But, speaking seriously, we’ve had rain here all day. It’s been cold, too—kind of like late of an evening when you go down barefoot in the ten-acre medder to drive the cow home, and your mind is on whippoorwills and stone bruises and Cherokee roses and hot corn-pone, and the little girl with the white sunbonnet on the adjoining farm that you saw picking cherries in the lane, and who you (I don’t mean you, I mean me) fondly imagine is going to come over to your farm some day and scold you when the cow doesn’t come home, but who really runs away with a patent churn agent and winds up by keeping a shooting gallery in South Bend, Indiana.
Oh, well, what’s the odds?
Hope you are feeling quite well after your long trip from the soggy south.
Now while you are up “No’th” just turn yo’self a’ loose and have a good time. Down in our country the old-time opinion is that Liberty Jams everything into a bad shape, but it ain’t so. No—the real and genuine liberty sets you Free; it doesn’t cramp you or lower your ideals at All.
A great many wise people have learned that; you see Them Everywhere in Greater New York. And I think you would like to bring your cow up here and spend the remainder of your time. You can live nicely on fifty cents a week; but a great deal better on half a billion dollars.
Since I have discovered what a help printed matter is to me, I simply love to write letters. I know a man who writes 1,900 letters a day to his Loved One. But don’t you think he is kind of “crowdin’” the mourners?
Please ma’am write to me some more right away; I like to hear from you.
P.S. I’ve had a great time chopping up the papers and building this letter. You’ll excuse my frivolousness, won’t you?
Bob.
Bobby, I condone your offense—time spent cutting up the papers, time worth so many cents per word, to amuse me. Times spent together when apart, how close they come.