Helen Woodrow Bones to Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre

I think I must have received a mental-telepathic message from you on Friday, for it was Friday morning that I talked to Margaret about you going to Harlakenden; and yesterday your letter came!Your father thinks the best thing for us to do is to open the house on the eighth—or a day earlier, if Mrs. Churchill can manage it—and keep it running, as well as it can be run with two maids and a man, till the rest of the family can go up.
I have telegraphed Mrs. C. to ask if she can get it the house opened by the eighth and I think she surely can, as she said she could have it ready on ten days' notice. I'll write her to-day and ask if we can't mayn't send Barbara, Isabelle, and Henderson up a little earlier, say on the sixth. There is bedding enough for you and Frank now, so with we'll not send up anything more till your mother is able to go. Your father wants you to consider yourselves his guests, of course, which means you are not to pay for any supplies. Barbara will know where & how to order; but of course you are to have things as you want them, little housekeeper.Dr. Grayson is very anxious to get your mother away from here by the fifteenth, but it remains to be seen whether or not he can persuade her to go. Anyhow, Margarethas to go up the by the eighth of August, as Mr. David with all his outfit will be going to Windsor at that time, just having made all his plans to be there near Margaret. So you and Frank may be alone all of July. Can you stand it? If not we'll send Mrs. Jaffray up to keep you company.
Will there by any way of reaching you on this walking trip? I can't see how anything can go wrong in our plans, but it would be awkward for you to arrive at Harlakenden to find that queer Mrs. Churchill had refused at the last minute to let us take possession without longer warning. But I'll telegraph you to-morrow to let you know her any answer, but anyhow you'd better give us a vague idea of your itinerary if you can. I suppose you wont sleep in the open like Frank and Mr. B., will you?Well, then, we shall have to stand you all summer if we can't pack you off to Labrador! I'll confide to you, now that it's settled, that it would have grieved the family horribly if you had gone. You can't think with what relief your father heard of your decision.Your mother is holding her own, but I think the heat f is beginning to be bad for her. She gains very slowly and everything seems such an effort. I wish when you reach Harlakenden you would write her such an enthusiastic letter about its beauties that you would in her a wish to go there. Her one wish now is to stay with your father and he doesn't dare tell her how it worries him to have her here in this hot weather we are having.
Loads of love to the tramps from us all.