LINCOLN COMMUNITY H.S. SCHOOL
W. C. HANDLIN, PRINCIPAL
LINCOLN, ILLINOIS

OCT 2
6 PM!
1929

ILL.

Mr. Langston Hughes
128 W. 131st Street
New York City

LINCOLN COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL

October 2, 1929

My dear Langston:

Miss Welch has turned your letter over to me, and I shall be very happy to receive one of your autographed books.

Please write it as I sign my name below. You may be sure we watch you with pride in your success, and feel sure that you are going to keep at the fine level you have attained. I first saw your poems in the Jessie Rittenhouse collections, and since have read them in various other collections.

With every good wish for you, and thanking you for sending the book, I am

4

Hard cover FLYPAPER
sent, Feb. 28, 1956.

LAURA M. ARMSTRONG

419 DELAVAN, REAR
LINCOLN, ILLINOIS

February 16, 1956

Dear Langston:

A few days ago I visited Ethel Welch in her home and she let
me take home "The Sweet Flypaper of Life" much to my enjoyment.

Oh, Langston, it's lovely! I have loved it both for its pic-
tures and the little story you wrote to go along with it. I
have a great friend and also a great lover of books who took
the little book home and greatly enjoyed it, too.

I'm speaking of Miss Marcella Whetsler, long years the head of
our English department in the high school and now entirely too
frail to teach any longer, something those of us who know her
well greatly deplore, for there are few teachers like her. And
she saw the beauty of your book.

I should like you to do me a favor, not for myself but for my
colored friends here. Won't you send a copy of this book to
me, to be placed in our library where the colored people will
have a chance to read and enjoy it?

You sent me long ago what I think was probably your first pub-
lished book of poetry, "We should have s land of sun,
Of gorgeous sun........."

And this one that I love:

"We have tomorrow
Bright before us
Like a flame.

Yesterday
A night-gone thing
A sun-down name.

And dawn today
Broad arch above the road we came."

I kept that book at school where the children could take
it home to read and for years they did read and love it.
It's pretty well worn by now though no longer lent out to
children, for I am retired and know only those who for so
many years were my great friends. There were among them
those who had extraordinary talent for appreciation and for
being able to interpret the dramatic meaning of the poems
they liked.

So I am hoping you'll send me a copy and do write them a mes-
sage inside the cover so that they will know of your interest
in them.

Sometimes I think I like best the picture that says, "And
that baby that's sleeping in yonder which is my tenth grand-
child:" My best wishes to you.

Your friend,

Laura M. Armstrong