ing if they are human. I saw one boy who looked like wood — his face didn't
move at all.

They fascinate me :

: it is so hard to

get away from dreams — down to the realities
of what we saw over there — I try but am not
sure that I can really see

houses huddled together — with maybe a whole empty field across the road.

I think they are happy :

: — but what does living mean to them — I wonder if

I'm going to try to find out —

and I wonder if you are at the lake tonight.

the stream — we were both too tired — I didn't even want to go to the top to look over the mountain :

: That stream was really too good to be true — if I could
tell you about the stream — somehow make you feel how black and cold and wild
it was — I believe you would know — what was all round it.

I never hated to leave any place — I wanted to stay years — but — I'm going
again — and stay a long time.

Seeing Katherine again was so much fun —

: I thought of you often — you
and your lake :
: but the stream was so

wonderful and the crawling mists — then sometimes mists like curtains that became more transparent at the edges and just came quietly down —

: I will be
in Texas Sunday night —
work Tuesday.

Canyon, Texas —

I remembered where I was and shut my eyes right tight again so I couldn't see it --
with my eyes shut I remembered the wind sounding just like this before -- I didn't
want to see the room -- it's so ugly -- it's awful and I didn't want to look out
the window for fear of seeing ugly little frame houses -- so I felt for my watch --
looked at it -- decided I needn't open my eyes again for 15 minutes --
The sound
of the wind is great

but the pink roses on my rugs ! And the little squares with three pink roses
in each one -- dark lined squares -- -- I have half a notion to count them so
you will know how many are hitting me --

give me flies and mosquitoes and ticks --
even fleas -- every time in preference to three pink roses in a square with
another rose on top of it.

Then you mentioned me in purple -- I'd be about as apt to be naked --

don't worry !

don't you hate pink roses!

As I read the first part of your letter -- saying you hadn't looked at the
stuff I left for my sister to send you --

I immediately thought -- I'd like to run
right down and telegraph you not to open them -- then --
that would be such a
foolish thing to do

Not foolish to me -- or for me -- but the other queer folks who think I'm queer.

There is dinner -- and how I hate it --

You know -- I /

I waited till later to finish the above sen-
tence - thinking that maybe I must stop somewhere with the things I want to say - but

you and talk to you — you are more the size of the plains than most folks —
and if I could go with my letter to you and the lake — I could tell you better —
how fine they are — and more about all the things I've been liking so much
— but I seem to feel that you *know* without as much telling as other folks need.

N

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Sep 5 1916

It's very still ... only one cricket and myself awake in all the Panhandle
--- and it's four in the morning ---

No wind tonight.

I rode and rode --- from the glare of middle afternoon till long after the
moon --- a great big one --- bumped his head just a little --- just enough to flatten
one side a little as he came up out of the ground --- light.

First plains --- then as the sun was lower the canyon --- a curious slit in the
plains --- cattle and little bushes in the bottom look like pin-heads --- so small
and far away --- wonderful color --- darker and deeper with the night :

: imagination

makes you see all sorts of things --- even a lake with a wonderful reflection ---
in the formation of the rocks as they go down :

: Then the plains again --- the wonder-

ful bigness and stillness --- stars --- jack-rabbits --- such very long legs ---
jumping across the light in the road. There is no wind --- it's all still tonight

And I'm awake --- --- --- --- ---

0

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Sept 9 1916

I must write you tonight — I don't know why except that I seem to think I
must tell you a little of what living here means to me.

That mixture I sent last Sunday

may be a bit deceiving —

— Your letter of yesterday morning — came before breakfast and I only opened it and looked at it — — — I had to do that but I didn't read it till after five in the afternoon because — there were things to do that would have spoiled a 291 letter — and a 291 letter was apt to spoil me for the things I had to do — I only noticed that there were two different kinds of writing in it.

When you said you were going to open that awful roll — I almost screamed
— and I could hardly forgive myself for not telegraphing you not to —

I can't see
why I make things

It's awful—

I don't know what I wrote last Sunday only I remember I was just snorting mad at
the educators :

:well — even if I was I'm glad I'm here — In fact I like it so much
that I wonder if it's true — The country is almost all sky — and such wonderful sky — and the wind blows — — blows hard — and the sun is hot — The
glare almost blinding — — — but I don't care — I like it :

The work?

I like that too — rather I am going to, I think — because
— well —

* You know I get such a ridiculous lot out of living myself —

and these boys and girls from the plains — get a lot out of it too — in a way
— but I believe I can help them to get more — — — — to get something they don't
get now — — — — I like them like the country — I've lived out here before,
you know — 20 miles from here — — — — and it's absurd the way I like it — like
to work in it —

The building is all new — one just like it burned two years
ago — — — — of course this one is better in many ways —
— but it seems so remarkable
that this land of nothingness can get a building like this planted way out here at
the end of the earth —
— The funniest thing to me is a swimming pool — — — — out here
on the plains where it only rains twice a year sometimes —

and it's as fine a swimming pool as they have at Columbia —

Because I pawed up
the earth last Sunday, don't think I don't like it. I do like it —
— I'd rather
live here than any place I know if I could get to N.Y. sometimes — easier — —

I wonder how long I'll stay —

As yet — no particular friends — and I don't want any — when I
like them at all — I like them so much that it almost eats me up alive and I just
want time to breathe — — — — — I feel almost smothered with the pulls of the past
few weeks —
— maybe I should say months.

I just want to get out where there is space and breathe — — — and not like
anybody and not be liked — — — — —

Sometimes — — — very — very seldom — I wish there were more people
like you and like me —
— I don't know how like we are — — — are we alike at all —?

I don't know.

P

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Sep 20 1916

I've wanted so much to write you -- but I've done so many other things that I couldn't do it when I wanted to or didn't want to when I could --

> My regular routine

(I hate doing things by the clock -- have always hated to do things at any stated time) only takes twelve hours a week -- but last week I seemed to fill up every minute of day and night with something --

This morning -- right now -- I am hot from a walk to the train in the sun -- it is almost cold in the shade but the sun is hot -- blinding -- of course I go bare-headed --

> and what is most on my mind is my small sister --

When I came out here I was sure I should bring her -- others said no -- a letter from her this morning makes me see that my premonition was right --

> foolish of me not to insist then -- it would have saved trouble. -- She is --

> I started to say queer -- but I won't -- she is too much like me --

> so I wrote her by the next mail -- to come.

I don't know what I'll do with her but I'll do something -- she will have to go to school and I'm waiting with a broad grin to hear her remarks on the people --

> It will really be fun --

> Still it makes me a bit uneasy --

> will she come --

> again -- I don't know what to do with her -- but guess I will in time.

Wish you could see the long stretches of white and sand-colored and greenish-grey cliffs out there that mark the beginnings of the canyon -- they are a long

way off ______ and I seem to feel lost out there ______ even though I'm here ______
in spite of the cliffs ____ the sky-line is perfectly straight.

Yesterday I rode out into that ______ then off to the right -- where there
is nothing ____ clouds making big dark shadows on the flatness -- I almost went to
sleep -- dreaming over nothing -- I guess --

And I want to tell you about the big dark lumps of clouds ____ seeming
down close to the ground last night ____ and the moon -- always trying to get
through -- just a few stars in queer places -- last night the moon was white --
but the night before it was red -- seeming like something alive and breathing
out there -- as it came up --

"The Brook Kerith" was here when I came from mailing my letter -- I'd have
read it right away -- to forget -- only I wanted to write you --

You will doubtless be surprised when I tell you that I had four letters from
you last week instead of one -- three that went to Virginia just got here

The one about the Paulist Fathers -- another you wrote the same day after
it had stormed -- and the other about the drawings you received.

I am beginning to wonder what drawings you did get -- I left a roll for you and
one for Anita -- and so far Anita hasn't received any. My sister was to mail them
-- I didn't tell her to register them -- didn't think of it -- and I don't know
what happened.

Most of Anita's -- mine to Anita, of course -- were on tissue
paper -- Japanese tracing paper -- all water colors. I don't know that I'm a
careless mother -- most of them have little interest for me after they are made
-- but I did like one in Anita's roll --. I just got rid
of them by sending them away -- it amuses me that you scold -- it is really

thoughtlessness but some way or other --- I don't like to have pieces of me get lost
--- I seem to be sure that they will turn up somewhere --- they must !

Maybe remembering your sensitiveness will make me less careless -- shall
I say --- or shall I say more careful --- I don't know --- it is so fine to
know that it is -- that you feel that way about things --- only --- I know too ---
how often it is hurt
= hurt isn't the word ---

You see I haven't words

But --- when I work --- even when it is to say something to someone ---
it is to say it my way --- and I don't care whether they understand --- or get any-
thing out of it or not --- --- --- --- nothing ever surprised me like your seeing
and getting something --- --- yes --- I fairly boiled ---
= but --- I saw the Rodins
when you showed them --- the drawings --- --- --- I remember you coming in with
something black --- and reddish-brown in your hand --- some kind of a camera plate I
guess --- and I seem to remember that it was wet ---
= I don't know - maybe you never wet
the things ---

That is almost the only exhibition that I remembered that winter ---
except a sick-looking little girl in a painfully stiff starched dress by Bellows ---
and a canvas by Glackins that I always remembered as a mess of paint.

I remembered you and the drawings ---
= told Anita I'd rather have you like something
than anyone I knew of --- that was why she did it --- she thought you would like
them --- and that I'd like you to ---

Funny --- wonder why I just told

you that now ---
= Funny too how the memory stayed so
long --- only seeing you once

I remembered ____ eyes ____ hair ____ a thin man - very intense ____ something in your hand ____ and the drawings

Some things in my trunk now that I almost lost seem someone else made—
I take them out every three or four days and wonder what they are and why they were made.
The little fat woman who runs the house saw them on the wall one day and asked if it was a sailboat — a girl thought my last pet drawing was an ear about two feet long =
= I try to keep them put away but sometimes forget =
I'm liking the drawing and hate to take it down =

This is going to be my last page — might just as well stop anytime because I'll never get through —

To go back to the Paulist Fathers — I used to like to go up there and walk around their grounds because I heard a story — about — women not being allowed on the grounds — so one of the boys and I kept a regular supply of food in the roof of one of their summer-houses — absurd — yes — but we got a lot of fun out of it — and after supper — the lake and sunset —

Your last letter — yesterday morning — it seems a long time ago now
— I seem to live such a long time in such a short space sometimes that it makes me feel sick — was the first quieting one in a long time =
= I had been thinking almost the same things you wrote =
— I had wondered if I would want to see you any more —

Well — I know that if I were in N.Y. — someday it would be the only thing to do —
—other times — The letters have been so fine — I would hate to

old plainsman you can imagine — a great shock of white hair — whites of his eyes
very white because his skin is so dark — he is so big that he seems to fill
a whole room when he gets in the house —

he wasn't made for houses — he was
made for big outdoors — we watched the sun set — the whole sky was full of it
— all round — the brightest reflection coming to us down the little river
in the road —

He is the most human thing I've found out here — we watch the sunset
quite often — it's nice to watch it with him — but he is so big I'm afraid
of him in the house — he is the husband of the little fat woman —

They just got through with the last murder trial and another man was
shot — today.

