PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Portage, Wisconsin

December 22, 1928

Dear Mrs. Green:

I was so happy getting the toys for you - it was really like Christmas then. Besides the things at the Penney Store I got ten cent store candy, the mixed stuff. The dolls were lovely, almost as large as her youngest child who lay on a sodden sour old couch, sleeping. They - the dolls - were dressed in blue organdy and white organdy bonnets. They had very determined expressions on their faces, particularly on their cheeks. I found a grand truck for one of the boys - quite large and roomy and an arrangement that looked like a big derrick for the other. Anyway, all the stuff was so nice I wanted to play with it myself.

Fritz took me out and Papa went along. Juliet was in Madison and Zona wanted to go but she has a cold. I didn't mention to F. that she was a sister of Miss Foley because I knew she wanted it to be as secret as possible and so I just gave the address. He drove to Endeavor and then found out that the house was half way between E and Portage. It was a lovely day - so clear and cold - and the ride was beautiful. We found it and the woman was so grateful and so moved. She just stood there - very anaemic - and said, "Oh, I never expected all this...." It turned out fine - the husband wasn't there and the smallest child was asleep and the others were at the school exercises. I bought the things as soon as I got your letter and took them right out because I thought she would be wondering and expecting and hoping all the time. I liked her. The house smelled awful.

I hope you're having - already - the nicest, most exciting, interesting, gorgeous time ever had in New York. I hope it lasts. Really, you don't know what a beautiful time you gave me letting me buy the toys for you.

Love from

Margery.

Portage, Wisconsin

January 1929

Dear Mrs. Green:

Have you seen our friend William Pickens yet? I hope you will. He wrote me that he had written to you. His association is interesting and there are awfully fine people in it. The party the Crisis gives every year is a thrilling affair. He invited me out I didn't go. You'd better go if he sends you a card.

Don't be amazed at Joe Gould if he calls. I wanted you to meet him because he is one of the characters in the village and I like him even though he does talk like a college student sometimes. Ezra Pound says that he and William Carlos Williams are the only real minds in America. I don't know that I would say that, however. He is writing a History of Civilization in dirty ten cent note books.

I also invited my friends Pauline and Frank Mechau to call on you sometime. I hope they do. They're quite different. Always tremendously enthusiastic about everything - or they used to be, both very lovely to look at. And I wrote an M.G. Shelley about you. He used to read Spengler's Decline of the West to me until three o'clock in the morning. He works now at night so he can't stay until ten or so. He's excessively naive and he interested me. These people are the village although this one scorns it and has moved away. I think it would be so nice for them to meet you. My friend Mary Williams that I wanted Katherine to meet has gone south. Robert Tapley never seems to have time to do what I suggest but I wrote him about you and Katherine. I didn't send these people notes of introduction because they all live near you and I'd like you to be amazed unexpectedly.

This Grub Street Club might amuse you. Their poetry is horrible. Sometimes their discussions are good. That's the village too. I did read your letter - all but what you did with the flower pot. I want to hear about you and Katherine on your typewriter soon. Such beautiful arched snow here, those thick smooth piles everywhere. Leona comes often. She's having a hard time. She misses you.

Do read - both of you - Leonardo the Florentine - a beautiful book.

The cats send kisses to Mrs. and Miss.

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

Portage, Wisconsin

Dec 12, 1929

Dear Mrs. Green:

This is not a mit for roaches or a bee hat. It is a
handkerchief case and I made it for your birthday and it was
all made on your birthday and I was going to telephone you -
although I do think telephoning is so inadequate - and then I
didn't and then Nettie said you were in Milwaukee anyway. So
I thought perhaps I could slip this in an envelope and send it
out to you and it would look as if it had been there on your
birthday. Isn't that deceitful of me? On your birthday the
case didn't look as well to me as it does today and I felt rather
foolish sending it or telephoning to you but today I don't and
I am sending it even if it is two days late. Are you back and
are you well? We all love you. We all wish you the happiest
sort of birthday and we wished it and wished it on your birthday
and are still wishing and hoping that you will have two million
more of them. This is a rather large handkerchief case but I think
they have to be for every day - don't you? I made it and I think
of you so much and hope that you are well again and happy and
having an excellent time.

