I've been, & still am, working at high pressure, as I haven't done since my first year on the Minneapolis Journal. I've done three weekly installments for the K.C. Journal-Post and the first appeared last Sunday (the 7th). The response has been more than I expected so soon. The Sunday Ed. says he hears "much admiring comment", & one chap wrote a letter to the Journal-Post, chortling with joy. Among other things he said: "If Neihardt can keep up this pace, his reviews & comment are destined to become a distinct contribution to the culture of the middle west" etc.
It looks good now.
I suppose you sent your 300 word article to Latham. I hope he will use it with what I sent. The whole business would make powerful propoganda - your explanatory article with the appreciations.
Golly! How I do hope you may be with Macmillans in two years! You'd like it. & you could do a lot of good. It's great to think about. I wish that damned Pulitzer Prize would go where it belongs this year! Then so much would be made easy.
Yes, Mary is "some kid", as you say. We're all glad to hear of her having gotten what she wants.
We are up in the air, as to moving and all that. Can't know much yet. But we'll hardly be here another winter. I love these hills, though, & shall miss them. Sig is making rapid progress in music - plays like the dickens, really: there's a devouring flame in him. He might arrive, & at any rate he must have a strong teacher soon. Enid too is making good progress. She's less brilliant in music than Sig, whose hands seem to know more than they should; but Enid is very steady & sure, & her playing is like her character. Sig is a flame in a high wind or nothing. The little devil dreams music, & all his consciousness is colored with the one intention. He said the other day: "Daddy, I want to go where all the people around me will be fools for music!" He's not "heady" at all. There's a very obvious humility about him whenever big things are to be considered. He heard Percy Grainger at Springfield lately, & since then he has made more rapid progress than ever.
300 lines on The Messiah. You bet you are to see it. Nothing prevents now but the task of typewriting. Enid is studying typing with an expert here - the touch system - & she swears she'll be my secretary. Hasten the day! The damned machine always did get my goat.
Why can't you say more about the Book? I want to know. But, of course, I've been away from you so long that you probably wouldn't know where to begin.
Jno.
United State[s Postage?] 2 Cen[ts 2?]
