I certainly intended to write you much sooner than this, if for no other reason than to express in writing my appreciation of your great kindness to me while I was in Omaha lately. If I had thought of you merely as people who had entertained me, I supposed I would have written sooner for the sake of formality; but I don't think of you in that way. It's always a bit difficult to get back into the swing of the "Song" after my trips, and that troubles me so much that I think of nothing else until "it" begins to happen again. Well, "it" has been happening rather briskly now for two weeks, and I'm quite happy. I think I never wrote better than I am writing now, and I'm making better speed than normal - something over 100 lines in two weeks. There's a bull fight in progress, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Got some lines, the other day that I wouldn't sell for a pocketful of cash!
Have you seen the portait? If so, please let me know how it strikes you. The judge tells me that he hopes to have it unveiled early in December. I hope it may be unveiled about that time, as my mother will be on her way to Minneapolis early next month, and I'd like to have her see the doings. That would give her pleasure.
I have read the sonnet you gave me, Mrs. Masters - read it a good many times. I like it very much. There are in it a few difficulties that are not wholly overcome, and if I were there I'd enjoy discussing them with you. It is just such little problems that often hold me back a whole day, tho' there are always many easy and unsatisfactory ways out. It is by solving such little problems that one is able to get a free flow in the verse.
But I do sincerely like the sonnet - the spirit of it and much of the expression.
It is probable that I'll pass through Omaha some time in January. I'm looking forward to that reading before the Order of Indian Wars in Washington and I hope nothing may happen to keep me away. Can't see anything in the way just now.
We've had some heavy rains here lately, after a regular [brick-kiln?] of a summer, and the grass thinks its springtime - so does our little cow. But it isn't! You'll be sending us a norther one of these days; but even at that, there won't be any real winter. The wind loses most of its teeth before it reaches us.
Jno. Neihardt Mr. and Mrs. Masters. Omaha.
