Grandview 1915
Dear Bess:
I got your letter this morning and I can tell you I most certainly appreciated it. I am very glad you like the flowers and only wish they could have been more. If I could have been in town I'd have sent you some fresh ones every day. I am hoping that you'll be up very soon so I can get to see you. It has been so long since I last saw you that it seems like a year. If you don't hurry and get well, Mr. Warfield is going to get by. They tell me that Blanche Ring is as fine as ever at the Orpheum.
I have finally succeeded in getting Uncle Harry home. He remarked when he got here that he was either awful sick or awful drunk, one. It was a combination. The doctor has succeeded in getting him sober and we hope to keep him that way for some time to come. I was in the city Saturday and it did seem entirely wrong not to go to Independence anyway. I sent you a little bunch of homegrown sweet violets. They told me that they are more fragrant than the California variety. I like violets better than any other kind of flowers both to eat and to look at. I shall try and send you some more before the week is out.
We are having a mostly lovely snow out this way. I am hoping it keeps up. Mrs. Chas. H. Lester has asked Mary and me to come out there to dinner tomorrow evening but I fail to see how I'm going to make it over roads like they are now. Old Liz hasn't been out since Thursday when I brought Uncle Harry home. This is the longest rest she's had for some time. I've got to put her back in the factory. She is suffering from a worse knock than ever. It seems that experts are experts only in getting money out of people. They expert an engine all to pieces and do it up again only to find it won't run any better than it would before. They also charged me up with thirty hours labor at seventy-five cents an hour. I don't know how they got it in as the car was only there a day and a half. Charging and getting are two altogether different processes. I am going to jaw with them some even if I have to pay in the end.
I am supposed to take active charge of the post office today but I haven't done it. The thing is a white elephant on my hands. Every person in Grandview who could possibly run the thing has asked me for the privilege of doing it. I have had the efficiency gag, the poor widow who is the only support of her family, the plain, easy-money one, and every other hand drawn on me to get the job. I have so far turned a deaf ear to all of them and allowed the boy I promised it to to keep it. There's no telling what I may do if they keep on. Political promises are no good anyway and I may break mine yet. I have an idea that I'll simply resign and let ‘em fight it out all over again among themselves.
I am hoping to see you before the week goes by again. When you get well you've simply got to give me another picture of yourself so I can have one downstairs and one up. It's right unhandy to chase upstairs every day to see how you look. Here's hoping to see the original before long.
Most sincerely, Harry