{Lutheran Theological Seminary and Waterloo College Waterloo, Ont.,} Nov. 11, 1923.
Dear Mother:
As I am practically all alone to-night I will try to give you a few lines again. I have just put Ruth to bed and little Catharine, who is the best natured little thing in the world is in her carriage playing with her slipper and from the noise she is making, is evidently having a good time. Bonnie and all the other children are down at the Church to-night to a Thanksgiving Service in which the children of the Sunday School are taking part. So I have quiet and ideal conditions and should put you up a good letter if I only had something special to write about. But things have been going along in the usual way and nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. Consequently I will just have to settle down to a talk on general lines. Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving Day and as it comes so near to Sunday the Churches take time by the forelock and celebrate it to-day. Pastor Roberts had a splendid Thanksgiving sermon this morning, the only fault about it was that it was a little long. It was 20 minutes after 12 or better when we got out of Church this morning; but it was not altogether his fault as we had an extra anthem for the occasion. As to-morrow is a holiday we will have no school till Tuesday. In fact I didn’t have much Friday – only one class – as the boys begged off in order to have a little more
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time at home and we graciously condescended to excuse them. Tomorrow will be quite filled up. Our Sunday School convention will meet in First English and the Musical Convention with Drs. Ohl, Reece and others in charge will meet in St. Matthew’s. I think I will attend the latter as more profitable for my work, particularly in the Liturgical lines. In the evening the service will be rendered by the massed choirs of our Lutheran Churches in the Twin City; and as we have considerable talent here this will no doubt be quite a musical treat. On Tuesday our Western Conference will meet in First English. This I will not be able to attend except in the evening as we resume our work Tuesday morning. But they have put me down in the evening for an exegesis of the 17th Chapter of St. John. I have worked out this exegesis quite thoroughly and will hold forth for the best part of two hours. I think I will make them so tired of exegesis that they will never want it again. But it is their own fault in assigning me so long a passage, which I presume was done through ignorance of what exegesis involves. It took me about a month of my spare time to work it out, and I reason that if I could exhibit so much patience they should not object to exhibiting enough of the same to listen to it for a couple of hours. We are having very nice weather now. It was quite wet the first part of last week, but the last 2 or 3 days have been bright and cool – just about the right temperature for nice November weather. My Alberta coal is the finest coal I have ever used. The only difficulty I have with it is to keep the fire low enough to prevent the house from getting too hot. I wouldn’t want Pa. coal again if I could get this kind of coal. If I had it paid for now I would be all right in that line for the winter. I pay my coal dealer $20 a month, which makes it a
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rather tough proposition to make ends meet from one pay-day to the next. The boys are getting large and their clothes come high. I bought Carolus an overcoat the other day for $15 and spent just about that much more at the same place for clothing for the other children and I am still far from getting around. As I am not getting any preaching to do these days I am wholly dependent upon my salary and am consequently finding myself pretty hard put to it. On Wednesday night of last week Prof. Willison took Dr. Maurer, Prof. Zinck and myself down to Hamilton to the reception tendered the new pastor, Rev. Gruher. We spent quite a pleasant time in a social way participating in their banquet and reciprocating with our speeches. Bonnie was engaged in “house-cleaning” for a couple weeks, as she did the work all alone, but finally finished up on Friday. As the ordeal will not come again till next spring this is something to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. I was down at Prof. Henkel’s this p.m. and played three games of chess. He got them all. I can generally get the best of the boys here at home, but I haven’t got into the expert class yet. Work is going along so slowly on our new building that I doubt if we will get into it this school year yet. They haven’t the slate for the roofing and the weather is liable at any moment to be too severe now for putting it on. Well, I have already run considerably over my limit and as I can’t think of anything else to write about I will close. With love to all and all good wishes,
I am
Most Sincerely yours, [signed] Carroll H. Little.
