Grandview, Mo.
November 1, 1911
Dear Bessie:
I am most awful glad you think a letter to me worthwhile. They are more than worthwhile to me. You can never guess how glad I am to get them.
I really didn't mean to put my principal desire in the past tense. That is something that will never be past with me. My grammar was at fault, that's all.
I suppose Ethel has told you all about the wedding. I was scared nearly to death and so was Vivian. Lucella was as calm as if she'd been married a dozen times before. She is more like my Grandmother Young than anyone I know. If my dear Pete doesn't make a success with her to help him, he should be blotted out. Everyone is so well satisfied with the match something surely will happen. Even her grandmother thinks Vivian is almost good enough for her, and Mamma says she's too good for him. They are down to pa-in-law's tonight. Vivian actually told me that they were going to town tomorrow to buy the furniture they need. I guess they'll be at home Monday or Tuesday. The charivari is set for Saturday I think. If it is, I'll not be present for I am coming to Independence if you'll be at home. I am going with Mary and Ethel and Nellie to the Shubert Saturday afternoon and I'd like very much to come down that night, provided of course that you have nothing better to do.
I want an auto so badly tonight I really don't know what to do. I have a special invitation to assist in the dedication of a new Lodge at Swope Park. I shall stay at home because I'd simply be a chunk of ice by the time I drove to 67th Street in a buggy. I couldn't go on the train because Papa and I had to pull up the carrots and beets and bury them this afternoon so they wouldn't freeze. If ever I get my debts paid and then have something left, I'm going to invest it in a benzine buggy, as the hobos say. Then I suppose I'll have the debts to pay over. Just imagine how often I'd burn the pike from there to Independence. I guess you'd better be glad I haven't one for I'd simply make myself monotonous to you. I guess there'll not be much danger of my coming too often this winter for I'll have to work for true, Ethel to the contrary notwithstanding. I always make it a point to invite them out when things are arranged so I haven't anything to do but tease and torment them. That is how Ethel arrived at her conclusion.
The W.M. series begins soon I see. Don't you forget you have pianist dates to go with me. Pianists are all I can stand this winter. I am crazy about any kind of pretty music but of course I can appreciate pianists most. Mary has been practicing on a Mozart sonata that has the most beautiful melody I know of. It makes you think of Greek and Roman fairy stories. Did you ever sit and listen to an orchestra play a fine overture and imagine that things were as they ought to be and not as they are? Music that I can understand always makes me feel that way. I think some of the old masters must have been in communication with a fairy goddess of some sort. That is Mozart, Chopin, and Verdi were. Wagner and Bach evidently were in cahoots with Pluto. Did you ever know that some of those men wrote the worst trash imaginable for potboilers? Raff has over a thousand compositions and about nine hundred are fit for nothing. He'd write one very time he got hungry. I guess you can't blame the poor man. That is the reason rulers should be wise enough to pick the geniuses and pension them so they can do their best. It seems to me that they would be easy enough picked out because they always beat their wives, or run away with some other man's. Wouldn't Reno be full of pensioners?
I hope you'll be home Saturday. If you're not, it'll be my loss of course. I'll phone in the morning sometime after I get to town.
You see, I am sending you the other half of that sheet I tore in two before.
I want you to show me some stenciling when I come down. I never saw any I guess, even it is ancient. If I have, I knew it not. You owe me a letter now. Next time I'll wind up and fill two full sheets. Now you know what's coming, so beware.
Sincerely, Harry