Commerce, Okla. August 19, 1916
Dear Bess:
Your prophecy about my coming home is going to be correct. I can't come. We are still hanging on by our eyebrows. I am not certain for just how long. There is only an overdraft at the bank and I have made it about $330 bigger today by the payroll. If that good-natured banker refuses to pay, I shall probably get thrown into the shaft. I am hoping he'll pay. There is good prospect in the ground, even better than I expected to see. It would most certainly be awful if somebody else gets this hoodooed hole and makes a million out of it. That's probably what will happen. Because next Friday means another payroll and so does the next one etc. ad lit. There's nobody like me for standing off people. An old gink named Bigham went and paid our gas bill and saved the discount. If I could get someone to pay the powder bill and oil bill and my bank o.d. I'd be ready to make them all over again this month. It is really funny how hard it is to show some people when they have enough. I know there is a mine under this ten acres and I would most certainly like to get some of it. I haven't quite given up yet.
Ferson had the nerve to tell me that this is a rich man's game. As if I'd not found it out yet. Some people really think that experience doesn't count for much. I am very well satisfied that this is a rich man's game, and that poor men sometimes get by with it, but not often. Mr. Davidson told me that he and the Campbells were about to blow up on two of their propositions. I wish Jerry Culbertson had blown up and scattered out before I met him. He said he'd as soon jump from a ten story building as mislead Hughes and me. He hasn't jumped yet. Nor will he--not as long as bankruptcy counts work. He had the nerve to want me to buy some oil stock in a corporation he's working for so he could get a better job! There's real nerve. Jerry's an only child. I guess that accounts for it. I've heard that he wasn't pleased to run through a 1200 acre farm his father left him but had to fleece his poor old law in law to boot. There's no thing like being thorough in every thing you undertake. Jerry is sure that when it comes to getting people and their money part. If we get a mine here (I am always hoping you see) I am going to high finance the gentleman out of it. He'll only get some nice green stock certificate that'll make pretty wall paper for his, while Hughes and myself and a laboring man or two who've stood by us will be the bloated plutocrats and malefactors of great wealth from this zinc mine. If the thing were to turn up awful rich I'd manage to have lawsuits enough to last me a lifetime. I'm aiming to get a lawyer for a pardner in the new company to save fees.
You probably get awful tired reading my continual babble on this hole called mine but I've had considerable worry and much to think of concerning the thing and I've got to tell you about it. Just think what a win would mean. All my debts paid (something that no one of the name ever accomplished), a city home, a country home, some automobiles and flying machines – and who knows but maybe a yat (yacht? What?), and you to boss the whole layout. I'd be cruising in Greenland waters today under those circumstances, for it's 120 degrees in the shade down here and there is no shade.
I'm feeling better than I was when I started this because I've handed out some checks and the bearers haven't come to pitch me in the hole, so I guess the banker's going to bust the National Bank Act to save my hair. He's some banker sure. I do wish I could borrow one of Mr. Robinson's flying machines and come to your city tomorrow but I can't. Besides, I couldn't drive it if I could get it but I'd sure try. Please send me a letter of consolation. The last one you sent me down here was worth seven trips after it instead of one. Here's wishing you a nice, cool pleasant Sunday without any gentleman callers.
Sincerely, Harry