We all wish you a happy birthday - in unison - and we
wish you, as I said before, two billion of them and we want you to
always live whether you want to or not! The snow is all covered
with evening. Is Eleanor coming for the holidays? I must see
her if she does come. I have had only a card from Tockie.

Love always -

Margery.

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION
Fisk University Archives

No. 1785

Portage, Wisconsin

Feb 1930

Dear Mrs. Green:

What shall I put down first? The picture was six and
if you like that border better than the plain we can change.
The eggs are grand, the anchovies! Such a surprise and so fresh
and so many of them in that exciting May basket. We are just
delighted with them and thank you many many times, like singing.
Next I read the letter and on the first line of all read not to
send the picture and I had given it to Otto! But you will come
anyway, won't you, and which would you prefer for Saturday -
noon or night? We will have the pudding - I'm hungry for it
already - and I hope the man doesn't come because we want so
much to see you. About the book - I am sending a copy to Tockie and
really one copy in your family is too much I'm afraid. If you
could see the jacket! So far I haven't had one copy and a man from
Madison sent one to be autographed and that's my only glimpse.
The binding is good but the jacket - I have been rather unhappy
because I suddenly realize that it all means more to me than to
anyone else and I can't bear that. I must write something that
will make every one know what it means and make it mean just exactly as much to them as to me. The drive behind it is so emotional
that I just die, no matter what is said. It seems so bleak compared to what I put into it. I thought, "No one wants all of me.
No one knows what to do with it, where to put it, how to get along
with it, so I will try to show every atom of this person, every
cell ---" The review of course was lavish, probably written by
Herbert that's why - but it's not the characters, it's the thing
behind it all, the passion of one person to give all, be devoured
in her last particles by the world and so be transfigured. Lord,
I feel more assinine every hour. You will be better off not
reading it. I would have sent you a copy if I had thought it proper
for you. I don't. There are two abortions in it and other things
not fit for a noble one like you - honest. Tockie won't have time
to read it so she is safe. My parents are not going to read it
either. Ever since my poor mother wrote me that if I had to write
such things to please wait until she was dead I have kept everything from her for both our sakes. She doesn't feel that way now,
though, and it was just a mood of fright, wondering what people
would think of me. But it made me wary. It is best for you not
to read it, I assure you. I want to be adored by you so hold off.

I got from N.Y. the books of mine that hadn't been stolen
and sold second hand and a bundle of letters from Zona that would
make a volume the size of Conrad's letters. I glanced at one.
The first thing I saw was something she had said to some one. "I
have always felt like Margery's mother. Help me to take care of
her." Of course it is better for me that she didn't continue but
I wondered suddenly what I had done. You see I still believe that

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JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

telling the truth - what we feel is the truth - makes every one
different. Like my book about her... I thought she would come
rushing to me, crying, saying - "How I have made you suffer.
Forgive me." Instead she looked as if she had a glass nose and
eye and said softly, "I haven't let it make any difference," which
was not true and such a shock, such a difference from what I had
imagined. I always think if one tells the truth, the other tells
the truth, and then transfiguration into gods and flowers all
over the world. I still believe it! I am now, since I have been
thinking about Zona, in my flight from reality, since she repre-
sents the mother refuge when there should be no refuge but in
experience, suffering, happiness, contact with people and work.
So glad the birds came to the feeder.

Love always, devotedly -

Margery.

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION
No. 1828
Fisk University Archives
Portage, Wisconsin
Spring 1930

Dear Mrs. Green,

Will you read this letter and decide whether you want to enclose it with yours or not? I couldn't make up my mind. You will know whether it is too severe or not. In a way I'm not satisfied with it but I did feel that the poem was good enough to justify serious criticism. But she is so modest about her work anyway that perhaps one should never criticize but give her only the positive response of appreciation. You decide about it. I think it would be excellent if she hadn't used so many abstract phrases but I am just death on them anyway and I have no use for abstractions so ------ And I do like her so very much and I feel so much like her emotionally that I want her to see just how the poem made me feel and what I got from it. I do hate pretense but I wonder if it isn't more stimulating sometimes. You are smart about what ought to be and I'm not. If criticism releases more of the person and makes him want to create more - then it is good. If it freezes and depresses then it isn't. That is, in regard to Eleanor, - and myself.

We did enjoy having you so much and please come again soon, won't you? We did enjoy it a lot and it is so long between visits and won't you please let us know when you have some teeth taken out and come that very evening because you will want to warm up your empty spaces before going into the coldness and we can have something not hard to chew. Won't you please?