["BOARD OF REGENTS", "SAM SPARKS, PRESIDENT, AUSTIN\nWALTER J. CRAWFORD, BEAUMONT\nROBERT J. ECKHARDT, TAYLOR\nA. C. GOETH, AUSTIN\nJ. S. KENDALL, DALLAS\nA. B. MARTIN, PLAINVIEW", "The West Texas State\nNormal College", "Canyon, Texas", "R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT", "L. G. ALLEN\nMARTHA BELL\nW. H. BLAINE, JR.\nMARY MORGAN BROWN\nHENRY W. GELLER\nF. P. GUENTHER\nJ. A. HILL\nMARY E. HUDSPETH\nJESSIE M. KLINE\nMARY A. LAMB\nWINNIE D. LOWRANCE\nTENNESSEE MALONE", "R. L. MARQUIS\nH. W. MORELOCK\nGEORGIA O'KEEFE\nJESSIE E. RAMBO\nJ. W. REID\nJENNIE C. RITCHIE\nD. A. SHIRLEY\nB. A. STAFFORD\nL. HAMAH SMITH\nR. A. TERRILL\nTRAVIS SHAW, SEC\nGEORGIE PROTHRO,\nSEC. TO PRES.", "TRAINING SCHOOL CRITIC TEACHERS", "CLEVELAND BAKER RUTH M. COOPER\nANNA I. HIBBETS EMMA MCCLESKEY\nFREMONT MEAD", "Sunday night", "Last night was a great night for Texas readers.", "", "\"For During early morning, for the first time, the wind was so wild and the浪 was so high, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the wind was so strong, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the sun was so hot, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the men were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the children were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the women were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the old men were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the children were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the women were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the old men were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the waves were so high, and the old men were so sad, and the sea was so rough, and the old men were so sad, and the sea was so rough

BOARD OF REGENTS

SAM SPARKS, PRESIDENT, AUSTIN
WALTER J. CRAWFORD, BEAUMONT
ROBERT J. ECKHARDT, TAYLOR
A. C. GOETH, AUSTIN
J. S. KENDALL, DALLAS
A. B. MARTIN, PLAINVIEW

The West Texas State
Normal College

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

L. G. ALLEN
MARTHA BELL
W. H. BLAINE, JR.
MARY MORGAN BROWN
HENRY W. GELLER
F. P. GUENTHER
J. A. HILL
MARY E. HUDSPETH
JESSIE M. KLINE
MARY A. LAMB
WINNIE D. LOWRANCE
TENNESSEE MALONE

R. L. MARQUIS
H. W. MORELOCK
GEORGIA O'KEEFE
JESSIE E. RAMBO
J. W. REID
JENNIE C. RITCHIE
D. A. SHIRLEY
B. A. STAFFORD
L. HAMAH SMITH
R. A. TERRILL
TRAVIS SHAW, SEC
GEORGIE PROTHRO,
SEC. TO PRES.

TRAINING SCHOOL CRITIC TEACHERS

CLEVELAND BAKER RUTH M. COOPER
ANNA I. HIBBETS EMMA McCLESKEY
FREMONT MEAD

R

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Sep 25 1916

Sunday night
= Last night was a great night
= I was reading "The Divine Comedy"
for the first time
and the most terrific thunder-storm
with the wildest
wind and such pouring
rain
took me from it
out on the porch

in my kimono
I watched the most
wonderful lightning I ever saw
held tight to a post for fear of blowing away

The man I told you
about
the great big old man
no
not so old either
came out and watched it with me
he is too strong and live-looking
to call old even if his hair is white

It was a great storm
and a great book
they seem to be the
same thing almost

I must tell you that
this big man
Mr. Ackerman
he is big in-
side as well as out
runs the town waterworks
and has the only house in this
end of town that has steam heat
and walls one can stand to live with. He al-
ways wears a black sateen shirt and a tight-fitting cap with a shiny black visor
a nice human man.

This morning after breakfast
your letter
one from Anita
and
one from Arthur were under my door
Almost too much for one day

Anita will
be in N.Y. a month
going to the doctor
and wanting very much to see you. That
seems to be her chief consol ation for
having to stay there.

[9-24-16]

Arthur —? working all summer on your darned old City Charter
it sounds so stupid to me

— hopelessly stupid :

: when I tried to write him — I

suddenly found that I was sadly in need of last night's sleep. It's very bad to
be tired — I'm so glad I'm way out here where I can't see any of you — even
yet — I seem to be so tired of such lots of things.

All day I've been trying to remember what drawings you mention — and just
a few moments ago recalled the one on buff paper

— I suppose that is the one

It doesn't much matter —

I don't much care —

The little one :-( dark — is the only thing I made the year
before that I liked — making it made me sick for several days

but — it doesn't matter —

— none of it matters :

: I will be sorry when you leave the Lake — have the

leaves turned yet?

Of course they have if it's cold

Why didn't you send me Faust — did you decide

I remember my mother having it and reading it —

I couldn't read it —/being very much absorbed with it when I was about ten —
particularly —

I am very sure that the particular copy you said you were going to send me
is the only one I want to read —

Tonight —

I'm —

— well — I know exactly why youngsters yell sometimes —

and cry — and fuss and fume and fret

/ Goodnight — I hope

S

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Sep 27 1916

Tuesday Morning ---

It was your letter telling of the warm quiet night --- still ---

dark --- just the clocks :

I isn't dark
curious ---
sometimes it is
still with you ---
sometimes you are
just alone --- and
it's way off ---

Sometimes it chases you --- it's such an enormous --- intangible --- awful

thing when it chases you on the plains :

I'm glad you gave me the quiet dark

night :

I'm mailing last night's letter today --- After writing it I slept better than

in a long time :

this morning I might leave out the third page --- but I'll not.

I tore

up a page that I wrote you that night on the way to Virginia in the spring and I've
always been sorry ---

The New Republic was under the door with your letter --- it
makes me laugh --- Arthur sends it --- and it's so like him ---

I could so easily forget
him out here --- he's of another world --- some other time I lived --- but I found
myself deciding that I wouldn't --- mostly because of what I feel he wants rather than
what I want :

funny.

Yes, I'm feeling better today.

I've had a terrific headache today

it's better tonight.

I got up and went to supper — mostly because I was almost crazy with thinking and I felt as if it couldn't possibly be any worse — sat on the end of the porch — quiet — just a little wind in the little locusts — windmills — very fine and lace-like — and the line of little houses against a quiet — cloudless sunset — all so quiet —

I wished for you and the lake

blackness — and coolness like one feels from

big trees reaching down.

A lot of things I have written you ran through my head this afternoon —
and —
— well, it made me laugh.

For instance — I guess — just yesterday I said the City Charter was hopelessly stupid — Now — you know that isn't so — — — — I could have a beautiful time slaving on the City Charter myself — if I knew how — just like I could have a fine time making an exhaustive study of cats' teeth— or any other fool thing —
I seem to think tonight — that I'd like to tell you that everything I've said is a lie —

and I've just told another.

really — it's so absurd to write you — unless — maybe you're like
I think you are —

just understanding —

I wish I could stop feeling — for about a month — and catch up with the
world —

— Don't say you're glad I can't.

I want to touch someone I like — then maybe I could be still — but I

don't suppose I could — — — — /'..

Now I'm going to say another foolish thing -

Please don't -
- for a while - write me those letters that always
knock me down -

— sometimes — your letters are so much yourself — such an intense
— live sort of self — that I can't stand yourself — and myself too — some
mornings I wake with — a shrinking sort of fear — that there will be a letter from
you popped under my door —

— you understand —

I am always glad — and you know how much I like them —
much. I've got to get quiet — somehow . . . . . .

it's that it's too

I'm going to keep this a couple of days before I mail it to you, like I almost always
did at first.

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

It was from that day - understanding
mines the heart - that life's journey
sped by its wind this morning.

Your mentioning your work makes me want to tell you how often your portrait of Harlie was some through my mind. I remember how shapes it in place in a curious way, and how distinctly enough to be able to put them down in a curious memory. Sometime some other and for some reason I was not able to put the association into my mind, remembering Harlie and how way I made him so serious. I won't have to remember it so often if I hadn't been him. It seems for some dark reasons I remember.

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

L. L. MARQUIS
H. W. MORELOCK
GEORGIA O'KEEFE
JESSIE E. RAMBO
J. W. REID
JENNIE C. RITCHIE
D. A. SHIRLEY
B. A. STAFFORD
L. HAMAH SMITH
R. A. TERRILL
TRAVIS SHAW, SEC
GEORGIE PROTHRO, SEC. TO PRES.

CLEVELAND BAKER RUTH M. COOPER
ANNA I. HIBBETS EMMA MCCLESKEY
FREMONT MEAD

She is so kind and sweet, but a greatант, real she said, She has a nice baby, carbox mixes things up. Her great-uncle was very fond of her.

I don't know what.

She is going to be a mother. She has written a book, and her son will be surprised to see her funny smile, any day. John's son will be a improved addition to my funny happens in my mother's and mine were so different in temperature. My worry now, that I am so tangled up, my bumping my head, and thinking it was worth it, my child as a child of mine, was a funny sartor, baby all along. How way my younger brother already has a lot that I only know getting really well. At seveneen nothing could have exceeded my reading things I read, and libraries you see, I don't pretend to have.

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

T

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Oct 3 1916

My pen makes a horrible noise --- I like this better . . . . .
Sunday morning ---
your letter again ---------- and such a nice one --- one from Anita, too, and her
cousin Aline --- Aline is Sigmund Pollitzer's daughter --- a great girl --- un-
usual ---
= I don't know --- I just like her. She would interest you --- I think.

Your letter is so alive --- this week has hardly seemed a day --- there
has been a curious kind of quietness ---
The nice thing about you --- is that I'm
free --- you are ---------- this week when I remembered my last letter to you
--- I wondered ≈
would you understand it --- still when I come to analyze
what it is that I want you to understand
I can't
--- but I knew when I wrote it
that I probably couldn't send it to anyone else I know and expect them to under-
stand it.

The feeling of relief it has given me has been like getting a drawing that
worried me --- out of my head into paper ---
- and - even though you didn't under-
stand --- it --- was worth it -
and if you did - well - then knowing you
is just that much more fun --- not exactly fun --- I should have said, finer.

