Grandview, Mo.
November 28, 1911
Dear Bessie:
Your letter came this morning and I am being very prompt. I hope you'll take notice.
Thanks for the Easter invitation. You probably know that 1912 is Leap Year. Easter is April 7. I did not find out by Julius' or Pope Gregory's method either, but from a patent medicine almanac. Farmers all still read them. I was digesting one when I ran across those Lunar Cycles, Roman Indictions, etc. ad lib. In Freemasonry we all learn that by the use of geometry astronomers fix the duration of years and cycles. I could never figure what cycles meant until I read the other junk.
You certainly must be some housekeeper to be able to loaf from nine till noon. I'll bet your mother doesn't worry about how things will go. I offer you my sympathy for the five relatives for Thanksgiving. I guess you'll enjoy it though. The sympathy is for you, not them.
Mamma's new daughter-in-law gave her a birthday dinner on Monday. Her birthday was Saturday, but Mary couldn't be present that day. We all jollied Luella so about not being able to get dinner by herself that she wouldn't allow Mary or her own sister to help her at all. She had one fine dinner too and I did it justice. So did her father.
How are you enjoying this cold wave? I am not enjoying it. We have some stock and I tell you it is some cold job to feed them every morning and night. I put as much off on the hired men as I possibly can, but still I have to get out every morning by myself and feed the horses. Papa does the milking. I don't mind after I get out as it isn't cold to work, but my it's awful to start.
What have you to be thankful for this year? I am thankful that we have an immense pile of wood already sawed up, have some coal, hogs enough to eat all winter, and about two bushels of debts to pay (they say debts give a man energy-I ought to be a shining example of that quality if they do), and numerous other things too small to mention. I come of a worrying family but I do my best not to worry about anything. I believe that if a person cannot be happy in his present condition, he'll never be in any future one he may be in on this earth. That's my Aunt Susan's doctrine, and she's fat and happy at seventy-two with more on her shoulders than two men could ordinarily carry.
I got awful busy yesterday morning making a new gate for the back lot. I had it all cut out just like a dress pattern, got its insides all painted green before knitting it together, and was just about to give it an outside cast of the greenest green paint you ever saw when I had to go to dinner and then came the storm. My gate is still an unfinished product. I shall finish it the very first day paint will run, and then I am going to make two more. I always create quite a lot of comment when I go to use a saw and a hatchet. People think what I make will be a left-handed job when it's done as well as in the making. Very often it is. Don't you think a violent green gate will look good with those white stone posts? I do. Besides I haven't any other kind of paint. Only have green by accident. Someone left a can in the smokehouse. I thought it was white and wished it was, too, until I opened it. It just matches bluegrass and will be all right for a back gate. It would never do for the front one. White is the only color safe to use there because sometimes it gets so dark out here that if a man was anyways dizzy at all, he never could see a green gate.
Do you think you could stand some Grand opera? What? I have a desire to hear Lucia di Lammermoor or to see it, whichever is proper. Would you go? I don't believe that just one yelling match would be unenjoyable. I have never seen Lucia and I am curious to know how much torture one has to endure to get to hear the sextet. I hope not anymore than in Floradora. The whole works could be endured in that. If you would rather hear some other one though, I'd just as leave. There are several good ones on the list. Lucia is Wednesday night I believe. I'd like to come in next Sunday evening if you don't object and you can say then if you'll go to any of them. If you are not going to be at home Sunday, you'll have to phone me for I am coming if you don't.
Papa is reading the farm press aloud for my benefit. I haven't heard a word for ten minutes. He always stops and asks what I think when some exceptionally large lie has been read. The farm papers are fun for the advertising money and not for the subscriber. Their farm opinions are mostly rot. They'll tell some long-winded tale about the great record some guy has made feeding cattle and at the end you'll find that he's only fed three and that took all his time and a hired man's. What we want to know is how to feed a carload and not have anything to do.
Have you read the last Everybody's? The best story in it is by O. Henry and stops in the middle because Mr. Henry died before he finished it. I wish the publishers had done it for him. It is so unsatisfactory to have to use your own ending on somebody else's story. I have an idea that Mr. Mac got the hook, what do you think?
I'd give ten years off my life if I could handle the English language as O. Henry did. He and the immortal Mark (there are three, but I have only one) could just land the proper word every time. I do hope you won't find this letter as dull as it sounds to me. You should have a good one this time but I fail as usual.
Tell George that he can hunt rabbits out here whenever he wants to. He asked me about rabbits and I don't remember whether I asked him or not. There aren't many but the few there are, are fat. Hope to see you Sunday.
Most sincerely, Harry