I wish the next time you are at Zona's you would take my books and for my sake forget politeness and throw them into the fire for me. I wrote both of them for her - everything I wrote was for her - but she hasn't even read them over and I don't want her to have them like orphans because I am not to be pitied and neither is my work. Of course I'm not serious in asking you to do this but in case you feel moved to destroy some one else's property won't you practice on those two books? I don't regret that I once gave my whole being to her and lived in her, that I gave confidence and always revealed my whole self - I am glad - because the transformation and the emotion itself of being possessed by another is all the payment one really needs - just the privilege of having given and felt and been not yourself but another is enough. But the thing that torments me at times is that I never saw her, I never never touched her being. I was always looking at an image I had made and I feel the injustice to her and I feel the loss of never having understood her or known her real self. I cannot believe she is the truthless, cowardly, pitiful, starved little sparrow my mind sees now. And just think - I will never know the truth. Juliet with her coarse, common mind will grasp her utterly and understand her and I will never never know what she is - and she doesn't care to have me know. I think her relations with me

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now are simply to show me that she can return good for evil, that
where I am rude and emotional - she is gracious and ready to
overlook and be polite and social. But it doesn't matter ex-
cept that I want the truth about her - I want to see her revealed -
and I never shall. Mr. B. and Juliet with no imagination will
experience her purely, know her - but I won't. It is only my
own lack that I regret and the hideous waste and suffering she
caused me I really don't regret when I think it over.

Love always. Devotedly -

Margery.

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

Portage, Wisconsin

Dear Mrs. Green:

I enclosed the letter and then I decided that I really wanted to send it to her and that I really had written nothing to harm or discourage her and that I am not the kind of person who asks whether she should send a letter or not - that I knew all the time in fact. I am getting uncertain because of so many experiences of writing impulsively - not about poems but other things - and reacting when people insult me or do something mean and then after the letter feeling that I was the one who had done the insulting in the beginning. But I'm sure this letter is sympathetic and honest at the same time so what more?

I had such a buoyant letter from her. She seems to be in a wave of work and loving it. I wish I were. I am wretched suddenly and more than wretched because what I want now is to write this book and I can't. Either the room is too cold or else when I get it warm the air is so stuffy from the stove that I feel faint or else I pick up pins or something. I always write from a great drive, something that picks me up, and I have tried and tried to be like others and I sit and sit and try and try but I can't do it and I am going mad really but I will not budge until I have done it. I mean I have tried to be like others in this - they all write at regular hours and I have tried but I can't. I feel that I am like others in all other ways except when I am very very sad and then I am sure that I am much more generous, more eager to give myself than any one else is. But if I believe that often I would really cut off my head.

Love from

Margery

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

To Mildred G. Green

Portage, Wisconsin

Dear Mrs. Green, Aunt Mildred, Aunt Everything -

May 1928

I haven't thanked you yet for that perfectly lovely thing you did - giving me that material like my dress and I can't get over how kind and monstrously thoughtful and unusual - not of you though - it was of you to remember it and give it to me. With what I have I think I shall be able to get a new waist out. We are praying for it, anyway. And thank you for the lovely eggs. We handed back the pail without a word, letting you hang it on your knee, dangling, empty, full of nothing but its own tin, and we sat silent, as if we hadn't eaten every magic egg - we and the catibus. Thank you NOW.

Do let us see you and will you come in, will you have time to come in for lunch at noon or night and bring that dangling beautiful Mrs. S with you? She is the image of Eva Le Gellienne in her middle age. Will you or are you too busy? Ask Mrs. S. to pray for me when she can remember to. However I went to church today which will help a little. If I publish the book at all it will probably be under a different name and then no one will think of Zona. Samuel and Marian think I ought to do it with my own. Blanche begs me on bended knee, hair streaming, eyes wild, to be big enough not to publish it. I couke and still feel I have paid the lady a tribute. Strange, isn't it? I would like to be loved like that, I mean accepted by another with all my fake philosophy and junk of imitation furniture that has to be swallowed with a big gasping gulp and groan. Yes, I would. I'd like to be sold for thirty pieces of silver like our Lord and Master and I'd like to kiss the seller of me, Mr. Judas, and tell him that I like him better than I do myself. Yes, I would. Do please see us soon. And THANK YOU FOREVER.

