Grandview, Mo.
May 32, 1911
Dear Bessie,
You'll notice that I have dated this May 32. If I scratch May right at the beginning, it won't look well and it is easier anyway just to give the month another day. Julius Caesar or Augustus you know could add or subtract days from any month they chose and I guess I can do the same to the one that holds my birthday.
I am dying of curiosity. What on earth is the job I'll have? Of course I'll have to sit tight and wait I guess, but it's mighty disagreeable to burn up slowly with a strictly feminine prerogative. I have really got anxious to work since I can't. I once thought if I could only lay off I could sleep at least two days at a stretch but I simply can't do over five hours now to save me, and I believe I'd really pitch hay with pleasure. So come on with your job. I am getting to be something of an organ-grinding pianist myself now and I can't appreciate your torture at the neighbor's hands at all, because if we had any neighbors close enough to listen I'd be doing them the same way. I can play "Happy Heinie" and "Yankee Doodle" to a fare you well. I suppose it is sometimes good for the neighbors when you have to use an opera glass to see the front gate.
Don't you think Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady is a fine fellow? I do. When a man has the ability and courage to tell old Bill Nelson what he is, he sure is all right with me. He'll make a success in K.C. too. The Star never did win a political or any other kind of fight of any importance. You know they made a special fight on Jim Reed & W. P. Borland. The Journal said the Star had won an old time victory when Borland was elected. When a man wants to win in this end of the state he wants the Star against him. I hope they don't disrupt the Church in K.C. but I hope they make Grace Church take their pastor back.
Mamma came in just now and gave me a job. Picking stems off strawberries. She had nearly three gallons. It was some job too. I like strawberry jam so well though I ought not to kick about getting the berries ready. They are not very good this year. It has been too dry. We have patch enough for a wagon load but if we get ten gallons we'll do well. I guess blackberries will be fine though. Our patch is white with bloom. Rain Rain. That's what we need and badly too. Do you like to hear how farm crops do? That is all a farmer thinks of this time of year. I hope we have good ones this year anyway. I won't mind my enforced vacation then.
Say, when I am able to walk like a gentleman again will you go to a ball game with me? I mean a real professional game at Assination Park. I am so crazy to walk I don't know what to do. I have been buggy riding a time or two and can go around on three legs. I am like the mathematical dog. I put down three and carry one. That infernal calf is veal now.
Vivian and Mr. McBroom are plowing corn just north of the house and their language is forceful to say the least when they go to turn here at the house. A horse when he is hitched to a cultivator can make a religious crank use profanity. It is not possible to reach him as your hands are fully holding the play, so you have to take it out in strong talk. I have found on investigation that Vivian was entirely responsible for your book going astray. He put it under the buggy seat when they started for Dodson, and Ethel and Aunt Ella had to run for a car and he never mentioned the book. He took both the book and Life to his girl that evening and never said a word until yesterday when he brought the book home. I'll bring it myself next time. Well I hope you'll consider this worth an answer. Don't keep me waiting long or I'll die of curiosity.
Sincerely, Harry