*Oct. 8, 1917 (pm Oct. 9 – Douglas, AZ)
V. is very lonely and missing D. “…This is one night that I feel blue and I can’t explain why. I feel like I would like to pass out of the world and be forgotten. All that I have that I really do care to live for, Sweetheart is you and without you life would indeed be dreary.
“No, Sweetheart, I could hardly expect you to be content with a one room house, but as I said two rooms are as much as I would want for myself if I were taking care of them. I imagine that if I would cultivate a habit of putting my things in their correct places that a five room cottage would not be much bother. I had just as well live in the mountains in a tent as anywhere and if I were free to do as I wished I might spend a great deal of my time there.
[If I can be forgiven for inserting a bit of a song here:
I got a list of all these things that I'm fixing
I'd rather burn the place and sleep on the lawn
Our cozy home looks like a perfect picture
Only when I've been away too long...from Plain View by David Wilcox]
“Your saying that a person would have to offer you a much better salary to get you to give up work that you liked so well reminds me that 30 dollars isn’t such a bad raise. Then too if I were a railroad operator it would be much cheaper to live as I would be furnished a house of some description and board would not be over 30 dollars as compared with 45 dollars here. Of course as I said the work is not so interesting but I could save more and that is quite an item. If you could be happy I could be just as happy there as in town. I could buy a few cows also. I like to be where I can have a few milk cows and chickens and two or three hogs to butcher every winter. Still I have not made up my mind yet but will wait until later.
“Yes, I suppose that I will keep the black colt for you, but I had better see how he acts after he is broken. If the roan colt is anything like his mother he will hardly be safe for anyone to ride. Still I have not had much trouble with her except that she ran away with me twice and pitched once. I have very little trouble with any horse, but when Carl gets on May or Dolly he is always afraid. After seeing May pitch with me the last time he won’t ride her unless he has to. She won’t stand for him to mount her but I never have any trouble. I am afraid tho’ that the black colt won’t be very gentle at the beginning. Big Horse will be the only real gentle one, and if she is like her mother, she will be gentle enough to let children ride. I have three more, but I haven’t any idea what they will do. The Duchess, May’s colt may be gentle like her sister Teddy or may be like her old “ma” and paw the moon every jump she makes. By the way you had a picture of her, but she is a full grown mare almost now and nearly as pretty a piece of horseflesh as Dolly. You can see from the length of this paragraph that I am interested in my horses.
“If I had a million dollars I would probably buy horses with it and if I turned them all to mama she would trade them all for a setting hen or something else because she hasn’t any use for horses. They are not ready cash like cattle, but there is more money in them when a person does sell and I like to handle them…
“Sweetheart, do you realize that it will not be very long until I will be 24 and not very much longer until you will be 23. It won’t be very long until both of us will have passed youth and will be over what is considered the flower of our lives and will be on the far side of the divide. Of course from 28 to 45 are the years in which people become really settled, but then Darling I hope it will not be very long until we can be together and can spend the few years left of our youth together. I am beginning to feel old for I realize how quickly the previous years have passed and now, forty, which used to appear so far in the future seems only within the reach of a short time…
Your own Verne
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