With all the love my heart can give, I am
Your
Marie.
P.S. I am enclosing a poem, "The Land of Beginning Again." We are really going to begin again, aren't we, Robert, and be more happy than ever?
THE LAND OF BEGINNING AGAIN
I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,
And never put on again.
I wish we could come on it all unaware,
Like the hunter who finds a lost trail;
And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done
The greatest injustice of all
Could be at the gates, like an old friend that waits
For the comrade he's gladdest to hail.
We would find all the things we intended to do
But forgot and remembered—too late,
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,
And all of the thousand and one
Little duties neglected that might have perfected
The day for one less fortunate.
It wouldn't be possible not to be kind,
In the Land of Beginning Again;
And the ones we misjudged and the ones whom we grudged
Their moments of victory here
Would find in the grasp of our loving handclasp
More than penitent lips could explain.
For what had been hardest we'd know had been best,
And what had seemed loss would be gain;
For there isn't a sting that will not take wing
When we've faced it and laughed it away;
And I think that the laughter is most what we're after
In the Land of Beginning Again!
So I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,
And never put on again.
Louisa Fletcher Tarkington.
On a beautiful sunshiny Saturday afternoon on the 23rd of October, 1926, as the train wended its way across the prairies for Sherman, Texas, Robert kept watching out of the car window, his face beaming with smiles as he thought of his meeting with Marie. He counted every turn of the wheels because he knew they were bringing him closer to her.
When he arrived in Sherman that night, Marie welcomed him with open arms. They spent Saturday and Sunday together and were happier than they had ever been before. He confided to Marie his future plans. Told her that he was working on an invention, and also planning to make some money speculating in Stocks and Commodities. That he hoped to make a lot of money and prove himself worthy of her, so that her father would consent to their marriage. That he would return with all the hope and faith a man could have in a woman, and with that faith and her love failure was impossible, as there wasn't anything in the world he couldn't do. Marie assured him of her faith and confidence. So long as he had that faith and her love, she knew he could do great things. Said she would willingly wait until he made a success.
After Robert returned, he began to study the Bible more than ever, and work out things according to science. He read the Book of Ezekiel, and planned on building an airplane along the lines outlined by Ezekiel. Figured that there must be a way to build a plane of this kind which would be the greatest ever, and felt that the day was coming when his country would need the protection of the greatest invention of the age. From reading of the Bible, war seemed inevitable, and Robert believed that the next war would be in the air.
He began to read all the magazines along the lines of science and invention and studied the Bible in order to understand natural law and know how to apply it.