Part 34 (1/2)

RICHARD

January 5, 1916

MY DEAREST ONE:

WHAT PICTURES! WHAT HAPPINESS! What a proud Richard! On top ofyesterday that I had had no sketches of yours, and no kodaks of Hope, eight caht, and oh! I am so proud, so homesick What a wonderful nurse andso lovable? And that she should be ours, to hold and to love, and to ht days in Paris, in and out, have made me so homesick for those I love, that you will never knohat the delays meant I felt just the way poor women feel who kidnap babies In the parks I know the nurse-maids are afraid of es, and stop and stand watching theht when all these beautiful pictures came, I was the happiest father anywhere

The delay was no one's fault, not mine anyway, nor can I bla to do anything for one, but it takes ti for their lives and have not seen their own babies in a year, that you want to see yours is only natural and to oblige you they can't see why they should upset the whole war But now it looks less as though I would have to call it a failure And Hope may be proud of h ammunition to draw on for many articles and letters, and another book

It has been a cruel tiet it over, and to be back with you, you will understand s The most important of all will be how I love you Only wait until I can lay eyes on you, you will just take one look and know that it couldn't be helped, that the delay was the work of others, that, all I wanted was my Bessie andlike the picture of her on the coverlet, she is a prize baby And if she is anything like as beautiful as in the baby carriage she is an angel straight froreen chair and have you on one knee and her majesty on the other, and have her cli my nose, and in tiht, dear heart, I wish you had had yourself in the picture I have three in the su her and that is the way I like to see you, that is the way I think of you I love you, and I love her foryou so happy, and I love her for her sake, and because she is OURS: and has tied us tighter and closer even than it has ever been I love you so that I can't write about it, and I a but just sit around, and be in everybody's atching you together

How jealous I am of you, and homesick for you Of course, she knows ”mamma” is YOU; and to look at you when they ask, ”Where's mother?”

Who else could be her mother BUT THE DEAREST WOMAN IN THE WORLD, and the one who loves her so, and in so wonderful a way She is beautiful beyond all things huhter, YOU DO, for you are the best of ht, my precious, dear one, and God keep you, as He will, and help ive me you never will know

RICHARD

CHAPTER XX

THE LAST DAYS

After a short visit to London, Richard returned to New York in February, 1916 During his absence his wife and Hope had occupied the Scribner cottage at Mount Kisco, about two miles from Crossroads Here my brother finished his second book on the war, and wrote nu the immediate necessity for preparedness in this country As to Richard's usefulness to his country at this time, I quote in part from two appreciations written after my brother's death by the two most prominent exponents of preparedness

Theodore Roosevelt said:

”He was as good an Aainst cruelty and injustice His writings form a text-book of Americanism which all our people would do well to read at the present time”

Major-General Leonard Wood said: