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May 1, 1947
Dear Mother and Daddy,
Today was really quite a thrilling day. In the first place the dress came, and it looks as if it is going to be just adorable. I showed it to my roommate, Jane, and she thought it was just adorable too. She is going to fix it for me, for she knows quite a bit about sewing and has made a lot of her good clothes; so she is used to sewing on things like this. I was beginning to be afraid that the material would be a little stiff, but now I think it is going to be just right. I will get it back to you as soon as possible. I certainly appreciate your going to all this trouble for me, and I'm sure that when this dress is finished it will rank with my grey wool dress, which up to this point has been my favorite dress.
The other very thrilling that happened today occured at my music lesson. I have been having very good music lessons lately because Dr. Popper is the kind of a teacher that you just don't go to a lesson unless it is just about perfectly prepared, and you don't want to miss a lesson; so the only alternative is having good lessons. I think prehaps that your desire to have me play for people is at last going to materialize. I am going to play my Debussy piece for his "Keyboard" Class when they come to Debussy. But the best thing of all is that he wants me to learn the whole Rhapsody in Blue, start it now and work on it this summer, and then play it with the University orchestra at one of their concerts next year. I felt so flattered that he would think me good enough to suggest such a thing that I nearly floated through the deiling. Of course any number of things could happen that I wouldn't do it, but then again I might. It just doesn't seem possible to me that I could do such a thing, but of course I told him that I would. I
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just hope that he doesn't regret it later on.
Yesterday evening there was an all-campus barbeque held out at the Convelesent Home. A home supported by the University which takes care of convelessing children, and to raise moeny for which there is a big drive every year. They had great slabs of lamb smoked over big coal pit, and you were just given a hunk. Of course the boys that cut the meat up, licked the knives that they cut the meat with. It was very good nevertheless, and I havn't heard of anyone yet getting toamine poisining. There was also some other food and everyone just sat around on the hay and ate it. There was also some kind of a silly program going on at the same time - to which no one of course paid any attention.
I can't think of anything else I've done since Tuesday. Mostly I've been spending my time reading about the Hindu Religion and doing typing lessons.
Thank you again for the dress. Don't worry about getting it again - I'm sure you will see it much sooner than you would like to.
Love to all,
Mary
