This is Reynolds’s first letter to Miss Evans, a friend from their time at Carleton College. Here we see a less formal tone than some of her other letters and notes to her time at Carleton including the Carletonia, mentions to a friends named Lydia, and a certain history professor. We also see Reynolds grappling with her role in China and being reassured by Nellie Russell. At this point, she had been in China for over six months.

Upside Down: By sending bunches of letters by Chinese stamps to Shanghai we can use U.S. stamps.

My dear Miss Evans,

I do not know where this letter will find you but I hope it will be some place where you are having a delightful rest. 

Yesterday’s mail brought me the good news of Lydia’s journey the church Easter day. How happy it made me that she has taken one step nearer Christ. 

It is almost June now and they tell me that by July I must, for the sake of my health this first year, leave my work and go to the seashore village. 

My work has been very unsettled and changeable but I think by next fall things will be much more settled and definite. 

For this next month I have two new pupils. Their father was …

… a younger brother of the husband of the Empress Dowager, but being a younger brother his sons have no title. They are about sixteen and seventeen years of age and I am to go to them five times a week for the small price of $26 Mexican dollars. They really are in financial ‘straits’ tho so Miss Miner thought it would be all right. They have a number of cousins some near and some distant who want to study English. They are young ladies and I should like to teach them so much but we haven’t come to any agreements yet. Their home is more than two miles from here and to go there properly i.e. in a Chinese cart, would take practically all of my (money but a different word is used here), and compel me to give…

… up some of the pupils who come to me here. They have plenty of money but no pride in that respect and do not want to pay what I ask. I still think tho that perhaps they will think differently. Miss Miner and I called on them. They have a piano and other foreign furniture and offered us wine and cigarettes, so you see they are getting a land of Western civilization (?) 

There are about ten girls who wish to study and I said I would go to them for twice a week for eighty dollar (mex) four times for sixty or they could come to me for forty. Of course I consult Miss Miner and those who know best, about the prices but they feel that less than that would cheapen my position.

How much I do appreciate your letters and your prayers.

It comes to me many, many times that I have more to be grateful for than I can ever express, God truly has gone before me and I have found here such a lot of kindness and love that would make one think heaven has begun in the hearts of these dear missionaries.

No, college domigs don’t seem far away, neither does home, except that the letters are long on the way. My college friends have been so good about writing and when the mail comes I fairly ‘feast’ for days. The Carletonia is so much more interesting than ever before. I hear that there is a possibility of Prof. Stralton remaining in the college as Prof. of history. I …

… shall be very glad if it is true. 

You have been and still are, I presume, giving your time to the anxious senior girl who are to go out and try themselves next autumn. Lydia writes that she has a position at Glenwood. How anxious I was a year ago and how wonderfully God has kept me and lead me.

I was a little discouraged at one time (It is hard to wait and not know sometimes) and wondered if I had made a mistake but when the other day, Mrs. Russell who is a woman of judgement and not given to complementing, told me that she thought

I was doing a great deal of good in my work and that I would make a good missionary, I felt it was God’s voice saying to me that I was where he wants me to be. Then too – being here and seeing things has helped me decide what …

I have often thought over, whether or not I should spend my life in foreign missionary work. After seeing the work, living with the missionaries, hearing them plan, knowing their disappointments and their joy, I feel as tho no work at home can satisfy me as this can.

Of course there is much before me and certainly, the college debt, the home folks etc. but God will take care of that.

I have written home about it. It is hard to ask them to make the sacrifice. For me with life before me and a desire to make the most of life, it is comparatively easy, but for them it is a real sacrifice, but I’m sure He will make it easy for them.

So you see I am very happy …

… and also very well and I hope the Carleton mission may feel as sure that I am where God wants me as I do. It has all taught me that I must learn so much on Him and it has been a blessed lesson to learn.

I have a teacher a few hours each day and I am getting a little of the language. I have not had regular work tho, so have only read the primer through. But I learn to write the characters too and considering the tones etc it takes a long time. My teacher is a dear old man and very amusing. I think he should have been an actor for he has great ability in that line. If I fail to grasp his meaning he at once assumes that role and I usually understand. He illustrated quite at length the other day, the effect of [unclear] – it was very amusing, tho of course I… 

… must be as grave as he was.

He is a very earnest christian and is anxious for me to read the book of John in Chinese.

I attend the Chinese church service and understand a phrase here and there but fear I spend much of my time watching the amazing little black eyed babyes. They are so cunning and some of them so pretty. 

I have found the people, most of them, very loveable, tho there are those who have such traits as Dr. Smith tells of in his Chinese Characteristics. Most people here think Dr. Smith is inclined to the pessimistic and it seems to me such traits are not nearly as common as he would have you believe.

It is hard to realize that you are sleeping as I write, may you have sweet dreams and wake to a happy day – with much love

Mary Reynolds

Peking China

May 26 – 1905

P.S.

If you do not already know, you may be interested to know something of Chinese poetry. Here at Peking there are four tones. The poetry is very mechanical and must follow certain rules. Foreigners who have read much of it, think very little of the thought it contains. Let this line / represent the first tone, and this one – any of the other three tones. There are seven words in a line and four lines in a verse.

These kinds of verse and no other, you may have in Chinese, I understand.  

As usual – I wonder if I may ask you a favor.

A member of my pupils have expressed a desire to take an American magazine. The problem is to get one with matter suited to a mature mind expressed in words easily understood by children of say, ten or twelve. The same is true of History text books. If anyone knows of any such magazine or History texts will you kindly write me of them.

Some of my more advanced pupils are very interesting. I have given them the “merchant of Venice” (in simple language with some parts omitted) for dictation work, and they were very much interested in …

… it and told it again very well indeed. Some of their Chinese fairy stories are very interesting. I really must not write more. 

So godly – so might, Mary R.