My dearest Cal,

We received your card about the gloves on Monday morning and despatched at once by noon mail, hoping they would catch your mail from Regina. Then yesterday received yours of the 31st [?] and Edna your card of Saskatoon, she has decided not to teach there. Certainly the towns of the West are not alluring in appearance.

Tom was duly called to the Bar on the morning after convocation, but all the notice taken appeared in the "legal" news column, when several more mentioned (Greig among them) as presented to Sir Auritius Irving and duly sworn in. Then the Hamilton papers noticed that he had been called to the Bar, I have kept the papers. The Globe of Saturday June, 8th had it. But really after so many years of study they get very little notice poor things. The morning after Convocation I went down town. Now I think of it, it was the same morning I was going to do some shopping and went round by Tom's office and met him tearing up to Osgoode with his gown and afterwards met Greig. Yes I saw the Class List. Really it does not do for me to think of it. Just to think of the various setbacks you have had. It was simply maddening, when you did so well in all those subjects.

It is sad to hear of your unsuccessful expedition for fruit. The fruit has been very scarce here, what we get is high priced, and so are the vegetables, the long cold spring and now the want of rain. New potatoes are only just coming at 40 cts. a peck, and the red raspberries too dear to preserve, and if rain does not come the thimble berries will dry up too. The girls went picking berries yesterday but in two hours just got a strawberry basket full. Mrs. Thomson and Mrs. Joe [Thomson] came for a short time. They came to their house at Burlington on the 18th.

I am thankful the cyclone did not come near you, they are fearful things. We hear that old Mrs. Ogg died at the City Hospital last Sunday and Mr. Ogg is there too, it will be a mercy if he soon goes too. Edna was so worked up about them that I wrote Mrs. Mullin to ask Heurner for particulars, as I knew he always attended and all he would vouchsafe to reply was that Mr. Ogg was in the hospital with ulcers on his legs, not another word. When Mrs. Thomson came yesterday she told me she had gone just before she left Hamilton, and she thought Mr. Ogg looked terribly but Mrs. Ogg looked pretty well, with quite a colour but Mrs. Ogg said it was the fever which was burning her up, but that disagreeable Heurner would tell nothing. However we had done all we could, Edna went in on purpose to see them July 2nd and took them fruit and cake and I wrote Osborne to send some necessaries, and Mrs. Walker had faithfully sent them butter.

Uncle Aleck and the Bard came to see us on Tuesday. Annie Fletcher is to be married in September and live in Winnipeg, it really gives one quite a shock to realize that the time has come for Edna's friends to be married. Hilda Fuller, we hear, to be married this month. It seems to me Annie need not be in such a hurry, but I know her mother always seemed to be in quite a hurry to have her married.

Edna is going off to Sparrow Lake on Monday, she is to go with Winnie Gartshore from Toronto. It will be a fine change for her, she is getting much stronger. This place has been a fine resting place for us all. I am feeling much better myself after six weeks of feeling good for nothing. I did not mention it, because I knew it was simply the reaction after the long strain, brought to a climax by a very long walk. We were invited to the Patton's to tea, but brother was taken ill in the afternoon and could not drive¹, so we had to walk and it proved too much for me, though I did not feel it so much at the time. However I had nothing to do but rest and will be in fine trim soon. Ruby is picking up rapidly too, and Mary is very well indeed and Hilda too.

Dr. and Mrs. McNair are away on their holidays, called to see us before they went. The doctor always inquires for you I am so glad you have good congregations, it keeps you encouraged. The weather here keeps very very cool almost too cool to enjoy sitting outside, but then it is fine for sleeping. I must send you the Westminsters and you need not keep them to bring back. We find a very congenial friend in Mrs. Balmer, she comes in often, otherwise we would have no one at all. Well, I must close, I pray that you may be kept safe and well, for evidently you cannot rely on medical help, out there. With much love from all.

Your loving mother

M.B. McQuesten

¹ Mary relates an similar circumstance concerning the Patton family, in letter of June 29, 1907 (W5888).