THE AMERICAN CHURCH MISSION

DISTRICT OF TOKYO

THE RT. REV. H. ST. G. TUCKER, D.D.	TREASURER’S OFFICE	THE REV. J. J. CHAPMAN
BISHOP OF TOKYO		TREASURER

KARASUMARU DORI

SHIMOTACHIURI, KYOTO

SEVENTEENTH APRIL

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My dear Father:-

This is your EIGHTY THIRD birthday and I wish I were with you to see you and talk to you. I had intended to write you so that the letter should get to you on this day, but the time passes so quickly here I find I have often gone a month without writing home. Three score and ten used to seem to you a good old age at one time, and even four score was remarked on by the Psalmist as something extra that only strong men could come to. And when they got there it was but labor and sorrow.

However from what Mother writes me it is not laborious nor sorrowful in your case, tho you be afflicted with loss of vision along with it. I congratulate you on your good health and strength and pray that I may be spared to come and see you and Mother once again in the flesh. It is almost more than I can stand out here sometimes, but I brace up and go on and forget it. I sometimes think I shall give it up and fly the land by taking the next steamer out. But I reckon I had better close up matters so that the next man can take hold properly before I leave for any long time. I am very greatly tempted to ask the Dept. of Missions to let me have a few years without any salary and just stay on home. Some time I may want to come back and if my name is not stricken out I can do so. I do not now know how I could make enough to school all the children but I suppose I could do something somewhere which would pay expenses. I have just sold my Karuizawa property for about twice what it cost me. Bishop Tucker owned the land and I the house. The land cost him five hundred yen thirteen years ago. I handed him more than ten times that amount for his share. The house was mine and as it has rather gone bad than good in the past few years I cannot say that my share was any more than twice what I have spent. Anyhow I have 7250 yen as my share and he 5250. I want to put the amount in investments to yield an income enough to keep up the house which Mr. Cameron has given Ellen. He most kindly has said he would deed not only the land to Ellen but the house too. So we have not had to spend a cent for it. Mary Cameron has always said she was going to give Ellen a lot and we were to save up and build a house. I think she thought we were a long time in building the house and so last fall she wrote Ell to send the plans for the house. We were much puzzled as to how we were to pay for the house and proceeded to try to get a big price for the Karuizawa lot and house. This was to pay for the house, but a letter came from Mrs. Cameron saying that Barton thought that all women should have a roof over their heads and he would give it to her for life and any of her single daughters for their life. I suppose single life. Well Ellen wants to make a home for the children to use as headquarters while they are getting an education. And so she shipped practically all her household stuff home last month. It looks like breaking up out here. I don’t know what is going to happen but I don’t want my family to grow up without me and I feel I have a duty too to them. If I am ever to know them now is the time. So I may stay home for some time. I felt it terribly when Claudia came back an almost stranger. Just now I am beginning to know her and I like her very much. In fact I've had to get acquainted with my wife about twice in my life and even then I find now and then there are still points I had never rubbed up against before. It is very strange how much the early years mean to one. These important years are now passing for my children. I say it is strange that I still feel closer to you and Mother than I do to some of my own children, tho I have seen a very little of you two in the past twenty-five years. It was the first twenty-five that made the impression. You know I am fifty this year. You were a young man when I was born.

I don’t know what I was going to say on that last page. Anyhow I have missed the steamer I had intended to catch for it is now a day since I started this. Someone came in and I got my attention turned to several matters in succession. I am going up to Tokyo next week to attend the meeting of the General Convention of the Japanese Church. I have a command from Bishop McKim to be his guest. I had intended to ask Mrs. Kauffman if she could put me up. You know Mary-Jane is at the Kauffman’s in Tokyo and going to school at the convent which is a very fair preparatory or primary school. Mrs. Kauffman is one of those ladies who have only one child and plenty of money and who found it was a mistake not to have two children, or maybe more. But for present purposes of association with her ten-year-old daughter it is too late to make a start on the second. It is a very pleasant place for Mary-Jane, tho somewhat a worldly place to get all one’s training in. So the convent will act as a moderator of the worldly tendency. Anyhow Mary-Jane has good enough sense to know the meaning of things and can’t be led aside from the path she has so far trod in our midst. Fortunately my girls seem all to have a well balanced mind and correct outlook on life. None seem frivolous and yet all gay, with an intense lookout for joy in this life as well as a sympathy for those who seem to have no happiness nor appetite for it. I believe most people will find in this life what they set out to find. The trend of mind counts a good deal.

I suppose you will depend on Mother’s good eyesight for this letter and my love goes to you both with it. She must save her eyes and not read too much. Have you got one of those wireless outfits whereby you can hear what is passing in the air or ether? You ought to get one immediately. I have yet to see one, for Japan is behind in that modern invention.

Claudia and I are expecting Mrs. Pancoast tonight, who will stay two weeks. She is quite a figure in Women’s Aux. circles in Philadelphia.

With love to you all,

Affectionately

James