It has been great --- understanding - minus the sort of feeling that ties
you up —
I feel like the wind this morning
-------

(Oct 3, 1916)

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

["BOARD OF REGENTS", "SAM SPARKS, PRESIDENT, AUSTIN\nWALTER J. CRAWFORD, BEAUMONT\nROBERT J. ECKHARDT, TAYLOR\nA. C. GOETH, AUSTIN\nJ. S. KENDALL, DALLAS\nA. B. MARTIN, PLAINVIEW", "The West Texas State\nNormal College", "Canyon, Texas", "R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT", "L. G. ALLEN\nMARTHA BELL\nW. H. BLAINE, JR.\nMARY MORGAN BROWN\nHENRY W. GELLER\nF. P. GUENTHER\nJ. A. HILL\nMARY E. HUDSPETH\nJESSIE M. KLINE\nMARY A. LAMB\nWINNIE D. LOWRANCE\nTENNESSEE MALONE", "L. L. MARQUIS\nH. W. MORELOCK\nGEORGIA O'KEEFE\nJESSIE E. RAMBO\nJ. W. REID\nJENNIE C. RITCHIE\nD. A. SHIRLEY\nB. A. STAFFORD\nL. HAMAH SMITH\nR. A. TERRILL\nTRAVIS SHAW, SEC\nGEORGIE PROTHRO,\nSEC. TO PRES.", "TRAINING SCHOOL CRITIC TEACHERS", "CLEVELAND BAKER RUTH M. COOPER\nANNA I. HIBBETS EMMA McCLESKEY\nFREMONT MEAD", "and your letter was great\nI am so glad you mentioned your letter\nHe married me very much at first so now we are married\nYou encouraged me when you said you would like me to write\nSome day I will write a book\nI want to be a writer\nI am a girl and I want to be a writer\nSome day I will be a writer\nI want to be a writer\nI know I won't be a writer\nBut I don't know how to do it\nThen no one can tell", "I remember when I was a little boy\nI was only four and my name was\nmasquerade at a party\nMy name was Alice and I was a little girl\nSomebody said hi and I said hi\nSomebody said no and I said no\nSomebody said good night and I said good night\nSomebody said good morning and I said good morning\nSomebody said good afternoon and I said good afternoon\nSomebody said good night and I said good night\nAnd I went to bed and I dreamt of you\nSomebody was in my bed\nAnd I woke up and it was only a dream\nNothing much happened to me\nBut it was a very nice dream\nAnd I went to bed and it was only a dream\nAnd I woke up and it was only a dream\nAnd I went to bed and it was only a

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

L. G. ALLEN
MARTHA BELL
W. H. BLAINE, JR.
MARY MORGAN BROWN
HENRY W. GELLER
F. P. GUENTHER
J. A. HILL
MARY E. HUDSPETH
JESSIE M. KLINE
MARY A. LAMB
WINNIE D. LOWRANCE
TENNESSEE SEE MALONE

I'm glad ---

you are the only person I know like you
and that nobody

writes letters like you — nobody I know —

I like the still misty morning on the lake — I have been up many mornings to row out into that mist that rises in the early mornings in the fall — it doesn't rise — it just seems to hover over the water — and it's so nice to go out into it alone — — — that was in Wisconsin — the lakes there seem flatter than Lake George — and especially flat early in the morning — under the mist — as I see mist there — and the flat surface of the water — I always see goldenrod too

As I read your letter I felt that I had only said such little parts of the things I said anything about at all.

My only excuse for this paper is that it's much more convenient to use it because they give you large bunches of it and I never think to buy any — — — I think I'm lucky to remember postage stamps —

The sky is almost unbelievably clear tonight

I'm sending you more unsaid than I've said

simply because . . . why I just don't know how to say it — don't even know what I want to say I guess. I'm like Ralph — just say things as they come along — and there's a lot coming yet — on every subject — don't know exactly what it will be —

Sometimes I get in a mad rush to say it all — but what's the use — my notion about Faust —

— Makes me a bit aggravated with myself. I knew when I wrote it that you would send it if you wanted to when you got good and ready —

V

Postmarked Canyon Tex

Oct 9 1916

Such a wonderful moonlight night
so still

With the sunset I walked way out on the plains
I forgot the sunset
didn't mind it's going
I walked from it last night I saw the plains
white and still
and all day had been waiting for tonight
hoping it would be clear and white and still again.

The world just seems so quiet
still not even breathing
and it's so great to be out in the big stillness

there is so much of it

If you have said goodbye to the lake
I wish I could give
you this

Goodnight I've walked enough I ought to sleep

Saturday night

I've just come in again tonight a little wind
maybe even
finer than the stillness

thinking I knew what I wanted to make —— what I wanted it to look like ——
but not having any idea of what it was :

: it is ugly — dirty-looking — and
the one I made this time — yesterday morning and today knocks the one I've
been liking right off the wall

: : They are both hanging there — The one I liked
doesn't mean anything anymore — and it would give me great pleasure to cut a big
hole in the other — I hate it and like it too — I have sort of a grudge
against it for spoiling the other one and want to make another to spoil this one.

: :
:
:
I've been a little stiff all day from climbing — wanted to be out in the
wind — there was something fine about its coolness — but no —

: I must make
this thing — and I don't know what
it is — — — —

Now wouldn't you laugh at yourself if you were such a fool :

: and I'm perfectly sure
that I'll have to make it again — This one isn't quite
right yet /

But it's so much fun to be that sort of a fool :

: I can't help wanting to
say why ? — now you laugh — Can there be any sense in what I'm making
when I don't know what it is enough to say it —

- and still it seems alive to me....

..... not exactly alive — altogether — but parts of it — and when my eye is on
one part — I jump right quick to another because I think something is happening
over there.

X

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Oct 11 1916

The clock — the city clock on top of the Court House — just struck twelve
but I don't want to go to bed —

— None of the day has been mine — it has
been full of my job — and I object to being cheated out of a whole day
—
it rained,
too — and rain
is so wet

— Yes I've liked the day — didn't have time not to —
— but tonight I feel
cheated.

I've had a funny time tonight — a woman came in and saw my thing I made
yesterday — she got so excited — she took off her coat and rolled up her
sleeves — and then went for it —

— it made me laugh because I was sure she hadn't
intended to stay at all —

— she went at it as if it were some work she had to do and
finally — — — when her coat was on again and she was leaving — she said —
— Maybe

I get what you mean — and maybe it's something you can't say
— then she stopped

— it's very definite — you must have had something very definite in mind :
and when I asked her —
could I make anything very definite if I didn't know what it was —

— she turned right
quick and said yes.

It made me laugh —

I wasn't sure that I agreed — it

Canyon, Texas

BOARD OF REGENTS

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

The darklonely and alone is wind

How can I let you go, that wind again?
I want but may be can make you feel a little what it
does to me.
It's a strong wind, but it seems to
pull something right out of me
I hold my head looking at my feet each,
hand feeling the other arm and wondered
Why I do not know what that wind
trances and foaks
I feel it a pen and I
wonder why I don't put my arm out to the
big dark
And when Friday would come not
would be the big day
I'm free from
the little ones where foaks is
I want desires for a big
kind of freedom that I know, more, felt is never
Why should I not am speech, thing,
but sometimes
I want so much more, it makes me feel sick

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

Think of how great it would be out in the canyon tonight — I don't even want a house.

No use to say anymore — words tangle it.
It made me turn from listening to the wind — and looking at the dark.

I want so very much to go with it.

Music.

I would like to hear music tonight because it would hurt me so — the kind I want would hurt terribly

and I want to hear it alone.

You see one reason why I want to be a man is so I could go hunting for that big loneness — away from folks — — — — — —

I don't think I'll have the courage to go as far as I want to alone —
being a woman — I wonder — is it much different — or do I just
blame my lack of courage to my sex.

It's damnable — one poor little
life to live and doing it in a pen.

In the night I waked —
it was clear moonlight and
so very still —

Z-2

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Oct 18 1916

All afternoon I walked with a funny little girl from South Dakota : : : Plains ...

I wish I could make you see the long stretches of narrow strips of different colors
--- The sky had grey smallpox --- lumpy little grey clouds --- that sometimes
lumped into big ones but seldom let even little patches of sun through

Your letter was here when I got home -------- I read it --- the clock was
wrong and I was late to supper :

: I wonder if you can imagine how I hate being
on time for anything.

When I came home again I talked a long time to the big man and the little
fat woman and Ralph =

= when I told the big man about wanting to go out and live
wild till I could get enough --- he laughed and said "Why — you'd never get
enough." :

:..... Then I mixed some tempera paint I'm going to try --- It's in
glasses here in front of me --- red, yellow, black and blue --- sort of reminds
me of Hartley --- not for myself --- it's for school

Then I read your letter again :

It's a great letter ---

I want to really see the
red and yellow trees.

You class me with little boys :

:-- well --:

: I don't care ----------

As a class I guess I like them better than
other folks --- Isn't it funny.

Z-3

Postmarked: Canyon Tex
Oct 21 1916

It was nice of you to write me a goodbye letter from the lake :

Last night a terrific wind came up after two perfect days -- it
was so warm yesterday afternoon that I decided it was too hot to walk --
even though I wanted to

right here I had to stop and talk to the sister --- generally she isn't very
talkative --- it is really the first time she has had a streak of it
it has been over two hours I guess ---

: among other things she asked if I had
any drawings or anything besides the one -- the last one -- on the wall -- she
wanted to see them -- one by one they were ruled out till nothing was left but
the thing I wrote you about on wrapping paper -- a line drawing and another that
she said made her want to put both hands in it --

One other thing she said made me laugh :

: there were some landscapes -- and a
bum still life -- she said "Put those away quick -- they are so stupid --
don't you think pictures of things are stupid beside the others? "

She is a funny

little girl -- such a big movable kind of a mouth --

: Some other time I'll tell
you more about her maybe --

The wind came up about eleven last night -- I've seen it worse but this was bad
enough -- It simply tore all night -- It makes me think of great big breaths
-- trying to blow in the windows and doors -- trying to blow away the houses

maybe ---
- It blew small people off the walk --- when I got running with it ---
I could hardly stop --- it almost blew me into a barbed-wire fence --- My face
stung where my collar --- just a thin white one blew flapping against it --- it
was bitter cold --- you felt as if you had jumped into terribly cold water ---
very clear

it was great --- I had the most profound
respect for that wind and air by the time I arrived at the house where I eat
I had enjoyed listening to it and watching it almost all night --- didn't want
to sleep --- I've worn a thin coat all day because I like getting cold all
around the edges --- you just sting when you come in =

- It's great -

I want to go to Alaska.

