more hopeful.

I told Marguerite Thomson what you said about Mary M'Curley and she said that she was a very good friend of her's and perfectly darling. I hope you are getting who you want into the frat, and not working too, terribly hard with all your work and teas and receptions and things besides, darling, sweetest Detty. I am so sorry you didn't see the Thorndykes when they were there. You know, they are coming here sometime this month! I hope I will see them. I hope you have written to Mr Campbell by this time! If you haven't then you aught to be ashamed. Goodbye, my darling sister. With all the love in the world from