Margery.

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION
FISK UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
No. 1834

No. 1871

Portage, Wisconsin

Dear Aunt Mildred - (the first time I have ever said it) -
Just a day ago I suddenly said, "Didn't we have a good time
Thanksgiving! Oh, I think I'll write and tell her so". My
Pa spoke up at once saying, "Well that certainly would not be
out of place. I never seen kinder or more cordial people in
Wisconsin." So aHA! He set down and wrote you a poem and he
begs you to overlook the mistakes in rhyme but to please see
his sincerity - which I know you will see. I can still see
that bird (not Papa - the turkey!) - my first glimpse - when
the cover of the steamer was lifted. I felt him cooling and
his bones shivering to be let outside of the heat for even a
second.

Really, is there anything more beautiful than that -
"Come away, come away, Death -"? When I say it I feel the power
in the rhythm and words to actually lift all this snow away,
and the dark bark of trees, and reveal the summer again with
everything warm and intimate and in love. Just say it over -
"Come away, come away, Death".

And do let me thank you for listening to my Gisela.
You were so good to speak about it, too. You _must_ know how
cold and lonely an author feels. Perhaps you are one too.
Are you?

I have learned a fascinating game - Camelot - and I
won twice so I am in ecstacy. You and Tockie will come in soon -
won't you - for codfish ala mode?

Love always and gratitude -

Margery.

P.S. We have been having quite a poetry discussion here. I said
that, or rather being a disrespectful dotter, I changed rivulet
in the poem - however it is spelled - to plain - brook. My Pa
takes to criticism just as I do. He said instantly, "But here -
brook isn't a poetry word. Brooklet is - I don't mind not having
the other - brooklet is right - but brook - Well, I want poetry
out of a poem and you have to use poetry words to get rhythm and
poetry". So instantly I changed it to brooklet. "These modern
poets that do everything according to a rule and don't care
whether it makes poetry or not - I want a poem to have poetry

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

in it -"

Please give my love to Tockie and tell her I am at
last in good spirits, my cold sore is nearly gone, and I feel
so humbled that I am sure my character has changed at last -
perhaps for the better.

Love from
M.

Did you ever feel so humbled that there are no more
falls to take since nothing is beneath you?

Portage, Wisconsin

Dear Aunt Mildred,

A million happy birthdays and then a million more.
The other night as I was falling asleep I suddenly thought
of the hundreds of kind things you had done for people -
and of the people - in all parts of the world. The number
got larger and larger and suddenly I thought, "I shall pre-
tend to be all of them, every one, and this emotion I feel
now shall be the thank-you from them all - those who remember
this is her birthday and those who don't-equally." For a
second I felt that I would never again be unhappy - but for
only a second, unfortunately. But I am still thinking of all
the things you have done so spontaneously and then forgotten -
and I honor you for forgetting - but on your birthday let me
feel proud and happy for all the good things you have done
and then for just a minute you feel good, too. Why not?
Go ahead.

Margery.

Santa Fe, N. M.

November 1931

Thanksgiving Day

Dear Aunt Mildred:

Last Thanksgiving day we were at your house. I remember the gorgeous looking table with the autumn center piece of fruit and vegetables and the funny little place cards out of potatoes. And Gus sitting next to me. It is good to remember. And I like to remember you pouring tea at the wedding, looking so ample and handsome in your velvet, as if everything underneath was of silk, very soft and flowing. And here we are in Santa Fe, New Mexico, very very happy, our turkey in the kitchen stove, our cranberries in the refrigerator, and both of us quite ecstatic. This evening we are having guests, some very nice friends of Jean's, Ray Otis and his wife. Every one is so cordial, so splendid. Mabel Dodge Luhan, Jean's friend, has offered us a house, a pink one, on her Taos estate. I am so eager to meet her. J says she is a bit like you. She is the woman who invited D. H. Lawrence to America and who always has such interesting people around her. When she likes a person she has a house built for him. O'Keeffe paints there every summer.

I am eager to really get started writing. I have begun a novel and three stories but I have to rush all the time to the windows to breathe in this new way, in this whole way, as if at last I am looking at a scene, a living scene that circulates all through me - these mountains, plains, the hills, the vast long exciting look of it all. It is all a new life for me, a new way of living, experiencing, that even I had never dreamed of or known enough to want. I wish you might come and be with us for a while. We would so love that.

