by Willa Cather
And am I to believe, my dear Carrie, that you are actually directing the management of all five farms! And this with all your Red Cross work! Yes, I wish Walter [Sherwood] could have known how his judgment would be justified by future events. One of the best things that President Roosevelt ever did was to establish that bank moratorium—which certainly weeded the sheep from the goats, and threw a spotlight on the men who were crooked and the men who were straight.
I am not exaggerating, Carrie, when I confide to you that I would rather go home to Red Cloud than to any of the beautiful cities in Europe where I used to love to go. But so many sad things have happened—and so many painful things. I am sure you will remember the pleasant morning when I said good-by to you, both of us sitting in the back parlor of my father’s house, where everything was still the same. Ever since my gall bladder operation I have been pretty weak on the emotional side. I am sure you realize, as my brother Roscoe always did, that things have always hit me very hard. I suppose that is why I never run out of material to write about. The inside of me is so full of dents and scars, where pleasant and unpleasant things have hit me in the past. I do not so much invent as I remember and re-arrange. And I remember unconsciously. Faces, situations, things people said long ago simply come up from my mind as if they were written down there. They would not be there if they hadn’t hit me hard. My working faculty does not seem to be knocked out, because last summer, up in Maine, when I could first use my right hand again, I worked very happily, and enjoyed it so much!. But I still have to lead a very quiet life and avoid getting too much excited. If I get stirred up, the reaction is very bad physically. It isn’t my blood pressure—blood pressure perfectly normal—but I don’t sleep, get awfully weak, and begin to weep, just like poor Mollie [Ferris] used to do!! I laugh at myself, but I just weep on! If Dr. Creighton were there, he would tell you it is nervous exhaustion, and that’s what my doctors say.
I am writing dear Mariel Gere that I can not come to her for the fiftieth anniversary of our class graduation. She has written me such a lovely letter asking me to come and stay with her, in their dear old house that was a second home to me all through the days when I went to the university. I shall have to answer her affectionate letter in the negative—just because the excitement and emotional stir‑up of such a reunion would take the strength out of me from head to foot. It doesn’t at all grieve me to be unable to attend this reunion (though I would love to be with Mariel Gere in her house again), but it does grieve me very deeply to feel that I would really not be well enough to go down to Red Cloud.
I have had a very quiet but very happy winter, in spite of the shortage of help. We have an excellent woman who can give us only four hours a day, but she is a fine person and does a wonderful lot of work in four hours. All my friends have been kind and considerate—I see “as much company as I can enjoy”, and no more. Yehudi and his wife have been so kind and thoughtful, and come to sit by the fire and have a cup of tea with me, though I cannot now have jolly little dinners for them, as I used to, simply because we have no cook. Our maid comes at ten, gets us an excellent lunch, and leaves at two. Sometimes I have Helen Louise for lunch. I think Mary wrote me that you all liked her. I think her a very sweet girl, and I like her husband.
This is only the beginning of a letter, you will get Volume II one of these days.
Very lovingly, and with happy memories,
Willie
In a short note at the end of April accompanying her royalty check, Greenslet wrote how impressed he was at the continued steady sales of Song of the Lark and My Ántonia.
TO FERRIS GREENSLET
May 9, 1945
Dear F.G.,
Thank you for your kind letter. I am naturally pleased that the two books you mentioned hold up so well. Probably O Pioneers would do just as well, if Houghton Mifflin had not seen fit to sell many hundred copies at one dollar apiece some fifteen or twenty years ago. You remember your business office was then very keen for selling Antonia in Liggett’s Drug Stores at one dollar a copy, and I managed to save Antonia by substituting O Pioneers. I think my judgment has been supported by subsequent developments.
Now to the real purpose of this letter. Can you tell me whether Ford Madox Ford is still living? He wrote and circulated a very false and silly story about a visit which Isabel[le] McClung and I made to Housman long ago, when I was twenty-four and Isabel[le] twenty-one. This entirely untrue story has been repeated in many articles and prefaces which have been floating about lately. As for myself, I never thought it worth while to deny any of this gossip, but the surviving members of Isabel[le]’s family object to it and blame me for not having refuted it. I think there is nothing for me to do but to write a truthful and accurate story of that innocent visit (made on a summer afternoon), which was really very pleasant.
I know you do not like to admit unpleasant facts about anyone—and you prefer to turn them off with a joke, which is a comforting philosophy to live by. But you must admit that Ford Madox Ford was seldom able to tell the truth about anything. I found that out once during a long stay in London. The Galsworthys warned me as to this failing of his, apropos of his yarns about his intimacy with Conrad. If the man is alive, I would not wish to say flatly that the original story was started by an irresponsible person.
Faithfully yours,
Willa Cather
Ford Madox Ford died in 1939. Cather never published an account of her visit to A. E. Housman.
