Letter from John G. Neihardt to Julius T. House, January 5, 1931

Jan 5, '31 Dear Comrade:

Your suggestion as to quitting the P-D is no "intrusion." Mona urges it constantly, and I accepted Morrow's contract with that in view. But I must still meet a minimum daily expense of $10, not counting rather sizeable periodical expenses which would raise the figure considerably. This will get better soon, & I save money as it is. I should be able to cut loose during the summer with a nice little sum of cash in addition to Morrow's thousand, 5 weeks of P-D pay after quitting & my stocks & insurance to back my future if necessary. Some people would feel like nobody in my place, but I know it's a dangerous world for one with so many dependents & two homes to keep running. (I'm deeply glad I have them - good & dear!)

Will drive to Manderson in the Gardner. Probably take the family & camp. At any rate will take Enid as secretary & Hilda for the good she will get from the experience. Sig will be in school in St. Louis yet — not out until July.

Then there are lectures offered. Guess I'd better take the jump & be doing something out of "the real world", as you say.

We have a rather beautiful home here now, & no debt. Want you to see it soon - especially after our new "beauty garden" gets going. W'e've developed this out of the ground adjoining our old lawn out the back. Its all planted & is ready for the grass.

There'll be a fountain with a gravel walk around it. There's a gravel drive through it on one side, leading out to the street. I have a hill-billy neighbor to work for me when there's heavy work to do. It was he who gave the name "beauty garden". He said, in the beginning: "How was you fixin fer to make yer beauty garden?" It's a bully name, we think. (I like hill billies)

The enclosed letter from John Myers O'Hara, one of the finest poets living, whom I've admired at a distance for twenty years at least, will interest you. Please return. The first was addressed, as you see, to the "Literary Editor", as he did not know who wrote the article on "Pagan Sonnets". (I commented on Paganism, pointing out that it is not identical with vulgarian hell-raising!) Then I replied to his note & he wrote to me, as you see. I get a lot of this sort of thing pretty regularly. Helps a day or two, but I soon forget the good feeling. My "Ghostly Brother" was an absolutely honest expression of the truth, as I think you yourself believe. No "poetizing" in it whatever, and I was compelled to write it. I remember how green sick it made me too — dizzy sick — tho' I was in fine physical condition then certainly.

Endless love, Jno.