With love,

Margery.

San Diego, California
Christmas 1931

Dear Aunt Mildred,

This is just a note to wish you a happy, a *merry* Christmas, and to tell you that we think of all of you often and hope you are happy. Do give our greeting and love to Tockie and Eleanor and Margot as well as to yourself.

For your birthday I sent you a tiny box of pinon nuts, gathered by the Indians in the mountains. But I feel so uncertain about the post office and its Mexican officials that I feel sure they don't send in or out any mail at all - only GUNS. They did give me such queer feelings, those men.

Evelyn Hood was so anxious for us to come to San Diego where it is warm and lovely and when Jean finished his book we decided we wanted to go where it is warm and so we suddenly came. Santa Fe is really grand, though, except for the cold weather. You would like it and the people, too. We had another house offered to us! Ray Otis is going to New York in March and April and he wants us to come back there and stay the two months. There are two cars in the garage for us to use, two riding horses in the stable, a Spanish mansion all filled with Spanish antiques and orange curtains and the most fascinating backgammon table and piano and victrola and radio and such china and silver! Oh, it is lovely and it would be a grand setting for you! So if we take it you might decide to run out for a visit. Would you? There is a fascinating guest room with green satin quilts and a bathroom that is all so soft and long and lovely that I want to give a tea in it! You would like the Hendersons too - Alice Corbin Henderson was one of the editors of Poetry when they discovered Sandburg and the rest and is quite a gorgeous person. But we got so tired of being cold. Our little house was heated only by fireplace and the kitchen stove - the furnace register was right in front of the fireplace and didn't work extremely well so we just used the open fire. We are anxious to go on to Pasadena and San Francisco. And I feel as if I am going to have perhaps - twins! I hope twins, anyway. And Jean thought it best to go where it is warm to encourage whatever I may have to grow and grow and get quite beautiful. Do give my greeting, our greeting, to Gus and tell him he is in Jean's book and is quite natural and noble. And give my greetings too to Otto and the Phillipps boys. Mama wrote that she had such a good time at the farm Thanksgiving and I am so glad. Please give our love to Tockie and tell her about the house, won't you? Merry Christmas!

And love,
Margery.

San Diego, California

January, 1932

COLLECTION

Dear Aunt Mildred,

Yesterday our Christmas packages that had been sent by express came to us! It was quite grand having them at once - like Christmas - your lovely cake and note, the big box from our parents, a huge Italian salad bowl weighing a ton, and several other things. They had been held in Santa Fe at the house we had been living in by the owner - Dom Devito. Isn't that a curious name? He hadn't our address - we had left it at the express office and the post office - and so he left town for the Indian dances and didn't get back and finally saw our friends there and got it.

It was so cold we left Santa Fe without seeing Mable Dodge Luhan in Taos. I was so disappointed. She planned to come in to see us and then it was twenty below in the canyon and they turned back because they had an open touring car! Now they are in Mexico. Her book on D. H. Lawrence is coming out in February and Samuel Rogers has one coming the same month. If he sends me a copy - and he has promised to - and if it reaches me before Easter I will send it out to you to read. I know you will enjoy it. I've read it. It's called The Birthday Party and Jonathqn Cape is doing it.

I'm writing a novel and Jean is finishing his book. Gus is in it and quite impressive, too, in his comments about the corn and the weather and once he drives his team through to the corn field and it is so vivid one hears the rattle of the wheels. You will like the book. This stationery is not my choice. It was given to me in case you are wondering if I am suddenly going backward into my childhood.

Thank you once more for the gorgeous cake! And the note! And I was so happy to know that you took care of my parents so wonderfully for Christmas! How lovely that was - they were lonely and it means so much to them, so very much. Thank you deeply for everything. With love and gratitude from myself and Jean.

Margery.

We're going to Pasadena and Hollywood soon.

BONNIE OAKS
PORTAGE
WISCONSIN

January 26-32

Dear Margery:

Four letters and a telegram unanswered
and there is no health in me! Whew, I'm glad I'm
removed by miles so that I cannot feel your scorn
hot upon my every day! You just will have to
forgive me because I am not responsible at times
and when I'm not I don't--write I mean.

