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Stanford, May 8, 1898.

My dear Mamma:

Sunday! and Claude's birthday!! What a man Claude must feel now! Eighteen years old! I can hardly believe that the chubby little fellow who used to say "tie my bib off", and who ate all the fat on the table because, as he said, it made him "nice and fat", that this little rascal is almost a man in years. But the law says that until a youth is twenty-one he is an infant; so you may still call Claude your baby", and you will be right, literally and figuratively.

How are all the folks?

Has Aunt Abby disposed of her farm yet? Has the indubitable Oscar (as Claude loved to call him) heard from Spreckels & Co yet?

All the students talk about