August 16, 1927, Rockville Center, New York, to El Paso

Sunday, Aug. 14 Dear Helen : Your picture arrived and thats why I am writing. I haven't been worth a whoop since and knew I wouldn't until I did write. It really is lonely. I can't help writing to speak to it and it is so easy to slip into the deepest reverie, I think it must on the borderland of insanity. I appreciate it and the fact that you are not to have revenge this time. It is a pity that you should be deprived of anything so sweet. That last letter I sent may all have been in the right spirit but somehow it has been irritating. I apologize for it. Accept belated congratulations on your position for next year. It will make all the difference in the world and I know you can hold the job. It should be a lot more fun, too. At least I believe the pupils' whims should be a little more brainy. Anyway should you think you're failing, give them all A's and I don't imagine you will have one complaint. (Then send them to Smith). There's been not a thing stirring hereabouts, excepting a couple of murders in the negroe settlements. They sho' muss be unusually adept with doze razors heah! The Paramount Chorus sang the Volga Boatman the other evening and tho the setting was no where near like at Hamp I couldn't help enjoying it very much. By the way, if it's so hot out there that your pen burns you at touch, I'll have to see about inventing some sort of a “Frigidaire ” appliance for them to accommodate the Texas populace. I'm not bristling but I do want you comfortable like. But when a sunset, which is the only beauty I see here most of the time, passes on, thats a day. I get a letter and a picture from you and thats a week. I can't help wondering if whatever brain training I am about to receive will mean only a year. And then if a little struggling and attempted service will mean a life. Things are easily reduced to a gloomy rut if one isn't careful and somehow I seem particularly susceptible of late. But, honestly, I would perjure or sell my soul if you could only tell me you loved me right now. Perhaps Tagore would make me out a feminine man for this admission, but my beard is getting tougher every time I shave. But, somehow, at this moment I feel more inclined towards Mrs. Bertrand Russel than ever. As to me, tomorrow, I don't know. My dislike for the place has been growing steadily since I've stopped working with Bob and Bill. Dad seems more than eager to have me mosey home, Pronto! And my brother gets home from summer school today, so I think that if my convictions keep growing I'll be away in the morning and the pick and shovel that I have burned the handles from can lay idle for all of me. This summer has been an experience at any rate, but New York and its night life don't make me thrill with joy when I think of that as a nightly experience. I can't help but think of Edna St. Vincent Milay's candle with its “lovely light” I and the buddies went to the Rockville Center movies tonite and what a show. I feel as lonely as a cat on a top sail. I certainly would like to have you here. You'd be hilarious over the shack. God, I can picture you looking at it. We took some pictures of it today and if they come out all right (It was cloudy) I'll send you a birds-eye view. We've had September morn bathing in an 8 ft. brook each morning and night but that's all I'll say about living conditions. I enjoyed it all at first but its hardship now. I don't see why I should hang on any way since Bill and Bob leave in two weeks anyway. If something diverting turns up I may take it but I've had enough muscle training for one summer I think. At least I don't seem to be gaining strength any longer. When they start talking about seeing their women again I get nervous any way so I might just as well drag before the scheduled separation. (I guess I've convinced myself now; sorry I took it out on you.) That makes it time to quit any way. Thanks awfully for the picture and for the rest jusq 'au revoir, Ted.