Dear Mrs. Aly:

Here is really great news! I've just heard, after 60 years, from my old pal — the best I ever had — John Chaffee! He lives only 50 miles north of your! His address is: John E. Chaffee K. P. Apartment #4, Albany, Oregon. John was my pal (and only public when I was writing Chalboa (dedicated to him) and The Wizard of the Wind. These, as I think you know, were "epics" (!!) and I destroyed them. John was my only public excepting prof Durrin & my ardent fan when I was doing The Divine Enchantment. I had the typed MS with me in 1898 when John and I were on a hobo trip from K. C. to Sumner, Mo. and back. The M. S. was my most precious possession. The story of our doings is at least as good as Tom Sawyer's and Huck Finn's. It's a whale of a story of self-imposed hardships, fun, and happy hell-raising. We were alive from our toes to the tops of our heads. We never did any harm to anyone, not even ourselves. We invented adventures.

You should see old John. He lost his wife last August and is lost. They were married 55 years.

This is a piece of good fortune — a big piece out of my early life when I was all hope and longing.

What John may have forgotten, I know I'll remember. It is all so vivid, and so good to recall. Is there a finer relationship (excepting only perfect marriage) than such comrade-ship?

Kindest from us here to you there

John Neihardt