Letter from Harriet to Father, August 21, 1882

Letter from Harriet to Father, August 21, 1882

Birthdays; Boarding schools; Budget; Chapel; Building--Planning; Tumors--Surgery; Bones--Surgery; Missions--Exercises, recitations, etc; Chinese language

Hattie is happy that she received many letters the day that the school closed. She tells her father that the Board did not grant the $500 that the mission requested for the new chapel. Harriet believes that they should wait until next spring to start building the chapel. Last week Dr. Kerr had three hard operations. One involved removing part of a bone from a man's thigh, another one involved removing half of a man's jaw, and another one a tumor. Harriet tells her father that the day of the school's closing they recited the fourteenth chapter of John in Chinese. She thinks that the Chinese language has music in it and that it would not have sounded as beautifully in English.

Noyes, Harriet Newell

The College of Wooster, Special Collections, Noyes Collection, Box #3

Unpublished

1882-08-21

Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Special Collections Grant

PDF

eng (English)

Text

noyes_c_cor_294

Canton China
Aug 21st 1882
My dear Father
The mail which
came in the day that school
closed brought me a nice letter
from you written on your
birthday. I was glad to get
so many letters from home on
the 16th because I thought if
you had received my letter that
I wrote telling you that the
school would close on that day
you would be [Illegible] to be
thinking of me. I wish that
that little box that reached
you on the 4th of July had
had more in it but I had to
pick up the things very hastily
I am glad it got through
safely. I wanted to send
something by Miss Coffman

but her trunks all seemed full to
overflowing so I could not ask her.
I hope Martha has received her
ring which I sent by her. It was
in a letter all ready to be mailed
as soon as she reached USA.
I thought she would get it by her
birthday. It seems very strange
that you had such cold
weather on the 4th of July. [u] We [/u]
had no need of fire here. The
weather is more comfortable now
than it has been. Quite a
number of our missionaries are
down in Hong Kong now. Dr Happer
Mr Henry & Mr White with their families
Mary & Verdie Happer are keeping
home and working for Dr Stubbert
I expect. We hear that he is
coming down for a [u] visit [/u] this month
or next. I wonder if they will
be able to keep their engagement
a secret after he comes. I
wonder that they have kept it
so long, for it is very hard
even to keep ones thoughts secret
out here, when everybody knows

everything. I think I have
written to you that the Board
could not grant the $500.00
asked for the new chapel.
Still I hope it will be made
up some way and that we
will soon have it. I do not
suppose it will be best now to
begin building it until next
spring at any rate. I hope
it can be done before Mr
Henry goes home. His [?ten?]
years will soon be out They
are planning to go home a
year from next January
via Europe. Hattie Kerr tells
me that Dr Kerr is going home
in two years for a visit I suppose
Last week he had three
such dreadful operations in
the Hospital we hardly
expected any of them to
recover but they seem to
be getting on all right.

He dreaded performing these
operations very much for he
feared the patients might die
under his hands. Did I ever
tell you that in the middle
of the inside of his right hand
is a place as hard as a bone
nearly. That has been calloused
by the end of the chisel which
he uses in chiselling off [u] bones [/u] in
his operations. The last of these
three operations was to take a
piece of bone out of a man's thigh
and he said the bone seemed almost
as hard as iron. The previous one
he took out half of a man's jaw,
and the first was a dreadful tumor
on a woman's face as large as her
head. Miss Butler saw the
first. She seems to have very
good nerves, and I hope will
make a good Doctor. We
do not yet hear anything
very definite about Miss Niles MD.
I rather expect to hear that
she is going to Nam King

[Continued vertically on the first page]

I wish you could
have been here at the
closing exercises of the
school. It is always
such a pleasure to
think of your interest
in it. The recitation
of the fourteenth chapter
of John was really
very beautiful.
Mr White said
it almost brought
the tears to his eyes
and several of them
said it thrilled them
very deeply. It seemed
almost like a chant.
The Chinese language
really has music in it
if it is brought out. It
does not seem as though
it could have sounded
so beautifully in English. The
lines made it seem like music. Your aff daughter
Harriet



中国广州
1882 年 8 月 21 日
我亲爱的父亲
学校停课那天寄来的邮件给我带来了一封您在生日那天写的好信。
我很高兴在 16 日收到这么多来自家里的信，
因为我想如果你收到我写的告诉你学校将在那天关闭的信，
你会 [难以辨认] 想到我。
我希望 7 月 4 日收到的那个小盒子里有更多东西，
但我不得不非常仓促地捡起东西，
我很高兴它安全通过了。
我想寄点考夫曼小姐的东西，
但她的箱子似乎都塞得满满的，
所以我不能问她。
我希望玛莎收到了我寄给她的戒指。
这是一封信，
她一到美国就可以寄出。
我以为她会在她生日前得到它。
7 月 4 日的天气如此寒冷，
这似乎很奇怪。
我们这里不需要火。
现在的天气比以前舒服多了。
现在我们有不少传教士在香港。
Happer 博士 Henry 先生和 White 先生以及他们的家人 Mary 和 Verdie Happer 待在家里并为我期望的 Stubbert 博士工作。
我们听说他这个月或下个月要来拜访。
我想知道他来后他们是否能够保守他们的订婚秘密。
我不知道他们把它藏了这么久，
因为当每个人都知道一切的时候，
即使是把自己的想法保密也很难。
我想我已经写信给你，
董事会无法批准为新教堂所要求的 500.00 美元。
我仍然希望它能够以某种方式弥补，
并且我们很快就会拥有它。
我认为现在开始建造它无论如何都不是最好的，
直到明年春天。
我希望能在亨利先生回家之前完成。
他的十年即将结束，
他们计划从明年一月开始通过欧洲回家。
Hattie Kerr 告诉我，
Kerr 医生将在两年后回家探访，
我想上周他在医院进行了三次如此可怕的手术，
我们几乎没想到他们中的任何一个都能康复，
但他们似乎一切都很好。
他非常害怕做这些手术，
因为他害怕病人会死在他的手下。
我有没有告诉过你，
在他右手内侧的中央，
有一个几乎像骨头一样坚硬的地方。
他在手术中用来凿掉骨头的凿子的末端已经使这种情况变得老茧了。
这三个手术中的最后一个是从一个人的大腿上取出一块骨头，
他说骨头看起来几乎像铁一样坚硬。
上一个他从一个男人的下巴里取出了一半，
第一个是一个可怕的肿瘤，
长在一个女人的脸上，
有她的头那么大。
巴特勒小姐看到了第一个。
她似乎有很好的神经，
我希望会成为一个好医生。
我们还没有听到任何关于奈尔斯小姐的确切消息。
我宁愿听到她要去南景[第一页垂直续]我希望你能在学校的结业典礼上在这里。
想到你对它感兴趣总是很高兴。
约翰十四章的朗诵真的很美。
怀特先生说这几乎让他热泪盈眶，
其中一些人说这让他们非常激动。
这几乎像是一首颂歌。
如果把中文拿出来，
真的有音乐在里面。
看起来它在英语中听起来并不那么美妙。
这些台词使它看起来像音乐。
你的女儿，
哈丽特

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