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April 20, 1942

Isobel is all upset over the rumor that the officers are considering moving us to Camp Holmes. Ray says they were talking it over and have been to inspect it and we might as well start packing. Nakamura told the garden workers to pick all the vegetables as we would be moving day after tomorrow to Trinidad Valley. In no time the news traveled up and down with the fury of a storm. Knots of people gathered chattering into terrific clamor: babies, taking on the nervous atmosphere, cried as in the early days. Nakamura is still saying the Japanese are angry because five hundred civilians were killed in Davao and that we are not good to the Japanese in the States.

The children are getting a liberal education on babies. They hang around different ones at bathing and feeding times, seeing them at different stages of development. Many of them help the young mothers, carry the bottles, change the panties, assist those who are learning to walk.

I had a long talk with Jane about flower arrangement, which she studied for a year in Japan. The full course is seven years. It depressed me; it showed such passion for detail. I asked if it was art or religion with them and she said both, nearer the latter. But it started in the Army! It is an outlet, sublimation for the soldiers.