Has been visiting Katharine and her brother. Please send trunk keys she left. Why no letters? [Breaks off.] [Stout #20]
Enjoyed visiting Katharine and her brother, who is more charming than ever. Quoted Ella Wheeler Wilcox to each other. Attended New Year's dance with Douglass—a rustic event. Could Mariel retrieve her [Cather's] copy of Daudet's Sapho from Sarah Harris? Doesn't know when she will be back in Lincoln. Here in the country might as well be dead. Is indifferent to everything, even suicide. Willa [Stout #21]
Appreciates her help getting through scrapes during years at the university. Now another one. Keeps making a fool of herself! Keeps trying on personas (the scholarly, the bohemian)! Would consider suicide but knows her stupidities spring from liking someone too well. People always watching her, waiting for her to do something unusual. Feels superficial and useless where she is. Little brother Jack is the one consolation. Has been to a dance with Douglass and actually enjoyed it. Miner girls there. Met a Miss [Anna] Gayhardt and talked all night. Can't talk like this to Katharine [Weston], of course. Hopes to get up to Lincoln soon. Professor Bates very happy in his new job. Willa [Stout #24]
So glad she had Sarah Orne Jewett's poems printed. Delighted to receive a copy. Spent six months in the West this year and is in very good health. Is going to the dock today to see Arthur Foote's daughter off to join the ambulance service in France. Real happiness impossible until the war is over. Has not heard from Miss Guiney for a long time. Please write soon. Willa [Stout #376]
Went to her house a week ago to see if she could work there and has gone back every day since then. Very quiet and congenial. Sits in blue chair with big window open and writes on knee. Likes the big room, breeze coming in at the window. Very generous of her to offer the use of it. Meant to be at Taos, but Tony Luhan has been in hospital in Albuquerque and Mabel with him. Will go in early July, when Miss Foote will be there. Hopes her operation is done soon. Waiting is bad. Willa Cather [Stout #840]
So glad to hear from her. World seems to be going down a whirlpool. Hopes they can meet again before it drops to destruction. Remembers the past as being much happier. P.S.: Usually keeps her address secret, but is sending it to her. Willa Cather [Stout #1358]
Expected delightful dreams last night, for her mind was full of happy thoughts of the twins, but it was not to be: dreamed instead that a lion ate Margaret! Were all watching a circus parade and fondly observing Margaret in the cage with the lion, and then heard that she had been eaten! The grandparents fainted away, and then Cather woke up. Wants Roscoe to tell his family that she went to Mary Austin's house to work as soon as they left, and her Bishop was there awaiting her arrival. Has been steadily working since. Tony is hospitalized with a fever, which frightens his wife. (Spoke to her via a long distance phone call.) Will return to Taos July 4 or 5, when Mabel will have someone to tend the house while she's away. A friend from New York is arriving at that time. Is glad he saw Taos. May have a small house there herself someday, and his daughters can visit. Hopes he, Meta, and Elsie enjoyed the trip as much as she enjoyed being with them. Especially misses the children. PS: Hasn't seen Douglass. Please ask the girls to write and tell her what they enjoyed in New Mexico. Willie.