Maybe that idea just came to me because someone had just written me of the big
quiet up there =

a funny little man - The man who writes the story of Davenport
reminds me of him - I had intended writing him all summer - don't know why
but I thought I had to - still - was waiting till I had to enough - - - - -
and the day hadn't come - - - - I didn't finish Davenport all at once - just
finished it last night - switched off on something else - Charlotte Perkins
Gilman on "The Dress of Women" - - - - anyway - while I had been intending more
than ever to write the little man -

- I can't help saying here that I would like
him better if he would get married - He would howl if he heard it -
- the neat
little undecipherable letter came telling of Alaska -

Anita says she hates him - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I like him - - - the way she is made she just can't understand him. He didn't say
the wind blows - - - - he said - - "so big and silent" - - - - - - - - - - -

- but I have seemed to like

prised at it all ---

: that I am here -------- just at living -----

Above my

black coat thrown over the back of a chair is the slick dark brown head of the sister --- A plaid bow and black middy collar --- studying --- one wouldn't know she is here -----

:

:

:

I'm going to write to Duncan --- I told him I was going to --- but some way or other the time never seemed to come exactly :

:

:

now I will ---

tonight maybe.

:

:

:

:...your letter probably makes everything more real than seeing you would ---
in a curious way --- it makes me sort of hurt for you.

As I look at it there --- two little bunches
of folded paper and pencil marks it is almost as though you are folded up in it -

- I

guess you are.

I wonder --- so many kinds of hunger ---

- still the plain old

bread-and-butter food kind --- is the only kind people generally acknowledge ---
for a minute I wished I could feel all the other kind for them all --- then
laughed

And I wondered --- why you write so much to me --- I am not asking --- even
while I wondered I guess I know --- if I don't it doesn't matter --- --- ---
It's just that there is so much there that most folks like --- so many

people to talk to — and your talking so much way out here —

to — just a little

rat of a girl —

I never feel that I'm grown up —

my hair is slicked back and

twisted in a tight knot on the back of my neck — and this green smock that I am
so fond of — I usually wear to breakfast — Claudie says it's the best-looking
garment I have — it's a plain green rag — but she and I like things most
folks thing queer —

I just look so funny to myself it seems funny for anyone to

write

:.
:
:
:
Last night I couldn't sleep

:.
:
I always hated school — I started to teach by accident — I didn't intend
to — and last night I wondered — it often runs through my head — some day
I'll just jump up and quit —

I don't mean that I don't like it — I do

like it — but I'd like — living in a hole in the side of a hill better,
I think —

People make me so mad — resigned folks make me crazy —

There are

always a lot of folks that I always want to take in both hands by the back of the
neck and knock their heads together till they crack and wake up — — — I always
have to keep still around them or they would think I'm crazy — — — and often
they get sort of an inkling of it anyway :

:.
:
: and I just keep still till sometimes I'm
an object of suspicion for just keeping still.

It's all right here — only sometime I'd like to live where I can say and
do what I want to and still be not a curiosity —

— and I am sure I don't want any—

Some time I'm going to tell you something :

Faust has made me want to tell it to you.

: I'd like to now
but it isn't it's nothing much

just thought it — or felt it — I don't know which — last spring

and now haven't time.

I wonder if you know how much finer life has seemed to me through knowing you—
a little maybe more than a little.

Another few minutes :

Friday noon.

Yes I've been reading :

: After the class yesterday I walked — without knowing where
or why — Faust under my arm —

I didn't want to read it in the house —
— so I.

walked ---

The plains seemed like rich green and yellow gold ---

I walked toward
the cliffs or sand hills --- till there was nothing but --- the nice shapes of
the ground in front of me ---

I never saw it look so like gold --- The sun was
getting low --- that is --- it was between three and four --- nearer four ---
I didn't see the sky --- my hat was down close on account of the glare ---
and I
only seemed to see the ground --- warm gold --- almost impossible to believe it ---
then farther away to the right those cliffs --- blue --- pink --- lavender ---
a curious quality --- makes me want to rub my eyes and see if it's true ---
--- It's something very beautiful I want to touch --- but --- wouldn't if I could
for fear † might find there is nothing to touch :

Finally I saw a high pile of
tumbleweeds lined up along a fence --- so I got through the road fence and went
far enough along the tumbleweed fence so that anyone who might go along the road
wouldn't matter :

I sat down in the little strip of shade made by the tumbleweeds
--- even then I looked for a while ---

It's great being alone out here.

I read --- till the sun was almost gone and I realized I was cold :

All the way
home I stopped every little while to read something over ---
and I wondered why

you thought I might not like it ---

I wondered often because -

- Why you know I think I never liked anything better !

Then I stopped still --- surprised --- sort of afraid --- I have always been afraid

of the greatest things that have come to me
= afraid when I first realized
a little

(part omitted)

I have read four scenes --- most of it more than once --- some of it
several times --- often stopping to wonder why you thought I might not like it....

Z-8

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Nov 1 1916

Tuesday night

:

:

: It's a wonderful night — still and warm and moonlight —

big quiet

moonlight

:

:

:

As I walked home alone in it — I was tired —

Sunday night I worked almost

all night —

Monday morning when the plains were still very fresh and hazy in

just waking up — your letter came. The big fat long one :

:

: It's a wonderful letter —

Seven Arts and the letter and a trip to Amarillo yesterday — coming home in the midnight starlight —

such wonderful big starlight — it was cold —

the wind stung my face so that I wondered was it cold or hot :

:

: an old woman — 65

or more in Amarillo who is fond of me — one who has lived with the plains country as it grew :

:

:....... went to see The Melting Pot — Then home late in the starlight — Why last Saturday seems months ago —

I've thought so many different

kinds of things — even Sunday — quiet out on the plains with Ralph —

seems months ago —

:

:.... I've worked till 2 or 3 nights :

:

: just wanted to —

I don't know —

I've felt like an alarm clock all wound up — ready to go off —

[10-31-16]

hadn't worked since I painted this

thing — the one I wrote you of on wrapping paper....*

and I guess I'm tired

tonight — still I want to do lots of things — can't possibly do them all:

:
:

If I had some fixative I'd send these drawings to you instead of a letter —

— they

are pretty rank but would tell you what

I want to say — maybe

(part omitted)

Well — the youngster stopped me here — she has been restless — bobbing
around — in and out — — — — finally she said "Well, I never was so restless
in my life. It's no use to study — I'm only using 4/10 of my brain." —
then a long talk :

: she thinks it queer and there is nothing queer about it :
: but —

she tried every seat in the room — even the window-sills :

: I tried to persuade

her to stay out of school for a month and begin next quarter :

: but no — she won't.

She has gained six pounds —

has gone out to walk for a little, then to bed —

no lessons tonight —

You asked me — should you be sorry for me — — — because of your letters — as I understand it

— for goodness sake — NO !!!!!

Don't be sorry either because I have a girl that I don't know what to do

with
-- and don't be sorry because I find your letter very hard to answer

It's something in me that

I can't get out

I think the best way I can tell it to you is ______ that
last night I loved the starlight --- the dark --- the wind and the miles and
miles of the thin strip of dark that is land

It was wonderfully big
and dark and starlight and night

moving :
: It is

tremendously free --- you would love it --- I wish you had been by me (she just
came in for a thicker coat)

I wish you were by me now so I could somehow tell you

I know you understand

--- that I cannot connect money with those drawings now

maybe sometime --- but not yet --- I don't need it

--- last night wouldn't have been so nice if I hadn't known all the time that

(my hands are bothering me tonight)

I cannot

let you buy --- no, that's not the word

--- I cannot let you give me anything in exchange for your share in

--- my children

You see

I never wanted a little one all my own till

one day last spring :

: I was watching a funny little boy in the Horace Man School

he was so funny I wished he were mine --- then I thought --- why he couldn't
be mine alone --- and when I thought --- mine and --- it surprised me

so --- it fairly staggered me ---

I remember getting up quickly --- feeling I

couldn't see and would choke ---

leaving the room quickly --- thinking anyone

could see what I had thought --- and not wanting anyone to see --- and the

queer feeling --- in the hall alone --- I walked downstairs --- not wanting to take the elevator ---

That was all I remember ---

but --- I can't imagine wanting a little boy that would be mine and anybody else's ---

And --- all the drawings you have were made to tell him things --- before that --- and after that

It makes me feel sort of sick to write about it.

Anita has some things that were not made to talk to him --- they are just for anyone :

I need no sympathy --- it's a curious relationship --- most of mine are, I guess --- I can't explain --- I don't know how --- letters aren't frequent --- but it never matters ---

I do not care about that. There is something twisted up some way --- I don't know how --- that makes it all right --- Maybe it's all gone ---

I don't know --- I'm not sure

I don't know anything --- I seem curiously glad that

I can't even see him

So there it all is.

I am ---

BOARD OF REGENTS

Canyon, Texas

R. B. COUSINS, PRESIDENT

L. G. ALLEN
W. H. BLAINE, JR.
BERTHA B. BIZZELL
HENRY W. GELLER
F. P. GUENTHER
J. A. HILL
MARY E. HUDSPETH
M. B. JOHNSON
JESSIE M. KLINE
MARY A. LAMB
WINNIE D. LOWRANCE
TENNESSEE MALONE

R. L. MARQUIS
H. W. MORELOCK
JESSIE E. RAMBO
J. W. REID
JENNIE C. RITCHIE
D. A. SHIRLEY
B. A. STAFFORD
B. A. STAFFORD, JR.
H. W. STILWELL
R. A. TERRILL
MARY PICKENS WOODSON
TRAVIS SHAW, SEC

And then a morning

I did not go to bed this morning
and I did not want to
so when he said I must be bed
I was still in bed
having nothing to do but nearly moan
and then I was woken up
mostly by papers in a
letter from you
and he said there

and he said there

and he said there

My head feels queer this morning
like it feels when
my very hand
and I havent
said so unless you know

It took a hot bath
and then the hair
wondered why I was wet
taking a
cold on my
head

Back in my room I set on top of the bed
reading and writing a letter
that I had finished
the
last mechanically
my
so I had brought it home

When I was dressed
I found part of your letter again in
a envelope my wonder
How your written words
you could not tell on
my abscissa a question

On the way — I stopped right still when I saw
the plains to the south — blue this morning like the ocean :
I could watch it
most of the way back here to school —
toward the east they are lavender —
and all a little hazy — occasional streaks of green through it
—
very lovely —
only my head has been thinking and feeling so hard — it just feels queer —
no, it doesn't ache — — — —

If I were living out in the hills somewhere — wild — I'd lie out
in the sun all morning — it's wonderful warm sun — and I could sleep — or
maybe get the world a little bit straight.