No, I'm really very much ashamed and wish
I had let you know earlier how I appreciated your
attention; and those cunning nuts that taste like a
chestnut! It was like you to take all the trouble
and to make me happy, and you did.

But you need not have thanked me for
giving myself the pleasure I did give in having your
mother, and then your father and mother whenever I
could get them. They are wonderful people and I am
the fortunate one to be able to draw them out to the
old home. I shall miss your mother. Spring isn't
far now and it won't be long before she will return.

I'm glad about the baby and let's have
one for the first--just to get used to the care of
them. I'm hoping that you are very well and that
you will keep well throughout. Of course there
will be hosts of people to tell you what to do but
how could I miss a chance for adding my advice to the
mountain of it you are going to receive ? Be sure
to exercise and curb your appetite. Enough but not
an ounce more than is necessary should be the rule.
I have always been so well that the months before
the birth of my children were the greatest delight to
me.

We are quite the same--well, happy, peace-
ful. I am able to get about quite well, my knees
giving me fair though brittle service, so I am happy
in being restored. The winter has been perfectly
beautiful, though not cold enough to suit those of us
who long to fill our ice houses. Gust has a new
one built, with saw-dust waiting and everything, but
unless the North Pole draws nigh, and that quickly,
we cannot fill it.

Your wedding present is in Milwaukee, waiting for an address that does not fluctuate. They told me, where I bought it (you must not know yet) that they put it out to show at Christmas and that it sold several others for them. I hope you will like it as well as I do, oh half as well would be all right! I am so happy about it because it is something I just love and some day I am going to have one too.'

The Tower stands all white and serene in it's new coat of paint. The blinds are so green and stunning against the snow. I always think of you there, writing away, and coming down now and again to eat Roman meal. You were a perfect guest. I wish you might come again and write another story there. We had a happy week-end with the Lhevinnes. Speaking of his Tower made me think of it, and I am going to have another treat on the seventh when we go to Chicago to see my dear Adele. Do you remember hearing her play in the Tower one hot afternoon, when Mr Lhevinne was here too and stood outside to tell her what to play ? I have not seen Adele for over three years, she has been in Europe, and now she is to play in Chicago and I shall hear her. It will be an event--a mile-stone.

If you could have seen Gust's face, when he realized that he was in a book, you would have been overjoyed. He was pleased, flattered, shy, very much fearing that we should know that he was pleased but oh so glad that we *did* know of the honor that had come to him. I am wondering what he is like in the book and what the story is about. And your story! What fun to talk it all over and then get the slant of the other fellow.

Please give my warm greetings to Jean and to Miss Hood. I hope you will have a very happy time in California. Personally I do not like it but that is because there are too many people and no thunder - showers. Where I lived, up in the mountains, it was very beautiful but there was nothing to distress me there for it was green and cool and we were sixty-five miles from the railroad so no one wanted to drive in on the mail coach, horse drawn, to visit us. That sounds selfish doesn't it. I do love my fellows but when they herd it frightens and confuses me. The California that is used by the tourist is utterly ruined for me. But do not tell any native, or a lover of it.

Dear Aunt Mildred, This is a review of Jean Teomer's book *Essentials*. Before I send it to the N.Y. Herald-Tribune will you make one or two comments or is it hot to ask such a thing? I mean I want more than anything to make this articulate. I was terribly ridiculous the other day when you questioned me about *the* and you found it vague. I was terribly hurt, to be honest, but then that is to be expected of me, I abound in wounds. Could you be your civilized practical aging self, honest and devastating, in a few sentences as regards this review? Then I can formulate my opposing side more clearly, or I hope so. I mean say only the most devastating. The most humorous. That is, if you have time and inclination. I hope you will. Please....

I thought you told me to read The Philosopher's Stone. That is why I sent you his new book. Please overlook the mistake.

Tockie has probably told you that Jean and Miss Dupee and some others plan to come back to the cottage. Of course that will be wonderful for me because Miss Dupee is going to take charge of a group. Please don't gasp with shock or fall to the ground. I wish you would come, I wish I could sit near you, I like you better than you like me. Would you consider coming? I am going to ask Zona. I would like to sit near her, too. I thought only a death blow could make me ever want that. Anyway, she is responsible for my interest in this, she brought it into being in me and perhaps sometime I could repay her with something besides insults. Please think over this invitation to join.

With love from