Paoli

July 20

Dear Neith:

Somewhat late I hear of your pneumonia, and of your modern-
istic Wahlverwandschaftung with the latest thing in sulphanamilasome-
thingorothers.

Naturally I suspect the preliminary trouble is an ascetic coolness
towards the best forms of anti-pneumonic nutriment, and I am asking an
old friend in Boston named Pierce (not, however the one whose spelling
is "ei") to send you some, for use on the warmer summer days.

If you will negotiate with Hutch as to the necessary travel,
and mail this card with the unnecessary words stricken out (by pencil
or lipstick), you will get something that may be to your advantage (or
his).

Susan sends her best to you both

Affectionately

Arthur.

And as to things more remote: "I hope you're satisfied."

New Orleans

Feb 27

Dear Hutch

Thank you for writing me of the meeting with Dewey. It is pleasant to hear it.

If I had known you and he were to be there, I could have arranged a month or so ago to drive down. But I gradually made engagements with one person and another till all my time was taken up. My brother and his wife from Seattle have been here several days and just left this morning. It is now essential I get home quickly.

Next year will be another matter. I hope we may meet then.

I will send you offprints (as they call them) of these articles. The first was scheduled for March 16, but proof has not arrived, and it is now scheduled for March 30. I have other things to do, and do not know how I will be able to tend to it in Paoli.

We had a pleasant drive down the Mississippi the other day with the Everts.

Our best to you and Keith

PAOLI ORCHARDS CO.

PAOLI, IND.

July 20

Dear "eith

It was a shame not to tell you about the $800. I mostly meant to. By way of ironics the check reached the Claypool Hotel the same day ⏸ did. At any rate it saved me a hundred miles or so of additional driving as I had intended to drive straight to the warehouse and face thw wicked debtor among his gnawed bones.

The past week had been reserved for going over my manuscript with a view to hunting a publisher, but I actually gave it an hour or two and spent the rest of the week very lazily. I am glad even though I am not in a position to see publishers. The next three weeks will be irresponsible. After that two months of apples.

I leave in the morning. The wife and eight year old daughter of a friend go with me to Ohio. There will be a great scandal, though whether over wife or daughter I could not predict. It is generally known in Paoli that I am about to auction off all my household goods, though I have not yet been informed what I am going to do with the empty house.

Paoli

Oct 18

Dear Neith:

Paradichlor...... Who wants to eat paradichlor......?

Who says we want new names for the things we eat ? We want better names for somethings the word-wrigglers wriggle about. Some day we will make us a linguisowriggloscope. Then I will let you look at yourself and see yourself wriggle. But I won't let you look at me in it--you might lose "faith"-by Gawd. How's the communists--any wriggle in them ? Or are their words true as the damn of doom ?

Jane Dewey wires that John will wriggle through after another
operation. If all goes well/I will be in N.Y. in two or three weeks.
I got good and scared. I am not going to risk missing any more bets by delaying
Except that if he is in extra good shape, maybe I would take a risk on
bot turning up till the end of November which would be handier for me
personally.

Hope you won' acquire any of the village bad habits

Affecti nately

Arthur

What you probably want is Ogden's Basic English, properly
re-named as Debasic Pigeonization of English

Indianapolis

Oct. 18

Dear Hutch:

I had your note at Paoli, and find here one you sent almost a month ago. This hotel is so roggaddotten (in the slang of 40 years ago) that it never does anything it can avoid. Its proper name should be the Rottenmarotten. I find here four letters it failed to forward.

Thank you for your expressions, and Neith's. Be sure and keep me posted as to your address, especially if you go to New York.

I may get there later in the winter. I have kept busy with many things--too busy--and am very tired. I must do some resting. Probably I will make the visits to Seattle and Lincoln, extending into January.

I would like nothing better than to loiter in your neighborhood.

Paoli

Jan. 20

Dear Hutch:

We will be glad if we can see you and Neith in New Orleans
We hope to get away from here about the first. I have a damn'd
paper for which a certain space is being held till Feb 1; I will
either have it done then or quit; don't know which.

The last day of Mardi Gras is March 1. If you get there
late in February you may have trouble finding any kind of place.
After that I imagine you can get anything you want reasonably. At
Biloxi one time we had a very nice four room apartment for $25. but
there is nothing there you would want. Last year at new orleans the
middle of January we had difficulty in getting placed, and paid $60
out by Tulane university where we were then, and at that had to agree
to move out on short notice if a long time renter was secured. The
only reason we kept the place was because the rent was too high. That
was a four room furnished apt. But when arch comes the landlords
cease thinking of long-term tenants and are tickled at anything.

meals

As for food it is not hard to get good food cheap. The
old Tujague place near the French market has a simple six-course,
damn-good meal for 60 cents, with 30 cents for a small bottle wine;
making $1.50 for two people. The outlying restaurants are good and
cheap. Some in the Vieux Arre are very high, and some are very bad.
But take it all around, you can eat well at restaurants for small
money.

We do same as you. Get an apartment, take breakfast in
it; usually eat a salad and bread and wine for lunch; go out for
dinner. Incidentally N.O. is a "cheap wine" town. I have scoured
it all over. We plan to stay in the Vieux Arre near the

2

Cathedral and the old market this winter, if we can find the right
kind of place.

And I might add the Morrison cafeterias in N.O. are something
southern people travel far to eat at and talk about. I have sent
Northern snoots there and surprised them. All's well for thirty cents.

Conditions change. When we get settled we will drop you
a line and tell you how things are this year.

Affectuatley

A.F.B.

Warning to cigarette smokers: N.O. tax about 5 c per pack

There is a young girl in Madras who has a most beautiful ass;
it is not what you think, all dimpled and pink; it has two long ears
and eats grass.

Paoli

Jan. 17

Dear Hutch

Glad to know your collection of letters is working out so well.
Seven generations is "several" or "thousands" as we say indifferently
around here when stressing magnitudes.

The other day I was hunting the lost manuscript of an unpublished book, and found a cahe of older letters in the rear compartment of a negelected desk. In a few days I will move the thing out, and Susan will run over the materials. There are also some slight files of later correspondence. Whether I have any "older" letters dating back to post-German days I do not know. There are packing cases in an attic, but they are not for me, to deal with.

I will be glad to send you whatever I find. You better send it back. I have no positive reason pro or con. But I am past the age of displacing things, I may at 90 want to hunt for clues as to how I got that way, and what would I put in the place the letters (if any) are taken out of?

There will probably be work on a first eye in March. Meantime
I have every excuse for idling--it becomes pleasurable--though dawdling,
not proper idling, I am afraid, is what it is.

Our best to you both