In the matter of the cabin up in the Hills, I want to say that my mother will be there, and she can cook stuff that tastes as good as anything I ate at Sherry's while in your village. As to the bath, you could take a tumble into our trout stream most any evening, and I think I could enjoy such a souse better than I did several Turkish baths I got in little old Manhattan. If you insist, I will have a phonograph up there to play you to sleep (?) every night with the choicest selections from light opera.
The book will be out the 25th of this month, and Davis gets one of them before the mucilage is dried!
You ask why I don't send in any more short stories. I have been doing a series of stories for the American Magazine, and have already dragged $600 out of them for four stories. I want to make them part with a few more before I let go. They are giving me the best illustrators. Several other magazines have been asking me to contribute, kindly explaining to me why it would be to my advantage to appear in their pages. I don't want to force my stories. They must grow naturally. I have a few of my old stories yet to be published, and after that everything I do must be strong. And, believe me, it will be so.
As you know, I am not the sort of a cuss to write often for Munsey's. They require stories that I can't write without cramping myself. They do not allow the real language of real men in their pages. In the "Alien" they rather disfigured my leading character by making him say "dern" and "darn" when no such character ever spoke in that way. I don't blame them at all; I know they are obliged to do this for the sake of their readers. But I don't like it.
I have no objection to the manner in which my stories have been printed in the other Munsey publications; but I am aware of the fact that you are not allowed to pay as much for stories as I can get elsewhere.
This is written personally to Robert H. Davis, the friend of the Little Buffalo. You are the man who gave me a start in New York, and you are the last man in the world who would want me to stand in my own light.
I might turn out a Munsey story most any time; and you bet I'll trot it around to the Flatiron for inspection when it gets on paper. The stories I am doing now could not possibly get into Munsey's; and this is nothing against either Munsey's or the stories.
You see where I stand, don't you?
I believe I'm going to win ultimately, for I can feel big stories trotting about in my head. When I do win, be sure that I will remember the man who took me in when I was a stranger. That's you.
Jno. Neihardt.
