Grandview, Mo.
October 22, 1911
Dear Bessie:
Your good letter came along with some postcards I sent from up north. I beat the U.S. mail by a day. That new stationery certainly does look good. I don't blame Frank and George for helping themselves.
Would you like to hear what we did going and coming from notorious Gregory? I am going to tell you anyway because it is on my mind and I shall have to unburden it.
To begin with, it was just like riding a crowded streetcar for a day and night. We took a sleeper to Omaha coming and going. From Omaha up, trains were running every hour or so all day Tuesday, Wednesday and until Thursday noon. You see, the R.R. companies from one end of the country to the other give special rates on first and third Tuesdays of each month. We got to Omaha Wednesday morning at quarter to eight and left at eight. They had to call special police to handle the crowd at the Union Station. We managed to get seats in the last coach. There were 687 people on the train and nearly all were nice-looking Americans. I only saw about a dozen bohunks all the way there and back. I never got so tired looking at yellow cars in my life. The Chicago and Northwestern uses all yellow coaches. We played pitch and seven-up all day, taking turn about at each eating station because we didn't dare to leave our seats all at once. Murray Colgan's wife fixed us the finest lunch a person could want anyway, so we didn't get hungry.
At nearly every station, we met trains coming back. People on them would yell Sucker! Sucker! at us and men on our train would do the same. One fellow hollered for us to go right on through to a very hot place. It sounded like a pretty good place to be up there, it was so cold.
We got to Gregory at about 10:30 p.m. Then began a chase for a place to sleep. The hotel man finally agreed to give us a cot apiece in the writing room, which was some luxury I tell you. There were people who sat up all night. After we'd cinched our rooms we went and registered at the Cow Palace, a wooden shack. It takes about one minute to do it. There were twenty notaries inside of a hollow square. I bet there was more swearing going on there than there ever will be in one place again. I really don't know what a Quaker would have done. They didn't ask you to swear, but just filled out the papers-and you were sworn before you knew what was happening. I registered for a soldier friend so that I have a chance to get a 160 and half of another. There were about four-hundred claims that are worth from $8,000 to $12,000 each. Of course I'll draw one of them. Then there are several thousand worth from $40 to $4,000 depending of course on location.
There is an old Sioux Indian woman on the reservation who is 123 years old. She looks like Gagool in Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. I didn't see her but I have her picture.
I saw all of Gregory I cared to in about an hour and a half. It is a strictly modern town of about 1,500.
We left there at 6:00 a.m. the next day. Played draw pitch all day to see who'd pay for orchestra seats at the Orpheum in Omaha that night. I had to pay of course. Only won one game in seventeen, as eighteen played. The other two broke even on the balance. We saw a fine show though. The headliners are in K.C. this week.
I could have called up your Omaha friend easily because we were there from 7:00 p.m. until 10:45 Thursday evening. Omaha is a fine town I think. Every street is as wide as Grand Avenue.
I was so sleepy when I got in the train coming from Omaha to Kansas City that I thought nothing could keep me awake. But there was an old woman and her daughter had the berth opposite me. The old lady had asthma or some wheezy complaint. When she wasn't wheezing or snoring she was quarreling with her daughter about whether she could sleep on a Pullman or not. They almost came to blows over it once. The wheezy one was very fat and had an upper of course. The Porter had to labor manfully to get her up and down. He managed it without disaster though.
I am glad I went. I have as good chance to win as anyone. Even if I don't I had fun enough to pay for going. A person can have a good time most anywhere when he has two congenial spirits along. I sure did. Murray and Homer Pittinger are both all right. They are both strictly temperance and enjoy about the same things I do so we had a good time.
Please remember that I had to get this off my mind, and if it is not a good letter it is all I had to offer this time. Write me when you can. I am going to be bro Pete's best man next Saturday.
Most sincerely, Harry