TO SIDNEY FLORANCE
May 16, 1945
Dear Sidney Florance:
When I asked my niece, Helen Louise, whether she thought I had one real friend left among the business men of Red Cloud, she thought for a moment and then said very decidedly, “I do believe Mr. Florance is a real friend.” Now to a real friend, I would like to explain briefly why my investments in Nebraska real estate turned out so unfortunately.
As soon as my books began to make money, I sent nearly all of it to my father to invest for me in Nebraska farm loans. I thought he knew the land and the farms pretty well, and it gave him so much pleasure to invest for me. At that time, I think, none of his other children were sending any money home. While he liked to read my early books, it was a matter of great pride to him to feel that they were worth real money to a considerable number of people. That went further with him than pleasant press notices, and it was a great pleasure to me to have him feel that satisfaction. I remember that the first check I sent him (I think it was for the first year’s royalties on “One of Ours”) was twenty-five thousand dollars. Father made a number of loans for me and always saw that the interest was kept up. I did not realize that it might be a burden to him, to attend to these farm loans. I did not realize, indeed, that he was every year growing older. Whenever I went home he was just the same.
One summer he remarked to me quite casually that he had handed all my mortgages over to Will Auld [James W. Auld], as his own memory had failed very much and Mr. Auld could take care of them much better than he.
I have always been proud of myself that I took this information with perfect calmness until I got to my own room, then I sat down and wondered what I could do. I had always distrusted Mr. Auld—not that I would then have accused him of outright dishonesty, but I knew that he was small and mean and I hate to do business with people of that kind. I could see no course of action open for me. If I had taken the papers out of the State Bank, it would have made Father very unhappy and it would have created further friction between Mr. Auld and my sister [Jessica; she and Auld were divorced in 1933]—where the situation was already bad enough. There just was nothing that I could do without making unhappiness in my family. I was well and strong and was doing the sort of work I loved, so I decided to take no action at all and let the matter ride.
Now I am telling you all this, Mr. Florence, because I would hate to have you think that I am such a natural-born idiot, or that my father was so stupid as to have loaned fifty-seven hundred dollars to Guy Henderson on land where th
ere never was a well—nor enough real soil to raise beans. Neither Father nor I ever loaned Guy Henderson a penny. Other loans which Father made were paid off to the State Bank, and reinvested for the exclusive convenience of the Bank. I am burdening you with these details because I really don’t want my friends to think me more stupid than I am.
Publishing, too, has its business side, and I have never had any trouble with it.
Now I can come to the point. I want to get rid as quickly as possible of any land I own or hold under mortgage in Nebraska. One reason is that the Internal Revenue people make so much trouble about accepting my statements on the income and output on these few farms that the tax ordeal, even with the help of an attorney, cuts into my own professional work. My working hours have been cut down considerably by illness, but I would have had a new book out this fall if the income tax people had not bothered me so.
Clearly, the thing to do is to get rid of the farms in Nebraska on which I now hold mortgages. My brother Roscoe has for some time urged me to do this. If you and Mr. [Willard] Crowell will be kind enough to look into my box, you can soon find on which farms I hold a mortgage. And I will be deeply grateful if you will advise me how to proceed with the disposition of these farms. Mr. Crowell has been the kindest of friends in looking after the places for me, and I trust his judgment absolutely. But I feel sure that looking after these places has become quite a burden to him, since the serious accident which kept him in the hospital so long.
Although it may have been tedious for you to read this long letter, it will not be tedious for you to answer it. What I really want is the name of some institution or person who would be willing to undertake the disposal of these farms for me. You have a progressive real estate agent in Red Cloud, I gather from the paper, Mr. Frame, but I do not like his style of advertising very well.
I am sure Howard Foe would be able to give us all sound advice in this closing-up. Perhaps he would be willing to take charge of any legal matters in connection with the foreclosures or sale of these farms.
I will be very glad to not only pay the usual charges for services of this kind, but to pay a liberal bonus in order to get the farms off my hands as quickly as possible.
Faithfully yours,
[Unsigned carbon copy]
TO ROSCOE CATHER
July 30 [1945]
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
Dear Brother;
I have been here for three weeks but I have been working awfully hard and enjoying it. That is why you haven’t heard from me. Work takes more out of me than it used to—a great deal more. But I enjoy it more than anything else. I have a funny little room in the attic here, with a sloping ceiling, like my “rose bower” in our old first house. Do you remember? I can always work best in a low room under the roof. All my best books were written in Jaffrey N.H. in a little room where I could almost touch the ceiling with my hand. I feel afraid in a big room. I like to be snug.
Lovingly
Willie
TO SIDNEY FLORANCE
August 11 [1945]
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
Dear Sidney Florance;
I have written Mr. Crowell according to your kind suggestion—asking him to get three thousand two hundred for the Osborne place if he can, otherwise to let it go for three thousand.
