WCP320

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Jan^y. 23rd. 1899

My dear Violet¹

I send you £.2 — for a birthday present which you can spend in any useful luxury you like. It has been so awfully stormy & wet the last fortnight that I have hardly been out, & there is no particular news. Drains finished at last, — & of course stinks much the same as ever! They will cost I dare say £.25 or more!

Miss D’Arcy staid with us [2] a week while packing & paying calls & left on Saturday for Devonshire. She is going to the Gardening College at Swanley in the spring. At Farnham, Surrey, where she went on a visit, she met a young lady who is at the College & likes it much, & also visited two lady gardeners who had been trained there & who are now head gardeners at a Convalescent house with a man under them & who produce all the vegetables & fruit for the Institution & [3] receive £40 a year & board & lodging! Really, that is better than teaching..

Will² is still at the same place — as cook & housemaid, groom, & odd man to himself. He has at last caught 2 mice & made skelingtons of them! He has sent his deer’s head home. He had it mounted — head & neck — & it looks handsome in the passage just under the skylight. They still talk of going to California & though the Southern States, & boating [4] down the Mississippi &c. & up the Ohio! But perhaps something will come to stop it. He spent Xmas & New Years days at the Ranch, & had chicken both times. I send a "Clarion". Will send another Chronicle soon but there has been nothing of interest for some time. Please return my Chron. letter,³ as I may send it to some one.

In haste | Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]