The West is so big and glorious and free, it seems strange that the corn crop should be so superior to the people. I suppose it is because each perfect stalk of corn turns its face to God and Heaven, and the people are so busy gossiping they haven't the time to worship. When we pass them on the street we feel like saying: "Our reputations are in your hands. In God's name be merciful!"
I am keeping house now in my room—light housekeeping, you know. It's positively airy sometimes. My landlady—bless her ignorant soul!—allows my little ice-box to remain in her butler's pantry, which I have christened "cockroach alley." They—the cockroaches—are so large and educated that I have named them, and each one comes when it's called and feeds from the hand.
She wears the most artistic skirts—always ball-room back and ballet front. Her grandchild was sitting on the floor yesterday, reading the Bible, when suddenly she looked up and said: "Grandma, there's a grammatical error in this Bible," and my landlady said: "Well, kill it, child, kill it!" She spends whole hours each day talking to her birds, which, she claims, save the expense of a piano. I told the grandchild to go out into the sunshine this morning and it would do her cold good. She said, very saucily: "I won't go into the sunshine, my grandma told me to go into the air." My grandma didn't tell me to go there, Lorna, but someone must have ordered it, for in the "air" I am, and so high that I no longer feel the earth beneath my feet.
Thank you so much for Mr. Fitch's article. So you think that Sioux Falls is like his description of it. He came in one night and left the next morning, then wrote an article which is a gross exaggeration in every particular. In the first place there was never but one French maid here and she was Irish. It is true that some scandalous people come here, but there are also scandalous residents; however, there are many more divorcees, quiet, charming and unseen, who do not fret away their six months, but spend them profitably, writing, sewing, taking care of their beloved children, et cetera.
The very idea of mentioning anything as incongruous as Sioux Falls and luxury in the same breath—it's a slam on luxury! Big and luxurious hotels—Mr. Fitch ought to be mobbed. Wonder if he got a whiff of the lobby of the only thing that can be called an hotel here, or if he had a cold during his prolonged stay of twelve hours, nine of which he slept through. At the hotel yesterday I mentioned to the elevator boy that many children were stopping there. He answered: "Yes, there is more children than there is guests."
That grill room that he speaks of is a dim memory; I think it lasted two months; and as it depended on divorce custom entirely, and as the main part of the colony sups in its own home, the thing fell through. And the theatres, dear, we have had two good shows since I came, otherwise "ten, twenty and thirty."
The women and preachers may be against the quick lunch method of divorce, but you can gamble on it that the business men heartily approve; and these same women and preachers will find their larders and contribution boxes but scantily filled if the odorous money of the dissolute "Divorsay" is barred.
I am all excited over the article as there is neither truth nor ruth in it, and Carlton is intensely amused, so I suppose I will not try to fight the battles of the colony so long as I am lazy and comfortable in the arms of my love.
Had a long letter from Gretchen yesterday in which she says she enjoyed her bridal tour thoroughly, particularly at the Falls. I wrote back and asked: "Which?—Niagara or Sioux?"
Good-night, dearest, I close my eyes and sleep in a moment, as there are no longer any thorns to stuff my pillow.