What you are saying about Camera Work is making me suspicious — I'm
thinking maybe I'll be afraid
to open it too — Is it that
you mean you
have put me in it — you say you have — it seems so queer —
— of course
it's all right if it pleases you — Someway — it doesn't seem to
matter much to me :
: It's a bit amusing though — to think that your oldest child —
lives only because it's adopted by a friend.

I'll be glad to see the
Camera Work — am really getting curious — though — today nothing matters
much —
I'm going on with Faust when I'm through working — school work, I mean.

Harper's --- and if they didn't take it to bring it back to him and he would take
it and I never went to Harper's and never went back to him -
- I haven't any sense,

you know -

- but I

don't know that it matters =

(part omitted)

Maybe you thought me a little wild in my remarks about Seven Arts

: you under-

stand I liked it immensely :

: but

just the one article about 291 started so many things going in my head — they
are still whirling —

I've enjoyed the rest of it — have read all but the two
first stories :

: Probably I liked it because it really "got me going".

I seem to feel that it is almost inexcusable for a person to write a letter

like this :

: I don't know why — it's just the way I feel —

Then too I seem to have told you the most there is to tell — almost

— Why should I tell any more — why write of the daily trifles — No answer
is expected to that question.

I guess I've just done what I wanted to.

— Goodnight —

on the plains far below --- such little spots moving --- going somewhere --- probably
three or four hundred --- Everything is green from the rains --- but it's green-
gold --- and so much of it --- to the south --- still blue that might almost be
water.

It was moonlight when I started home --- queer the way darkness makes all
the world seem so different ---

--- especially here where one is so dependent on the
shape of it --- nothing but the shape to guide you.

Two or three times I thought
I was lost ---

I was afraid --- I knew I would be ---

but I liked it anyway ---

--- About half a mile from town the man who teaches German --- a great big unusual
sort of person --- came along and made me get in and ride ---

:*
:*
:My head feels better --- I feel better ---

It was so wonderful out there it seems
a pity that I was the only living thing in sight except the cattle.

Goodnight ---

Z-11

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Nov 6 1916

3rd letter of
this date

There are three letters ____ written ____ sealed and stamped ____ waiting to
be mailed ____ still I write again ____ a bit amusing ____ this desire to talk to you

I didn't sleep well ____

it's morning again ____

cold and windy and clear :

:.. a letter from Anita -- mostly a poem she had been
reading -- dark red almost black -- and it smells

of carnations -- as she says -- dark red ones --

a queer little girl :

:.... I watched her for some time before I knew

her -- the pretty young face --

only sometimes she has eyes
and when she has eyes -- the
hair seems to be her only
other feature

Your word "psycho-analytical" bothers me --

- I don't like being a "specimen" :

: but there

too I don't care--

don't put much thought on it -- because I'm probably not an average specimen --

The Spanish lady looked at me and laughed when I said I thought Faculty
Meetings the most interesting events of the month -- she said, "Well -- now I do
know you are different from anyone that ever came here -- I never knew anyone
else to like Faculty Meetings before." -- and the whole table agreed with her.

It's a bad morning -

- I want all the world and still want nothing

— there is the wind — and the
watch.

I wish I could shut my eyes — and be no place — either in time or space and
give you my hand.

I forgot to put Faust on the table last night — bumping my head on
it waked me up — half asleep — I took it and put it way over on the other
side — after while I hit it again — this time I put it to the
middle — so of course I hit it again — it was daylight — and I had to
laugh.

Do I dream ?

You asked me several times

I have a notion that I could dream and remember it every night if I wanted
to

but I never dream anything very interesting —

There is one dream that I
quite enjoy — I've been dreaming it ever since I was a little girl — not
more than 8 or 10 I imagine —

It has queer people and queer textures in it
— walls of stuff like wasps' nests — little men — no, not men —
they are just people — with grey faces — grey eyes — dark circles around
them — funny little folks — and above the room full of very long narrow
stalls like wasps' nests — is a network of track and on that track — running
around at a great rate is a great big bundle — greyish white — and we are
always — all chasing it — sometimes we get it — but I have never dreamed
long enough to get that bundle open and find why it is so desirable —
— there is a
warm light in the room — the stalls are very high — about 20 feet
and about a yard wide —

— The little people look like a little boy I used to see in

school ____ and didn't like ____ still I like the little folks of my dream ____

Now I'm wondering if I'll mail these letters to you -- all in a bunch --
one at a time or not at all

No more today :

It's Sunday --

After this -- in the afternoon -- a long walk with the woman who said
one could try to express what one does not know or understand :

:The sun was warm

it was quiet where we sat down -- she read to me and I didn't listen
-- not so nice as Ralph.

It was wonderful as we came home -- almost dark -- such a wonderful
color -- reminded me of your tapestry mountains -- -- --

I thought of you --- and I loved it so that I must tell you --- loving
the wonderful jewel and the nighttime --- the clearness of it all --- seems to
have taken a great deal of what has been bad about the day --- maybe the wind blew
some of it away --- but I think it was the sky that took it ---.

Goodnight.

I mailed you some letters this morning because they were written --- and waiting
--- what else could I do.

Thought I had mailed this --- just found it
when hunting an envelope.

Z-13

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Nov 13 1916

The day has been still ______ white ______ cold ______ sometimes a
fine mist ______ maybe sleet ______ I don't know ______ so very fine ______
even when it touched my face -- I didn't know -- -- --

but I saw ice -- on water --

when I walked -- so I guess it

was cold -- I noticed that

faces were very red.

There hasn't been much of myself this week -- I've worked and talked all
week -- only wrote one letter -- that to Anita --

One day I painted and it is forcibly impressed on me
because the thing is so awful that I hate to think
I made it -- and still it amuses me --:

: A woman who
wonders what I'm driving at said this afternoon (I
didn't want to show it but she saw the back turned out
and wanted really to see -- and I -- being very
mercenary thought-- maybe I'll learn something --
so showed it )

"Someway it makes me think <u>woman</u> --

but it doesn't look like one in shape -- the head seems to be a very
beautiful flower -- but the tail of it is an animal."

It made me laugh -- oh,

very bad.

I've been making it over -- this is the fifth -- The sister thinks it very ugly

: Other days I've been working on scenery for a couple of plays -- it was very
interesting -- results fairly good -- but they provoked me -- I don't know why--

after it was over ____ even though I thought they
worked out fairly well ____ I came home and felt
like chewing nails.

To be honest ____ I guess it was because I had been so intensely interested____
and nobody got it.

:.
:.
:........ but -- I'm over it now -- guess I'm glad of it-- glad most of the
: fun was mine
:.
: The next one is
already whirling in my mind -- I'll just prepare to have the next party all by
myself --

There have been wonderful nights -- coming home late -- I wish you could
see the night out here --
- You get to know people so differently working like
that -- such funny things happen --

The fixative came --
-- well

-- I wonder if
you know what I want
to say about it --

To be honest -- again -- I hadn't thought to get any -- but
Monday -- just happened to find a bottle that fixed the drawings all but a
space about 3 inches square :

:........
Then later your letter said you were sending some
................................................it made me mad -- and

it made me laugh --

for it ____

If I took it literally I'd be furious with myself for writing him ____

He asked me to so I did when I got ready

He tells me "words are nearly always ridiculous"

— well,

maybe they are

really ____

____ it amuses all of me ____ not just amuses

tell me ____

— is he mostly in a world that the

rest of us just peek into once in a while.

Answering it will be an adventure — when I get ready — feel as if I'll have to step over something pretty high and don't know what my foot is coming down on — but I'll step.

It was really nice of you to take the trouble to send the fixative

—

I hate to phone — and I hate to go to town :

: it seems so ridiculous that you

should get it to me from N.Y. before I think to do it for myself

— still I want to

: : : :

you know.

I'm such a fool —

this week I lost my hat

NOW DON'T SEND ME A HAT

I just think it so funny —

haven't an idea of where I left it — somewhere at school — and it was such a nice old one that I won't be able to replace it for a long time.

Goodnight —

Sunday night —

["Z-14", "No envelope; marked \"Rec'd Nov. 21-1916\"", "This morning and last night were wonderfully cold -\n- The sun shone - and\nthe ice on everything - specially the cold thin fingers of the tops of the\ntrees - reaching up to the sky -\n- I wish you could have seen it -\nit was great.", "At noon in spite of the sun many were still icy - - -\nbut by night\nthe wind - - and I guess evaporation - - - had taken it all - - - it didn't\nseem to melt - - it just went away - - -", "this morning all the grass was icy - sparkling in the\nsun - - we all laughed because it was so cold and a little snow nestled where\nthe ice let it", ": -\n: -\n: -\n: I just came in - - - it's clear starlight - - - very cold - - - -\n- such wonder-\nful sky - - - I want to feel it - - put my hand on it - - - - -", ": -\n: -\n: -\nAll day the cattle have been lowing - - - I ought to say crying - - - - -\nThey\nbring them to town to get the calves here easy - - -", "ship the calves and keep the cattle\nin the pens here for a few days -\n- if they took them home right away they would all\ncome back hunting the calves -\n- after a few days crying in the pens they go home\npeaceably -", "- and stay there\n- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

doesn't

I like it like it

---

---

why

I wonder

Really it's a great sound there are many of them

If you were here we would walk out by the pens :

:I'm afraid out tonight

--- I hear things all round ---

and I haven't been afraid of things for a long time.

(part omitted)

Tonight I'm curiously happy and I don't know why

- several people asked

me why so quiet

I had no desire to talk everything talked about seemed

stupid why add to it

—they are so stupid —

You know they aren't real. I can't imagine why I sat there such a long
time with them.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I was thinking

- I don't like the reason

why I think I was born

(remainder omitted)

Z-15

Postmarked: Canyon Tex
Nov 27 1916 #1

Today was quite warm again ____ not hot ____ a coat is very comfortable ____
the wind blew hard ____ clouds of dust sailed across the plains ____

a good

day to have a headache.

I'm sick ____

today ____ about half an inch of me ____ all round the edges aches ____
head, neck, and shoulders ache all the way through ____ and the rest of me ____
well the rest of me is just plain sick.

Funny that we have to have a body and that sometimes the darned thing hurts.

I'll be all right by the time you get this so don't bother --
-- I always am
amused when I'm sick because everybody else thinks it a great joke -- don't know
why -- but they always do -- always have --
and it amuses me so too --

Someone came in:

Night:

The sister has been very amusing today ____:

____:--yesterday --

about half an hour before train-time she came in and announced that she was going to
Amarillo to see The Birth of a Nation --
-- Well -- the train was late so she
got there -- started out alone -- It's funny -- lots of
people know her that she doesn't know at all but she talks to them anyway.

