NEW YORK, May 29, 1890.
This is just a little good night note to say how I wish I
was with you down at that dear old place and how much I love
you and Nora who is getting lovelier and sweeter and prettier
everyday and I know a pretty girl when I see 'em, Fides, for
instance. But I won't tease you about that any more.
I finished a short silly story to night which I am in
doubt whether to send off or not. I think I will keep it
until I read it to you and learn what you think.
Mr. Gilder has asked me to stay with them at Marion, and
to go to Cambridge with Mrs. Gilder and dear Mrs. Cleveland
and Grover Cleveland, when he reads the poem before D. K. E.
I have bought a book on decorations, colored, and I am
choosing what I want, like a boy with a new pair of boots.
Good-night, my dearest Mama.
DICK.
In addition to his regular work on The Evening Sun,
my
brother, as I have already said, was devoting a great part, of
his leisure moments to the writing of short stories, and had
made a tentative agreement with a well-known magazine to do a
series of short
sketches of New York types. Evidently fearful that Richard
was writing too much and with a view to pecuniary gain, my
mother wrote the following note of warning:
