Grandview, Mo.
September 16, 1911
Dear Bessie:
I got your letter this morning and you should give me a mark for being prompt, to say the least. I wrote you a note day before yesterday to thank you for the magazine I didn't take. By all means save me Kennedy Square. It sounds good. I shall try to keep my mind on it and not forget it. Don't you dare offer me forty cents. I hadn't thought of it. You may give me some of the pictures in payment if you must pay.
By all means bring Bill's cousin when you come out. I shall have to give that court another discing and rolling before you come. You see I have suddenly become "boss" again, all against my will and inclination, and tennis is a dream for the present. The grass grows though, always and the court is beginning to turn green. Grandviewites are too lazy to come down and play after I have done all the work. Besides, we are an ignorant bunch and will have to have some expert instruction before we play to do any good. A person might as well read Green's History of England to learn tennis as to read Spalding's book when you know nothing of the game. We'll produce some champeens though someday.
It flatters me terribly to have the Miss Macks inquiring about me after this long time. I should like to see them. Which reminds me that Vladimir de Pachmann and Lhevinne are going to play in K.C. this winter. Lhevinne is the best on the globe, I think, and when they come if I have a sound walking machine and you have the inclination, we'll go hear them. One is a Russian and the other a Dutch Pole. So they can tear up a piano from the keyboard side.
There is yet another week of wheat sowing and then some maybe. We didn't get started until Thursday on account of Sunday's rain. It sounds like a joke for the fields to be too muddy to work this year.
I am glad Frank landed the job but I am sorry it prevents him from coming out. Maybe he can get off that day. If you'll let us know in time, we'll give you buttermilk that's real for lunch.
Miss Grace Wagoner went home yesterday. Her beau goes to Kansas U and she said he only got home twice a month and she'd promised to be there. I tried to get her to let me phone him to come out here but she wouldn't. Mamma says she is going to build a Young Hotel and hire a chef pretty soon. We have two cousins coming out from K.C. in about a week to stay a week. We have a gent and his kid billed for dinner today but they haven't arrived yet at 3:00 P.M.
I like to have company, for we'd die of lonesomeness if no one came. If a Sunday passes without someone coming, it seems like there is a screw loose or something gone wrong.
I shall have business in Kansas City this week if I have to make it. I shall call up and if it is all right shall come over.
Miss Maggie Phelps owes me a dinner and I am going to try and get that in sometime soon. She wrote me from Texas that she is an excellent cook and I told her I didn't believe it. She is going to show me.
Well I hope you'll consider this worth an answer and keep my magazine and book till I come for them.
Sincerely, Harry