She found a girl who lives in Amarillo on the train -- Frances was going
home so she could go to The Birth of a Nation too and get her fingernails cut --
and Claudie can't get over her wanting to go -- she thinks it so funny that Frances

that makes them cry when there are so many around ____

A gun just went off in the room next mine ____

Ralph ____ by accident

but suppose it had come this way

— The sister is also particularly fond of shooting — has been wanting me to go with her — just to shoot at marks

:

:

Don't you think it a funny sister? It doesn't sound so funny when I write it because there is so much that I don't write —

All day I've been laughing at her — — — Not really laughing aloud
— at her — — — I've just been very much entertained.

— She told me about asking a girl
what God was — — — and the girl told her she — . . . . why . . . hadn't thought
about it —

— and still she says — that girl goes to church to worship him every

Sunday —

I wonder if they are all so much fun at this age.

This has been her talking day —

— I wish I could talk to you — Yes — head

still aches — but you mustn't mind — I don't.

Sunday night.

Z-16

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Nov 27 1916

#2

Tuesday afternoon

: All day it has stormed from the north ----- snow and wind ----- blowing and
drifting ----- clouds of it.

I like it ----- but haven't been out ----- haven't been
out of bed for two days
----- yesterday -----.
Oh, I've just been sick in the
most ridiculous way and want to skin the doctor
----- I don't know what's the mat-
ter with me and guess he doesn't either

I'd like to stand out in that wind without
any clothes on - - -
no, I haven't any fever but
I'm hot --- have the heat
turned off and both windows open --- all day --- and still I'm burning up --- sitting
here, uncovered, in a gown that's practically nothing.

African Negro Art came yesterday ----
I read it right away ---- just a few
pages at a time ---- was so darned tired of myself ----
Gosh ---- I enjoyed it
immensely ---- It amused me to see him send that Haddon alligator story to the moon
---- He's such a good friend of Pa Dow's ---- and he is so sleepy ---- I always
wanted to slap him on the back and say WAKE UP, OLD BOY.

The drifting snow is great !

Your letter this morning ---- I was glad to see it shoved under the door ----
Being sick is so stupid ----

Had to lie down a while.

(part omitted)

Have sort of a notion I'd like it to be a bare tree and drifting snow.

I went to sleep and dreamed I was going into a lake full
of floating ice --- I went in --- wading till only my head was out --- there was
no sun --- dark trees hanging over the water all round --- the ground all round the
edge was black ---

but hard ---

It was great ---

Wonder why you've let me be a part of 291 along with the elevator boy and the
cleaning woman and Marie ---

I wonder /

but don't care about knowing ---

It doesn't matter.

My how resentful --- I don't know ---

but if it isn't it's
probably because I have neither time nor room for it --- do not care --- I
don't care about many things you know --- I can't care --- it makes me sick
to care ---

the things I don't like --- I don't think about ---

Sometimes it seems a

cowardly way to treat them --- but I can't see that thinking does any good.

I can't see that writing about my family did either you or me any good.

I am not sorry ---

It's just --- I'm sort of through with them --- they amuse me --- I seldom think
of them ---

maybe it's resentment --- but I think it's not.

I've hated a few people ---

gladly

--- but right now --- even remembering

who they were would be an effort

--- I could if I wanted to but I don't want to

--- I've been getting sick ever since the night I wrote you about them

--- I'll get

over it --- I don't know whether it was that made me sick --- or being sick made me
write.

Z-17

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Nov 27 1916

#3

Tuesday night --- no it's *Wednesday*

I get the days twisted

I've just finished another day in bed --- got up and went to supper
--- but oh, so shaky --- I did it because I made up my mind that I would go to school
tomorrow whether or no --- and thought I'd better practise a little.

I'm really better, anyway.

The plays came this afternoon and I read "The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet" --- I
really felt like reading --- and the prefaces to the other two --- they are so
funny :

: but I get so tired.

I'd have the doctor again but am quite sure that my chances for
recovery without him are quite as good as with him --- if not better.

Don't like him :

Friday --- just before supper

Went to school yesterday --- so much work to do I couldn't stay home ---
Everybody grabbed me for an extra job, too --- Even old bald-headed Latin wanted me
to make him a motto --- Domestic Science giving a dinner and wanted me to help
decorate her table --- Expression has another play on --- I have it planned - the
setting and costumes - but that doesn't keep them from keeping me standing talking
for what seemed like years ---

Gosh ---! If I stay here a couple of years I'll be able to do most anything

But really it's great --- it's
lots of fun.

I had letters to write for stuff for that play but I was mad ---

- and so shaky

I read Faust till I was too tired to write

--- then went to bed.

Really you don't know how much it amuses me :
: You know the spirit I work

in is so funny ---

It's darned serious but it is simply for my own expression ---

I never consider anyone looking at it --- and it seems so funny that such a "go long
by yourself" sort of way of going at it would mean anything to anyone ---

when so many

folks would work their ears off to make something that could hang in that little
room.

I know what you'll say --- or I think I do --- but it makes
me laugh anyway --- everything is so absurd in the world
--- I like you to hang my blue streaks up if it pleases

you -

- it's funny --- it doesn't mean anything to me ---

except that it amuses me :

: I've been sitting here wondering what does mean anything to

me. I made it while I was sick in N.Y. --- the first one I got up and made in the

night --- the charcoal one --- my bed was by the window and I always sat on it ---
the dark buildings going up into the night --- across the street --- were great ---

always ---

There was a red geranium on my window-sill --- and often I'd put it over

in the dark so I couldn't see it ---

the red spot was great in the light against the

blue and purple outside --- but sometimes I didn't like to see it -

- That was really

a great window.

I wonder --- does Marin like me to hang beside him ---

I want to say Hello!

to Hartley over in front -

- Such a funny thin little woman picture -

- I didn't notice myself

this morning --- I was in such a hurry -

- but this noon --- after dinner I opened

Clive Bell ---

looked through it --- I didn't have any classes this afternoon ---

My chair just happened to be in front of the mirror --- as I closed the book I looked up and saw myself -

- It seemed to be hat and coat --- very little face.

--- I wanted to make myself without a face :

: so I went to bed.

I read the Provincetown Plays this morning in snatches of time between things
--- and the last two this afternoon -

- Lots of fun, aren't they ? I've already passed them on --- I'm such a fool --- when I read something I like I always want to give it to someone else to read --- quick !

- all but Faust and Camera Work :
: and sometimes
--- in fact --- often

--- I want to kick myself because they don't seem to get the real fun out of it
that I do :

: and I think

What's the use.

Your letter was on the bed beside me all afternoon -

- I didn't sleep -

(part omitted)

The sister worthwhile ?

I don't know ---

no --- I'm not going to try to shield her from
anything --- and she is the kind that can't be anything but free --- she doesn't
need shielding --- She is queer --- and about as independent as they are made ---
still such a little girl --- it's funny --- Tonight she read me a lecture

on spending too much money ____ a few days ago -- informed me ____ after listening
to an argument all evening ____

that it's all right to think what you want to but ____
you're a fool to express it ____

Don't you know they never can see things like
you do -- it isn't any use to try to make them :

: I don't see any reason why I
shouldn't take care of her if I can --

She has a funny kind of snappy grit that I
like -- and an unprejudiced way of thinking things out -- Sometimes I wonder if it
is just because she is my sister that I think her a bit out of the ordinary

I don't know :

: but it's really interesting -- she is more entertaining to talk
to than most anyone here --

and you have to talk to someone.

I understand your experimenting -- When I remarked on it I think I also said
something to the effect that it was all right -- didn't you know I understood of
course.

I have a lot more to write -- in fact I guess I'd never stop --
but I'm tired --

I'll never get through so it doesn't matter when I stop.

Tonight the sky is wonderful -- at sunset it looked -- weird and -- oh,
I can't tell about it -- as though something is going to happen -- The snow
is still in patches everywhere.

Goodnight.

I'm feeling much better tonight than this morning -- will be quiet over the
week-end and all right by next week.

Lots of little bare locust trees
--- light trunks --- reaching up and losing them-
selves where the branches get small
--- losing themselves with the stars and the
sky.

I'm not feeling as alive as the glory of the new day
yet

but I'm feeling better so I'm sending all
these I feel like the pale blue green it's alive the pale
blue green I saw in the sky this morning :

: Greetings !

Z-19

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Dec 1 1916

I know you're going to laugh at what I'm going to say--- but I don't
care if you do

Another book this noon --- Jerome Eddy :

: and now I'm wondering what possessed
me when I told you I wanted something on cubism -
- this is the eighth book this
week ---------- and it seems like so many ---------- and I can't say anything be-
cause I said I wanted the last two :

: and I just sat here feeling sort of
helpless like, saying to myself ---

- Dear me -----
what am I going
to do about it

/ then it seemed funny that I was so disturbed -- had to laugh at myself --
because -- well -- for one reason I know you would laugh -

---

It's really great of you to think of it

---

but I always hated folks to give me things ---

Just can't help that

-- I know you laugh

-- It's another night :

: Tuesday night ----- and
:       why ----- I'm tired ------- it's

Z-20

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Dec 1 1916

After supper --- I sat here -- a long time --- looking at the flower --- to-
night it's a Chinese lily --- just one with two clusters of the fragile little
white flowers :

: I'm not afraid it will do anything -- when I'm not looking
-- that it wouldn't do when I'm looking.

I love it tonight --- after my stormy day.

And I was wishing I hadn't written you before supper --- because I want to write
you now.

There is a letter around here somewhere --- written last Monday --- All
week the sister has been in bed --- and I haven't done a thing but tend her and
go to school ---

Didn't even get on with "The Creative Will" --- very far ---
--- sometimes I can't understand exactly what he is driving at and sometimes don't
agree --- I probably don't exactly disagree ---.

I just don't know ---

Will I ever know

I like him for knowing

It hasn't been a nice week --- it has been a very bad one --- I hadn't even
walked much ---

- yesterday things began to be better --- The Camera Works came at
noon --- Seven Arts and the other one too ---

Someone came in and borrowed Seven
Arts today before I had read a word of it

It made me MAD.

I like to read my
own things first ---

I'll get it back tomorrow ---

They asked Claudie for it when they saw it and of course --- she didn't say no.

Then after school there was Faculty Meeting --- yesterday

It was great! Most of them went

[11-30-1916]

(Enclosed in same envelope)

Thanksgiving — Nearly night

Yesterday I started to mail you a letter — and found Wright's "Creative Will"
outside my door :

I didn't mail the letter because

I didn't want to

I had more to say —

Last night I read — today I read —

— I wonder if what he writes interests many
people like it does me — It's ridiculous — the way I get so excited over
it —

— if only I hadn't seen him

He is so funny to look at
Just the same — it's a darned good book
One time I don't agree — and
I'll wait a while — maybe I'll change my mind — I haven't finished it yet —
interruptions.

