You must forgive me if the letters have been few and far between lately. After my little "wobble" I plunged into work with might and main, and I am still at it for all I am worth. First I house-cleaned, and the old place must certainly be surprised at its transformation. Fresh curtains, new paper, cozy window seats, and bright cushions have made a vast difference. Then I tackled the kindergarten, and the result is about the prettiest thing in Japan. The room is painted white with buff walls and soft muslin curtains, the only decoration being a hundred blessed babies, in gay little kimonas, who look like big bunches of flowers placed in a wreath upon the floor.

As for my training class, I have no words to express my gratification. I can scarcely believe that the fine, capable, earnest young women that are going out to all parts of Japan to start new Kindergartens, are the timid, giggling, dependent little creatures that came to me four years ago.

Goodness knows I was as immature in my way as they were in theirs, but in my desperate need, I builded better than I knew. I recklessly followed your advice and hitched my little go-cart to a star, and the star turned into a meteor and is now whizzing through space getting bigger and stronger all the time, and I am tied on to the end of it unable to stop it or myself.

If I only had more sense and more ability, think what I might have done!

The work at the hospital is still very heavy. The wards are bare and repellant and the days are long and dreary for the sick men. We do all we can to cheer them up, have phonograph concerts, magic lantern shows, with the magic missing, and baby organ recitals. The results are often ludicrous, but the appreciation of the men for our slightest effort is so hearty that it more than repays us.

I saw one man yesterday who had gone crazy on the battlefield. He looked like a terror stricken animal afraid of everybody, and hiding under the sheet at the slightest approach. When I came in he cowered back against the wall shaking from head to foot. I put a big bunch of flowers on the bed, and in a flash his hands were stretched out for them, and a smile came to his lips. After that whenever I passed the door, he would shout out, "Arigato! Arigato!" which the nurse said was the first sign of sanity he had shown.

In the next room was a man who had fallen from a mast on one of the flag ships. He had landed full on his face and the result was too fearful to describe. The nurse said he could not live through the night so I laid my flowers on his bed and was slipping out when he called to me. His whole head was covered with bandages except his mouth and one eye, and I had to lean down very close to understand what he said. What do you suppose he wanted? To look at my hat!! He had never seen one before and he was just like a child in his curiosity.

Of course, as foreigners, we always excite comment, and are gazed at, examined and talked about continually. I sometimes feel like a wild animal in a cage straight from the heart of Africa!

Our unfailing point of contact is the flowers. You cannot imagine how they love them. I have seen men holding them tenderly in their fingers and talking to them as they would to children. Imagine retreating soldiers after a hard day's fight, stopping to put a flower in a dead comrade's hand!

Oh! Mate, the most comical things and the most tragic, the most horrible and the most beautiful are all mixed up together. Every time I go to the hospital I am faced with my wasted years of opportunities. It takes so little to bring sunshine and cheer, and yet millions of us go chasing our own little desires through life, and never stop to think of the ones who are down.

No, I am not going to turn Missionary nor Salvation Army lassie, but with God's help I shall serve somewhere and "good cheer for the lonely" shall be my watch-word.

I am lots better than I was, though I am still tussling with insomnia. My crazy nerves play me all sorts of tricks, but praise be I have stopped worrying. I have come at last to see that God has found even a small broken instrument like myself worth working through, and I just lift up my heart to Him every day, battered and bruised as it is, in deep unspeakable thankfulness.