Since I wrote Mr. Crowell the atomic bomb has sent a shudder of horror (and fear) through all the world, and one’s own little affairs seem scarcely worth thinking about.
Perhaps the enclosed clipping was syndicated in the Chicago papers. Do not return it. Throughout this war I have found Major [George Fielding] Eliot the best commentator and the best forecaster.
Faithfully & Gratefully yours
Willa Cather
Roscoe Cather died on September 4, 1945. The following letter was written before Cather received the news of his death.
TO ROSCOE CATHER
September 5, 1945
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
My dear Roscoe,
I am sending you a letter from young? Joe Pavlick, who has bought the Osborn farm. I do not think I ever got a fan letter that pleased me so much as this funny honest scrawl from the son of old Joe Pavlick. You will remember him and his father well. You will also remember the time when old Joe and his son bought their first buggy, and young Joe drove over to our house to take me buggy riding. I had seen a good deal of him in Father’s office and always tried to be friendly toward the poor clumsy lad. But, you know, in Red Cloud, in those days, taking a young girl buggy riding was a very definite gesture. On this occasion I ran up and hid in the attic and left poor Mother to deal with Joe. She always had great tact and presence in handling the common people so I expect she gave me a pretty good alibi. You must send me back Joe’s letter as I want to keep it for the nice things he says about Father. I am sure he means that with all his hard-working, honest nature.
I won’t have any very definite address for a couple weeks—it depends on weather and various things—but I will be in New York before the first of October and I will telegraph you as soon as I get there. So keep Joe’s funny letter and sen[d] it to me when you know I am again at 570 Park Avenue.
Lovingly
Willie
TO META SCHAPER CATHER
September 7 [1945]
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
There is nothing I can say, dear Meta. Several times in my life I [had] bitter losses, but never before have I felt heart-broken—felt that things were done for me. Roscoe was the only one of my family who felt about things as I did, and he was the only one who saw, from the beginning, what I was trying to do. He was my best critic, because he knew both ends of the process; knew the material, and what I had been able to do with it, or had failed in the handling. He knew me better than I knew myself. He knew all his family better than I did, but he was more wise and charitable about them. The fact is that now I have no one to judge me, no one to tell me if I am off the true pitch—no other judgment that I care a bang about.
I got your telegram on the same afternoon that the typist brought me back the letter I had dictated to Roscoe in the morning. I am sending it to you.
At the same time the typist brought the typed copy of the new story she had just finished [“The Best Years”]. It was to go to him by the next mail. It is about our childhood. I can’t bear to look at it now.
When you can, please write me what you are going to do.
Don’t act too quickly. Since he was ill you have lived so entirely for him–––you won’t know what you do want for awhile. Call on me for anything that I can do—for me it will be just as if I were doing it for Roscoe. If ever a man was one with his wife, he was.
I just can’t bear it, dear, this using the past tense to write about him. I would have been with you this summer, or on the way to you, if Roscoe hadn’t written me again and again not to try west-bound trains.
I shall never forget all you did for him.
Lovingly
Willie
TO VIRGINIA, MARGARET, AND ELIZABETH CATHER
September 10, 1945
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
Dear Virginia, Margaret, and Elizabeth:
I write you because I knew your father so much longer than you knew him, so much longer than even your mother knew him. We were close together in years and close together in sympathy from the beginning. There was a time when I first graduated from the University of Nebraska (and a poor school it was!) when Roscoe and I were put in a hard position for young people. You have heard, probably, that in the year 1893 all the crops in the state were burned up. My father had a big farm under cultivation. Fortunately he gave up operating it, for this drought continued for nearly ten years. And then was the time when things were very hard at home in Red Cloud. Your grandfather took an office position with the Security Investment Company in Lincoln. Your grandmother spent a good deal of time up there with him. I got my first newspaper job in Pittsbur
gh and sent home as much of my salary as I could. Your father stayed on in Red Cloud as Principal of the South Ward School. He was practically the father and protector of the younger children. I am quite sure your Aunt Elsie and your Uncle Jim and Uncle Jack can never forget his protecting kindness.
While I was working in Pittsburgh, the newspaper people always managed to get my transportation back to Lincoln in the summer so that I always had a few weeks at home in the summer time and Roscoe was always there. We shared our responsibilities and talked over the prospects for the younger ones and wondered how we were to get along through the world at all. Things looked very dark but we were always so happy to be together that we carried the troubles rather lightly.
When I had any free time I was always writing a little, simply because it interested me more than any other form of recreation—I wrote just as people who are really fond of music love to strum on the piano. Your father was always then and ever afterward my soundest and best critic. I used to think he knew the inside of my head better than I did. We always met at home every summer until your father married and went to Wyoming. Then there were several years when we were separated,—but only by distance. I went to England and to France working my way along by newspaper correspondence. By this time I had a fairly good position in the Pittsburgh High School as head of the English Department.