Sharp Letter to Constance July 31 transcribed


“Miss Fish is rather a severe, serious person but is beginning to
thaw.  The Settlement House is roomy and comfortable and better
furnished and more civilised (?) than the Packards.  She and her
sister live there, Miss Goodrich, the founder of all these
settlements, being away on holiday.  Maud has a room in the house and
Campbell and I are sleeping in the cabin, a log hut opposite, quite
comfortable… This morning I took down six more songs, making 15
already, every one a rare find!  If I go on like this I shall be
making the greatest discoveries I have yet made.  And this evening
more singers are coming in.  Maud is kept hard at work typing the
words.  How long we shall stop here I do not know, but I shall move on
as my work directs me.  So long as I get songs I don’t care where I
go.  I find the travelling and the heat which is intense rather trying
but I am well enough and it is worth a great deal of hardship to get
the tunes and ballads I am finding….

Campbell is awfully nice, good natured and helpful in every way.  He
is a very nice man and tremendously keen on the work I am doing.”