The sister had a cold and I insisted on her staying in bed —
You know — it is so queer to have someone around to think about — I've
always been alone —

Twice last night I got up and went over and looked at her —
bothered about her — She is better today but took lots of time —
Has been tinker-
ing with clocks most of the afternoon — She has three going now — they had
all been given up —

She gets so much fun out of it that it's funny.

I hope he doesn't write many more books

because — if he does — I'll
have to read them all and I know I'll die —

I'll just naturally burst.

Z-21

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Dec 12 1916

#1

Good morning /

Your letter was great this Sunday morning ---

It's a very windy morning but the wind is warm. I'd like to walk in it but the
dust blows so bad today.

I can't remember anything I made with red in the sky --- except Thanks-
giving morning --- and I know you haven't seen that ---

It's awful red --- I
can't remember the other
the one Anita took you.

Anita always does funny things like that --- I intended to ask her to take
them to you --- to look at when you get ready --- Maybe I did ask her
to --- I don't remember --- but I think not --- I never could remember one
that she liked --- but it doesn't matter.

I usually worked in the evening --- between
supper and dark --- on a west porch --- no chair even --- always on the floor
--- I never seem to get on with the water color except on the floor --- never
have enough room any other place

Monday --- 1:30

Really a wonderful day --- interruptions yesterday --- it
is warm like summer ---

I did not find any text in the image.

I am sorry, but I cannot recognize any text in the image. The image is too blurry and does not appear to contain any discernible characters.

Last night we walked from sunset till --- long after dark ---

walked straight south :

The ground here seems level because it is so empty --- the
sky-line at sunset and sunrise is marvelous --- the quality of it --- seeming

A registered package this morning --- Anita returning the photographs you
sent me of my drawings ---

: I was glad to see them again --- funny I look at them now as though it was almost another person that made them --- I feel so different that I can't help wondering if I did it :

So what you are looking at isn't me now --- that's another "me".

It seems like such a funny little
careless girl and it was only a year ago

I feel so tired ---
not physically but tired inside

The laundry man came --- and I talked to him --- a boy selling subscriptions to magazines --- came too-------- told his family history --- you see I'm just sitting here on the porch sort of doped with existence :

:.... the fat little old woman came out and
told about a girl who died a couple of days ago from her tonsils --- and about her
precious boys having influenza --- ?
- all so nice, you know --- so good to hear this afternoon if I were anyone but myself --

I'm not afraid :
: but I want to be a long way from
it all

That word afraid amuses me :

I like the lack of fear in the two just married ---

it's great ... so glad you told me ...

You know there is hardly anything I hate like

fear ... it often comes to me but seldom stops me ...

at present maybe

it's fear of myself.

A drawing on my wall unfinished because I'm afraid of what I'm making ... what I've made in the top ... it startled me several times ...

the thing I was painting...

I've stopped working on because of what it is ... it's only the seventh of the same thing but ... Oh, it's so bad ... A lot of spots are wrong but I don't want to fix them ...

afraid to maybe ...

because I would not want to show to you

Am I afraid to be honest

Honest ... why be ... sometimes we think we are and we are not

Maybe if I tell you something it will help.

I feel like shaking all the world off my fingers this afternoon like water ...

shaking

it right off the ends like we often do ...

and the hands look more alive than in color

Often ... since way last summer ... I've been afraid to write you ... I don't know why ... it's like putting my hand on something I like but instinctively know may flash up and burn me any moment ... still I put my hand on it ... because I like it ... and don't mind risking the burn :

do you understand.

It amuses me :

:

letter yesterday ... you felt ... a thousand or a million years old ...

I just a very little girl to you

I believe I wrote you last week that I felt
old enough to be your great great grandmother --- you just a little boy
funny, isn't it.

Living is great to you right now --- wish I could see the
little girl's work --- --- --- --- 291

Last night --- I read "Getting Married" --- it was lots of fun ---

every-

thing in the world seems so absurd --- guess I'm the most absurd thing in it but
I don't mind being absurd.

You're absurd, too.

I help you

That makes me afraid --- and it amuses me and I like it :

: I haven't tried ---

such an easy person to help --- sure --- you say --- trying would spoil it --- but
you make me feel so selfish --- you take trouble and think for me ---

even in what you
write you are
careful

Well --- it's all great my way ---

(part omitted)

--- Well laugh ---

--- a wagon just drove up --- the man who always brings me packages

--- freight and express ---

--- and this time it was a barrel of apples ---

isn't that funny

think of anyone sending me :

:....a whole barrel of

apples --- I was going to say

but a girl who has been very sick --- throat and ears --- came along --- walking

very slowly and I spoke to her because —— well, I like her —— have only seen
her a few times but the first time thought she was great ——
she is very blue ——

wants to go back to school tomorrow but really isn't well enough —— looks very
bad —— can't do anything —— sometimes she is quite deaf —— and of course it
worries her ——

I gave her "Davenport" —— it just came back yesterday —— and
"Getting Married" —— Maybe she won't like them ——

I don't know —— but the
one was on my mind —— the other on the table ——
Then too I like to see what different folks say ——
The sister likes Shaw —— what do other girls that age say ——
much about girls ——
I don't know

After that I came in to the sister —— she
was awake —— read to her till sunset —— then went out to see that. Went over and
climbed the cattle pens again —— empty —— sat there for a long time watching
the sunset —— it was cloudy and —— clouds make gorgeous sunsets here ——
I sat there till some cowboys came up with a few cattle —— while they were fussing around
in the tangle of fences I climbed down and came home —— moonlight —— but still red
in the sky ——

- then I went to the Drug Store and got a gargle —— it seems to be a
compensation for the loss of tonsils —— and now my poor little sister —— the pale
little face —— white like the pillow —— only a little bluish —— blue is worse than
white —— and she can't swallow —— can't talk —— has to write what she wants ——
no use to talk about it. I'd just about as soon go to a saloon as a drug store out here
—— In fact ——

- GEE —— the air simply reeks with a kind of filth that there are no
words in my vocabulary for ... Goodnight ... It's easier to let out —— to

talk --- when you've had your sister's tonsils
cut out --- and are watching her --- hear the heavy breathing ---
a queer sound in her throat --- it's very bad ---

Suppose she would die well I know she won't but how do I know it:

(part omitted)

I read this over just sitting here the room almost dark hardly knew I
was doing it at first. Maybe I ought not send it to you 291 is so alive now

I have half a notion to keep it a couple of weeks but I know I won't
I want to say it to you now I'm feeling fine again the doctor I don't like
told me today that I was looking fine and I wanted to kick him

291 isn't for any particular humor is it

fine or otherwise it's just for what is isn't it
--- You can be sorry that the sister is sick the face
is so little and pale --- and the eyes and mouth so queer now
--- even while asleep --- that is, you can be sorry if you
want to -

(remainder omitted)

Z-22

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Dec 12 1916 #2

Sunday - - - Sunset.

I'd like to write you with letters about two feet high ______ but
maybe that would be a bit high.

This morning --- in a tearing norther and snow --- blistering cold I started
for the canyon --- I just got home --- my hands a bit swollen from cold but it
was great!

Wish you could see the tumbleweeds blow --- they are round and just
tear across the plains like mad --- big ones and little ones --- far ones
and near ones --- where there are fences --- sometimes they hang singly ---
sometimes they just pile up --- It is the tumbleweeds that mark the fences
here ---

A stretch of 14 miles of nothing after the last house till you come to
the canyon --- a slit in the ground --- sometimes three miles across --- sometimes
five or six --- but it is great --- --- and that darned wind --- and the cold ---
it's all so big --- such big washes --- big hills --- long drops ---
thick trunked scrubby cedars --- hardy --- old --- strong ---
often broken or the soil all washed from several feet of the roots --- but they
don't mind --- they are still green

Wonderful distances --- colors --- all kinds --- Isn't it
funny --- when I was climbing out --- sat down all out of breath --- looking back
at it --- in the fine, wild-driven snow --- I love it --- wish I could be
with it now --- I want it all --- The reality of it makes me almost crazy
--- isn't it funny --- folks get color very like that on canvas or paper ---
but the darned things don't get me going at all.

It was great to go out there after Anne Bridgeman's drawings yes photo-
graphs yesterday ________ They made today better ____ and today made them
better ______ Really it was great of you ____ How do you manage to do things
at just the right time like that ____

I want to go to 291 tonight so much that I have sort of a notion that if
I'd go out and down the street a way I might find it out there =

____ When I came home
____ so cold ____ riding into the setting sun ____ I sat down by the radiator
to thaw out ____

I finished reading the Camera Work about your "expulsion" from
the Camera Club --- I read most of it yesterday --- my time isn't my own ---
so --- I often have to leave things when I don't want to --- really . . . . I can ---

____

You enjoyed it ____ in a way ____ didn't you ____ 291 must
have been just boiling ____ what's the word ____ when you feel ____ What's
the use in talking about it on paper ____ These two numbers of Camera Work
make me like it better than ever before ____ but I believe the number that has
given me most pleasure for the longest time is a 291 number that you gave me during
the Marin show that year ____ I had a great time with that ____ I went down
that day because I wanted to go to the woods and N.Y. has nothing like the woods
that I know of except 291 ____ I feel rough and wild like the wind tonight --

(part omitted)

We rode miles in the canyon besides climbing ____ it was all rough ____
and it was great.

It's a curiously quiet letter :

but I like it

I always like them.

The tree

don't you know how the green trees smothered me this summer -- it seemed
that I couldn't breathe under them

I like them bare -- whipped by the wind --
or just standing still and cold in the half-light

again --
sometime I'll like them green

but -- now I like them bare -- like to think of them bare.

Cold -- I'm always cold -- except about two weeks in
July and August -- sometimes I like it -- sometimes it makes me mad -- Today
I was made about it so I went down and bought another blanket.

What makes me sick -- what ailed me -- I don't know -- The doctor gave
me a fool name for it -- and I promptly forgot it. At the time I thought he made
it up.

I'm getting to like him better -- the sister is pretty bad to handle and he
was so patient with her -- so nice to her ;

: why, I like him.

Only I think he made a mistake on me --

I never think about myself till I'm really sick -- don't mind little things
so long as I can stand up --

(part omitted)

Goodnight -- it's late -- Monday.

Z-25

Canyon Tex
Postmarked Dec 19 1916

Stieglitz ---

- I've been out watching the sunset again ----- I wish ------
where you see the wonderful sky-line ------ It's a tremendous line ------ Just
earth and sky meeting -------- nothing in sight -------- absolutely nothing ------
We walked into it a long time ------ then sat down ------ I lay down ------ flat
on my back ------ Stars coming out ------ turning my head a little I could see the
sky-line --- still a little color in the west.

