Skip to main content

#0042: Willa Cather to Will Owen Jones, [September 7, 1897]

More about this letter…
Plain view:

Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions

Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.

Textual Feature Appearance
passage deleted with a strikethrough mark deleted passage
passage deleted by overwritten added letters overwritten passage
passage added above the line passage with added text above
passage added on the line passage with added text inline
passage added in the margin passage with text added in margin
handwritten addition to a typewritten letter typed passage with added handwritten text
missing or unreadable text missing text noted with "[illegible]"
uncertain transcriptions word[?]
notes written by someone other than Willa Cather Note in another's hand
printed letterhead text printed text
text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. printed text
text of date and place stamps stamped text
passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. written text
My Dear Mr. Jones1;

The Pittsburgh Leader3 wired me this morning to come at once to fill a position4 at $75.00 a month. I must get there next week5. Please send me transportation to Lincoln6 at once so that I can tarry there a few days7 before going east, and get me fixed for Chicago8 as soon as you can.

I almost hate to go just now. Have been writing stories9 and getting on at it better than I have ever been able to do before. But I don't dare let this chance slip. Somehow though I can do better work in stories down here than anywhere. I do the society act too much in Pittsburgh10. They don't often "take a stranger in" down there and I am as vain as all the rest of my sex and can't do the hermit act one bit. But dear me there is next summer and a lot of summers ahead, and in Pittsburgh there will be Calve11 and Bernhardt12 and all the rest of "the great, so I guess I'll go. Then I think it was awfully white of The Leader to send for me when Pittsburgh is full of unemployed reporters.

Yours Faithfully Willa Cather.