Dear Bessie:

   You know, I have been badly disappointed today. That dad-blasted mine has been sold twice and has come back to me both times because the brother of the man who owns the land the thing is on happens to own the adjoining mill and wants my mine to run through it. (Can you comprehend that Dutch statement?) There is a Bertha M. Clay plot connected with the thing. The men from whom the magnificent Mr. Culbertson made his purchase are bitter enemies of the Commerce Mining & Royalty Co., the richest outfit in the Oklahoma mining district. The Royalty Co. owns the land. The people we bought from owned the lease. Now the lease is going to quit very shortly and I had been led to believe that I could get another if the mill were running. I went to see the president of the Royalty Co. yesterday and he told me that he was of the opinion that he'd let his brother run the dirt from that mine through his mill, which is the adjoining one to mine and called the Lost Trail. My sale fell down because he said that, hence my happy feeling this evening. I still hope to arrange another lease because the former Grandview banker whom I never cared for very much is going to work for the Royalty Co. in the capacity of cashier of their new bank. I hope to be able to hand him a line of conversation that will cause him to make Mr. Robinson see me on this lease. (Robinson is the Royalty Co.'s president.) Maybe he can; maybe he won't. If not then it's the sheriff for the mine, unless I can ring in our friend J. S. from Ardmore. He hates mines and at present seems to love oil. Hope he stays that way except in one instance.

   I seem to have a grand and admirable ability for calling tails when heads come up. My luck should surely change. Sometime I should win. I have tried to stick. Worked, really did, like thunder for ten years to get that old farm in line for some big production. Have it in shape and have had a crop failure every year. Thought I'd change my luck, got a mine, and see what I did get. Tried again in the other long chance, oil. Still have high hopes on that, but then I'm naturally a hopeful, happy person; one of the "Books in brooks, Tongues in trees, and Good in everything" sort of guy. Most men are liars-I'm one myself on occation (I'm not sure but that's sion)-and they all are where there's money in it. I was very, very impressionable when I was a kid and I believed all the Sunday school books and idealist dope we were taught and it's taken me twenty-odd years to find that Mark is right when he says that the boy who stole the jam and lied about it and killed the cat and sassed his ma, grew up and became a highly honored citizen and was sent to Congress, is absolutely right. The poor gink who stands around and waits for someone to find out his real worth just naturally continues to stand, but the gink who toots his horn and tells 'em how good he is makes 'em believe it when they know he's a bluff and would steal from his grandma.

   I don't believe that. I'm just feeling that way now. If I can't win straight, I'll continue to lose. I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have you to love and to know that when I've arrived at a sensible solution of these direful financial difficulties I've gotten into, that I'll have the finest, best-looking, and all the other adjectives in the superlative girl in the world to make the happiest home in the world with. Now isn't that a real heaven on earth to contemplate? I think it is and I know I'll have just that in the not far off future, unless it is necessary for me to get myself shot in this war-and then I'll still find you somewhere. I dreamt that you and I were living in Rome when togas were the fashion. I am always dreaming of you. I'm never anywhere in a dream or out of it that I don't imagine you there, too. Last night I thought I was in an airplane in France. I fell about 17,000 feet and didn't get much hurt and I was idiot enough to weep because I couldn't see you in the hospital. It seemed that you were outside and they wouldn't let you in. Some dream, what? (I had a cheese omelet for supper.) I'm going to eat one every night.

   You'll sure enough be bored when you get this if you do. But I just had to have a conversation with you. I can never say what I feel when I see you and anyway when a hardheaded American citizen gets to spouting his heart actions in Laura Jean Libby periods he just simply feels like an idiot and I do, but I mean all I've said about you and I'll keep hoping that J. S. Mullen stays by us till we get a gusher-and I can really show you how much I care.

   Hope to see you right soon. Will have to go home tomorrow night to get a new set of collars, etc., as my grip has all second-handed ones. Can I come over Tuesday night? Just remember how crazy I am about you and forget all the rest.

Most sincerely,

Harry