The sky like a wonderful jewel ----
darkest in the center ------ light around the edges

I've always wanted to touch it ------ since I was a very little
girl ------ and it always seems more wonderful ------ I'm wanting it more.

It makes me feel like such a little little girl.

And I came home ----------
looked at what I've been working at all day :

:.... and I feel like a still littler
girl :

what's the use in my trying to paint -

- I haven't the mentality to do what

I want to do -

- It's like reading Faust ------ A lot of it will get by me ------
My funny little thing is in front of me on a chair -
- I'm not through ------ it's
so funny ------ It looks like a cross between a Zorach and Mannigault
------ maybe
that isn't the way to spell it ------

It has been like wrestling all day and
now there is that funny little thing ------

it's screamingly funny ---

I've drawn

it about fifteen times --- little ------ and twice --- big ------ and this is
the second attempt to paint it --- it's great to be a fool ----------

But it makes me feel so helpless -
- like such a little girl -

A kind of helplessness that's amusing because -
- why ...... I wish it were daylight

- I want to paint it all over again -
- so sure I'll get it tomorrow -

still knowing I never will

Isn't it funny.

There isn't anyone in Texas to talk to tonight - my head would just
about come to your knee if I were standing in front of you - - - - - - - - - - - -
and it's great to be little - - - I like it.

It was one of the drawings of this thing that I wanted to send you that
night but when I worked on it more I spoiled it and didn't want to send it any more.

(part omitted)

The wonderful stretch of the bare line at sunset - - - the stars - - - a train that
I watched like a star on the horizon - - - it's great to watch it moving such a
long time - - - it never came close enough to be anything but a little line - - -
the
wrestle of the day - - - the emptiness of the night - - - and I like it all so - - -
Nobody in Texas - - - it's funny what way I like it.

Goodnight.

I wonder if you will read this in the morning. I'd like it to be a great day.

Z-26

Postmarked: Canyon Tex

Dec 24 1916

The nakedest thing I know of is an angleworm --- and I feel that I've rather given
myself that quality --- to you ---

I hate angleworms so

tonight I'm not going to talk about myself

I must tell you of the sister:

: Her latest adventure has been motorcycling
not trailing on behind --- running it herself --- she has simply gone mad
over it.

But last night it snowed --- it's bitter cold --- everyone left yester-
day for the holidays --- she was a bit depressed :

: but hit on the bright idea
of going shooting ---

She got a gun and off she went about five o'clock this after-
noon --- I followed about 15 minutes later --- when I caught up with her she
had shot a bird --- a prairie owl --- She said she hadn't shot for such a long
time that it never occurred to her that she would kill it when she aimed at it.
Thursday night.

GOSH!

She has been out again this afternoon and came home with two jack-rabbits
--- shot two more but couldn't carry but two so is sending a boy for them in the
morning.

Someway it doesn't seem right to me --- she says she hates to shoot them but it's
so exciting to see if you can :

: She went skating this morning --- her ankles are
weak though and it makes them hurt so this afternoon she went back to the gun.

Folks look crosseyed at me for letting her do things like that —
but I don't
see why not — if she wants to — She is so excited that she is limp — At supper
she would lift things — expecting them to be as heavy and they would go up

— every little while she tells me about another part that's tired and hurts —
and if it isn't that it's some incident of the afternoon —
just now she told me
about another bird she shot — it was a long way off and she didn't think she
could hit it — then she was so sorry she stopped and buried it.

She rode home on a load of baled hay — she was just so tired carrying
those rabbits.

She just now told me that I don't know what it is to be tired —
Even her hands hurt from carrying the rabbits and the gun and the cold.

I'm afraid she will shoot herself but guess it isn't any more likely than that
someone will shoot her through the wall.

I don't know of anything to do with her but to let her do as she pleases.

— It's very funny.
So much better than having her wildly excited about — Oh, lots of other things
she might like.

Funny I haven't wanted to go out —
I've been at home two days now —
Thursday was the first day of vacation — and I've just liked being alone —
Have been working —
Your letter today is great — the only remark I made to my-
self while reading it was when you said you wondered what the things I am doing now
look like —
I said emphatically

Like Hell.

12-24-16

Then later at dinner — I was thinking about you and I said to myself
— GOSH ! but he is great :

: then I thought to myself

I don't like that word but what am I going to say — I object to the coarseness of the word but I like it's expressive feel.

We need some new words — or is it my poor
taste in putting them together

/ it doesn't matter of course

but I feel a deficiency in the English language when I want to
say — no — express GOSH.

It expresses what I mean but
has a ring I don't like —

The other morning I was pulling on my stocking and stopped — just looking into
space — remembering what you said about Leo Stein's use of words — and I thought
— yes — I could use them better if I wasn't so darned lazy — As for you
— there really doesn't seem much excuse for my writing you at all — you
get it without my saying it.

Really you're great —

I wish I could see Walkowitz's things.

I've always had to fight with them you know — I would see something — often I
didn't know what — most often in fact — still I wouldn't give up —
there was just something I didn't get and I knew it and it aggravated me —
funny
the way I was so glad he was at the lake with you last summer and I didn't know why.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

Your Camera Work came this afternoon. A box from my blond lady with it —
I didn't open hers because I knew she wouldn't want me to but I did open yours
right away —

I thought there must be a Stieglitz Camera Work somewhere and wanted

to ask for your photographs of engines too ______ you see -- I don't ask for everything I want. I undoubtedly would have in time however ______

Great - - - -

I like the engine in winter best and the steaming horses next. I haven't looked at
it much yet --- I don't know why but I am saving it -

— It's very much you —

You are really here — a lot of you — not all of you —

— I wouldn't

have known you without the letters —
something

in both that isn't in the other — I like it.

and you know I like it, why need to say it.

Someone else I'm glad to know is living and walking around
is Marin —
— He's like a good drink of clear cool water when
you are very thirsty.

I must tell you about that Picasso drawing too — Anita sent me a Camera Work with
it in last year — I had seen it before somewhere — don't know — maybe the
drawing itself —

but I liked it so much I could hardly stand it for anyone else to
look at it and still always had to laugh at myself — I hardly let anyone see the
book for a long time — even yet have scruples about it.

Wish you would break that cast ...

Funny I had been thinking about it —

You see it was way last summer I wanted to show it to you — now I don't know —

it seems out of place —
it was almost all lost in the casting —

I didn't allow for that when I made it —
But I know your place

back there in that little room is full — no need of that
standing around —

I had another — funny — my nice sister

liked it so I gave it to her. Two or three people wanted to
buy it — last summer but I didn't want to sell it.

When I think of folks looking at it I want to
shrink up to nowhere —

Wright? — — — — —

Sometimes I enjoy being stupid and contrary — at the Forum Exhibition
last year I enjoyed not speaking to him — not asking him questions — just
because he looked as though he thought I would —
— now I'd like to talk to him
but I don't want him to see my little white thing.

It had a purpose not concerned at all with his confounded theories of form.

: :
:
: Yes laugh /

It's such a pitiful little thing — I don't believe it can stand
being out there —

Anything you please, though.

Goodnight.

It's great to be having vacation. I'm not Christmas mad — it doesn't excite
me at all — except —
maybe the world seems bigger and emptier then
than at other times.

Again goodnight.

--- in thinking

no I should say feeling and thinking and saying because I feel first
the things I've been feeling and thinking and saying.

They are so new and unexpected to me —— unimagined —— that I feel like looking around to see what's coming next!

He will not like my letter — His lips will close very tight and his hand be
very cold — and damp —

— Fearless — I'd not even be afraid to die tonight

It was just time
to say something I said —
and I can't help wondering at
myself.

I feel particularly sane — and wonder if I am — it's so funny.

Afraid of nobody and nothing—
it's great.

Found a great girl today — daughter of the old fellow who teaches German —
home for the holidays — They are very German — but look French — are part French —
— very dark — wonderful eyes with a queer slant — hair just a little
curly — very pale — just a little color well put on — — — so thin that one
pound less would make her too thin.

— It was great to find her — seems like the first real person I've found out here — She's great to look at — the frailness — and the fire — we are going to walk early in the morning. You know to look at her that she likes to walk — She likes Xmas — — — — — likes to give things to many folks.

Teaches music in Dallas.

maybe you'd have been less alone ---

A few moments of happiness in a lifetime ought

to be enough -

- What would be the game if it were sticking around everywhere. I
can't imagine anything much worse than too much of it —

Goodnight.

If I'm in N.Y. on Xmas again sometime --- may I spend part of it with you ?

The sun is going down --- it's great out --- like summer almost ---
has been all day --- and I've only been out to dinner :
: : wondered then why I didn't
stay out --- and wonder now why I don't go out --- just don't want to -

So stupid
these days --- it's great not to have to do things on time ---

Mary Gage brought back books --- I like her --- so would you --- she
has always lived here on the plains.

She said she had read "Getting Married"

twice --- and didn't see why the girl married after all ---

Burns --- I haven't read him much

I had a very bad dream last night --- waking seemed such a struggle ---
my mother and father and my two brothers --- in color it was almost black -

and when I did wake --- my mother --- I didn't see her --- but I heard her ask
my father not to do anything to hurt me --- wasn't it funny when I waked ---
the wind had stopped blowing --- it all seemed uncannily quiet and dark -

--- and
again I wanted ---

oh, it's just the hands again --- what would I do if they

were cut off ---

And this morning there was a letter for my sister from my father. It gives me such a curious kind of amusement.

The sky is very wonderful --- I had to go out and look at it --- pinks and
blues --- that don't look like baby clothes. They just look like sky.

I've been reading "The Brook Kerith" --- isn't it nice and quiet ---
going slow because I don't want to get through.

My flowers----- they are so straight and clean and tall ----- the blossoms on top

- I can't say they are white ----- they are just their own color --- something
you don't want to touch ---------- almost too lovely to look at.

Goodnight --- the clock out there in the sunset is just

striking six --

--- but goodnight anyway.

Third Edition

When I got up this morning to close the window so the room would get warm
to dress _________

The moon was low in the west -- very big and white -- pale
-- in the blueness just beginning to warm with daylight -- a train was just
going in at the depot -- leaving a long trail of cold white smoke ---
seeming pink on the edges.

I was half asleep -- because I think I hardly slept all night --
I wasn't in bed very long -- but I wondered why I'd been there at all --

When I looked out at the night - so big and quiet and blue last night -
again before I went to bed - I read a long time after writing you -
sat on the floor by the open window when the light was out - so absurd to sleep
- and when I got in bed and didn't sleep I laughed at myself - so absurd
to stay there.

Have I told you that I go to breakfast every morning before the sun is
up -- when the sky seems to be having it's best time -- - - - Great !