Camp Ripley, Minn. July 13, 1932
Dear Bess:
Got your second letter today. I don't know where Rufus has his wife parked but it's somewhere up the road. He brought his sister and someone else. They haven't seen much of him because he has been sick in camp two days. These young kids can't stand the physical and mental inconveniences that the old heads take as a matter of course. I often wonder how many of them could go through a Meuse-Argonne or Camp Doniphan training and still be whole. They all live in a machine-convenience age and when the machine doesn't function for them they are out of luck.
I hope that my beautiful daughter is still doing her finger exercises and practicing as she ought. The day is very pleasant, not hot or cold. Yesterday it went to 97 while I was tramping all over six hundred acres trying to put seventeen carloads of tractors and trucks into position as a regiment of 155s. I got it done after a fashion but got a skinning for not doing it some other way. The Nebraska colonel who is Republican candidate for governor went out this morning after I'd made all the mistakes in the book before him and made as many as I did. So I don't feel so badly.
I hope you are all well and happy as I am. I'm brown as an Indian, eating like a horse, and sleeping seven hours a night. Keep writing even if it does get hot.
Kiss Margaret. I had hoped for a letter from her.
Your loving Harry