Part 29 (1/2)

I do not want a camera

I have one, and those fancy cameras I don't understand

The letters you forwarded onderfully well selected I mean, those froto reward our three heroic officers who julad There are NO mosquitoes! Haven't met up with but three and THEY are not COMING BACK

I send you a picture of my room from the outside From the inside the view is so ”pretty” Across the square is the cathedral and the trees are filled with birds that sing all night, and statues, and pretty globes The band plays every night and when it plays ”hello, Winter Time,” I CRY for you I paid the band-master 20 to play it, and it is WORTH IT I sit on the balcony and think of you and know just what you are doing, for there is only an hour and a half difference That is, ith you it is ten o'clock with ht-thirty So when you and Louise are at dinner you can know I a in froht-thirty you are playing the Victor, I a away the Colonels and Ad to my dear wife

VERA CRUZ, May 20th, 1914

DEAREST WIFE:

I got SUCH a bully letter yesterday froo from the Webster It said you missed me, and it said you lovedthe war and peace news each with a different expression, and you told h and how he runs down the road It lad to feel I was so missed Also you told me cheerful falsehoods about ood, and as they are no good, the shorter the better, but I like to be told they are good Anyway, I sat down at once and wrote a long screed on Vera Cruz and the sleepy people that five here

We all live on the sidewalk under the stone porch Every night a table is reserved and by my orders ALL chairs, except mine, are re Another trick I have to be left alone is to carry a big roll of cable blanks, and I pretend to write out cables if anyone tries to talk Then I beckon the er (he always sits in the plaza) and say ”File that!” and he goes once around the block and reports back that it is ”filed” If the bore renews the attack I write another cable, and the unhappy ht every night

There are five bands, and I saw no reason why there should not beAfter a day in this dirty hotel or dirty city a lively band helps Funston agreed, but forgot, until after three nights with no band, I wrote hi if he couldn't get nineteen Geret ten thousand soldiers into Mexico City So noe have a band each night That is allup chairs, or else I go to some other table There are some damn fool wo in the hotel adjoining, but I don't know theo parties because it keeps theees,” the sort of folks you meet at Ocean Grove, or rather DON'T h a pat fro forat home I love you so

RICHARD

VERA CRUZ, May 28, 1914

I want to be home to see the daisy field with you That knee you nearly busted tobogganing when the daisy field was an iceberg is now recovered

The one and all ca and as I expected it was all full of love froht you put in it

And all done in an hour The underclothes et none here Not because Mexicans are not as large as I am, but because no Mexican of any size would wear 'em So I've had to wash the few that the washer-woman didn't destroy myself And when I saw the lot you sent! It was like a white sale! Also the quinine which I tasted just for luck, and the soap in the little violet wrapper et socks and pongee suits, and shi+rts I really was getting desperate God knohat I would have done without them

I want to see you soof other days, I want to ith you in the daisy field, and in the laurel blosso to walk on broken glass Not you, too Just me

RICHARD

VERA CRUZ--June 4, 1914

DEAR OLD MAN:

I aet away Of course for lad that I am to see you and Dai At least, I hope I aet out of here I aht for two months before I will believe they etting good money, but also there is absolutely NOTHING to write about Bryan doesn't know that unless he talks by code every radio on sixteen shi+ps can read every e he sends to these waters And the State Depart up her cargo is a damn silly lie No one is so foolish as to think the Chester and Tacouns unless they had been told to subet papers of the 29th in which Bryan says he has twice cabled Badger for infor Bryan's orders to consuls to let the arms be landed Can you beat that? This is an awful place, and if I don't write it is because I hate to harrow your feelings It is a town of flies, filth and heat

John McCutcheon is the only friend I have seen, and he sensibly lives on a warshi+p I can't do that, as cables co specials, and I am not paid to loaf John is here on a vacation, and can do as he pleases But I ride around like any cub reporter And there is no news Since I left home I have not talked five minutes to a woman ”or mean to!” The Mexican women are a cross between apes and squaws Of all I have seen here nothing has iirls, children, s, grandees, as Collier would say it, are ”terrible!” I live a very lonely existence I find it works out that way best And at the saood friends, and I don't find that there is one of theo out of his way to SHOW he is friendly What I CAN'T understand is why no one at hoht like to read some of my own stories

dick

Of these days in Vera Cruz John T McCutcheon wrote the following shortly after Richard's death: