WCP6

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset

Dec[ember]. 7^th. 1890

My dear Willie

Ma has been rather unwell the last day or two having caught a cold when the frost was & it settled on her liver. However we have had a great doctor from Bournemouth & she will soon be all right again.

I am glad to hear from your last letter that you are improving in your drawing. That is one of the most important if not the most important things as if you can design & draw [2] electrical & other machines well it shows you understand them & will be the means of getting good employment. Try all you can to be minutely accurate, as well as neat.

This week we have been getting on somewhat having had two plasterers at work. Charles has pulled down the passage partition wall, & the carpenters have put up the new partition & the plasterers have plastered it, so now we can see the new entrance nearly as it will be. The drawing room ceiling is also nearly finished, the [3] new part, & the windows are in & I expect this week we shall be able to clean it up & put back some of the furniture. Another plasterer has been plastering the kitchen & passage[,] larder &c, and your room & upstairs passage, but it will take him all this week to finish that. Charles has been doing little odd jobs outside & inside most of the time nothing to speak of — pointing the brickwork, putting some ornamental coping over kitchen entrance, cementing top of do. The extra men & the plaster have made [4] an awful mess, both in the house & the Garden.

I am going to have one of the new Gas stoves which condense all the products of combustion so that they want no chimney & can be put in a greenhouse or bedroom quite safely. It is called Clark’s Patent Syphon Gas Stove. He[?] will do them for any room where we have the Gas laid on & for the bath room in cold weather. I suppose you know all about the new Electric Railway under the Thames. Let us know when you are coming home.

Your affectionate Papa | Alfred R. Wallace. [signature]