Grandview, Mo. April Fool's Day
Dear Bess:
This is my day. Ask Ethel if you don't believe it. I wonder why April 1 is call All Fools' Day? I suppose it means court fools or humorists and not our present-day idea of the word. Those court fools usually had more sense than His Majesty. Of course I never met one, nor a majesty either, but Shakespeare makes them very wise and I guess he knew. Which sounds as if I read Shakespeare. I get my idea of Shakespeare from Mark Twain. Mark knew all about such things. Just read Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's Court if you don't believe it.
I got wet last night. It sprinkled gently until I started on my half-mile walk and then it started in right. I am happy to say though that I had a pair of rubber boots at the depot. They just met my overcoat and I didn't get my new (?) spring suit wet. The overcoat was ready to wring out though. I sincerely wished I'd stayed in Independence. The confounded boy was asleep in my bed when I got in.
I have been to the lot and put about a hundred rings in half as many hogs' noses. You really haven't any idea what a soul-stirring job it is, especially on a day when the mud is knee deep and about the consistency of cake dough. Every hog's voice is pitched in a different key and about time you get used to a squeal pitched in G minor that hog has to be loosed and the next one is in A-flat. This makes a violent discord and is very hard on the nerves of a high-strung person. It is very much harder on the hogs' nerves. We have a patent shoot (chute maybe) which takes mister hog right behind the ears and he has to stand and let his nose be bejeweled to any extent the ringer sees fit.
I don't like to do it, but when a nice bluegrass pasture is at stake I'd carve the whole hog tribe to small bits rather than see it ruined. Besides it only hurts them for about an hour and about one in every three loses his rings inside of a week and has to endure the agony over again. If someone would invent a hog that wouldn't root he'd be a benefactor to suffering farmers and a multimillionaire in no time. I hate hogs myself except in the form of ham, sausage, and bacon, but they bring the dollars faster than anything else on a farm, so they're a necessary evil.
Your wish for rain was granted and I am very sorry for it, because according Uncle Harry's reasoning it will surely rain on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. I hope you'll have your sky piece by that time and wish fervently for sunshine. I am sure we'll get it. We sure need some sunshine. Mud is only hub deep. The only reason it's no deeper is because the hub is as deep as a wagon can go.
Mamma asked me if Ethel and Nellie were coming out Sunday. I think the mud will be entirely too deep to ask them don't you? I am going on the theory that it will be and not ask them anyway. I'll have to send them a long nice hot air letter I guess and tell them what a terrible condition the roads are in so they won't feel badly about it. Anyway who wants to spend Easter where no new lids are visible?
Mary is down at Vivian's and can't get home. This makes the second time she's done the same trick. She went down last Saturday a week and had to stay till Tuesday because of the snow. This time it's mud. I guess you can read that almost as well under the blots as without them. Mamma says she needs a key to read my writing. I do myself when it gets cold. I try my best to write a nice pretty copy book hand but just can't some way.
I sure did enjoy myself yesterday and can hardly wait for next Sunday to come. I am sure the play is better or worse depending upon whom you see it with. Twelfth Night was far and away better than As You Like It.
Papa says he's going to adopt a boy if I don't stay home on Sundays. I told him to go ahead.
Please send me a letter on the strength of this. My brains are no good; they are clogged with discordant hog squeals.
Most sincerely, Harry