Letters of E. B. White
Page 26
Our guest rooms are all on the north side. Nobody lasts long in them. Don’t forget to put some anti-freeze mixture in your car radiator and drink some yourself. I don’t know whether you own any woolen underdrawers, because it is none of my business, but they are the only kind that do any good. I have never worn an overcoat since coming here to live. It is all done with woolen underdrawers. Remember my warning never to visit me between the first and the tenth of any month!
EBW
To CHARLES G. MULLER
North Brooklin, Maine
[January 18, 1940]
Dear Charlie:
It’s a little bit sharp here today (3° below), and is a nice time for answering letters dated December 7 and like that. All in all we have had a mighty good winter so far, with only one thaw that amounted to anything. The Old Farmer’s Almanac hit it right on the button, too.
This morning the cove is skimmed over with ice, and if we get snow within the next couple of days, there is a good chance that the bay will freeze clear across, much to the distress of the scallop draggers and the smelt fishermen. Even now the C.G. cutter Kickapoo is breaking ice at the entrance to Patten Bay, over in Surry, so the smelt colony won’t be left holding a dead fishline.
(Later) I was interrupted by the necessity of transporting our two dachshunds to Bluehill, for an appointment with their doctor. We have two dachshunds, now. One wasn’t enough trouble. They both have ear mites—which are invisible parasites, forerunners of ear canker. Quite a lot of my time goes into transporting things here. I drive Joe to school every morn at eight, and return with a loaf of cracked wheat bread and a package of Brillo. I transport the cook to the movies, and the sow to boar. I carry dry shavings by the truckload (I now own a truck), cordwood from the woodyard, rugs to the dry cleaner, and old cedar fence-rails for building yoke fences. I am always carrying something—a burdensome life, but kind of soothing. My sheep are soothing, too. They come up out of the pasture at this time of year and stand around in the barn, and that is very soothing to me, to see sheep standing around, waiting. Quite a few of my ewes look as though they would have early lambs, and all are thrifty. I have begun graining them—feeding out a mixture of five parts oats, three parts whole corn, one part bran, and one part linseed oil meal. I am as fussy with a mixture like that as with a mixture of gin and French vermouth. My poultry operations have expanded considerably since you were here: I have a large laying house and a flock of would-be layers that turned and bit me in mid season. It was the most stinging defeat of my life, for I put a good deal of my energy into the project, raised the birds by hand from infancy, ranged them on green range, groomed them for the battle, designed and built the house, and saw them go into production in early September looking like a million dollars and shelling out in great shape. All of a sudden some little thing went wrong and they began coming apart, the way pullets do when the vitamins don’t add up right, or when a couple of them get going to the bathroom too often. From forty dozen eggs a week I slid off to about fourteen dozen, and cannibalism began taking its ugly toll. Ah welladay! A man learns a lot in a year, if he hangs around animals.
Well, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer, as it is 10:05, five minutes past my bedtime. If I don’t get my sleep here, I am sunk. When a man’s whole year’s work with hens goes wrong, there’s only thing for it—plenty of sleep.
Andy
To JOEL WHITE
The Grosvenor
35 Fifth Avenue
New York
[June 23, 1940]
Sunday
Dear Joe:
From my hotel window I can see the apartment building on Eighth Street where we used to live when you were a baby. I can also see the trees of Washington Square, and the backyards of the houses on Ninth Street with their little gardens of potted plants and trellises. The Sixth Avenue Elevated is gone, and New York looks very different on that account. People still like to come out in their sun-suits on Sunday morning and sun themselves in their roof gardens, and they still spend a good deal of time taking dogs out for a walk, not realizing how lucky they are that there are no porcupines. Everybody that I talk to is very gloomy about the war and about the defeat of France, but that is true everywhere today. In Radio City, where we used to skate, there is an open-air restaurant, with people sitting at little tables under big green umbrellas. The fountain is going and makes a great noise.
How has everything been going in Maine? I miss you a lot and wish I could be there right now, although my hay fever bothers me less in the city than in the country. Is Barney1 coming to cut the hay? I hope so. And did you get any Barred Rock chicks from Mr. Sylvester?2 Tell me all about these things, and whether you have caught any fish.
There is a church right opposite the hotel, and every afternoon the chimes ring at about five o’clock when people are coming home from work. It reminds me of being a student at Cornell, where the chimes in the library tower used to ring every afternoon toward the end of day. I suppose right now the bell in the church in Brooklin is ringing, too, five hundred miles from here.
Tell Mother that everything is going along all right, and that I’ll try to get a good deal of work done in the next few days so that I’ll be able to be back in Maine soon. I’m still hoping that you and I can take a little camping trip this summer, so you better keep your ax sharpened up and your boots oiled. I hope you’ll help Mother as much as you can while I’m away. Give my love to her and to everybody, and write me if you get time.
Affectionately,
Dad
To IK SHUMAN
North Brooklin
[August 3, 1940]
Saturday
Dear Ik:
I think it would be very nice if I could have my two weeks vacation starting the 12 of August. What does my vacation mean? Does it mean somebody else does the newsbreaks, or does it mean I let them accumulate for two weeks to give myself the sensation of a vacation without really getting one? With the exception of two weeks one September when somebody else did comment, I never had a vacation from the New Yorker in the whole time I worked there. I used to hear about this vacation, but it never happened to hit me. But I like the idea.
Yrs,
Andy
To GUSTAVE LOBRANO
North Brooklin, Maine
[late 1940]
Dear Gus:
The store on Fifth Avenue which had little planes for sale turned out to be a big success. I bought Joe the Army Interceptor, and the American Junior—which are the only models. Both of them are wonderful fliers, the best I’ve ever seen. The Junior is either 49 cents or 59 cents—I can’t remember. The Interceptor is less—about 39 cents, I believe. It is a retractable wing glider which is discharged from a slingshot. You shoot it straight up, and when it has reached the peak of its altitude, the wings automatically slide into place in the most ingenious fashion and it begins a slow glide to earth. I recommend these planes to any father. The store is between 28 and 29th on the east side of Fifth, and it is called the something Mart. If you should decide to make yourself the owner of an Interceptor, or a Junior, or both, would you do me the favor of purchasing an extra Junior, as Joe wants very much to give one to his pal Lawrence for his birthday. I am enclosing one buck, and if there is any change left you can buy yourself a dry martini to steel yourself for your first flight.
Yrs in haste,
Andy
To FRANK SULLIVAN
North Brooklin
9 August 1940
Dear Frank:
We mailed those scrapbooks back the other day, and are grateful to you for the trouble you took (and for the scrapbooks you sent). We are going to use the piece about the deckhand that fell in the East River and cried “Ahoy,” and that famous answering cry came: “Ahoy awhere?” We also have you booked for the Vand’t Convention, and Weekend at Lady Astor’s. So we are working you gradually into our book, and consider you very deserving. I got a nice fit of nostalgia reading your scrapbooks. The world was concerned about such odd li
ttle matters in that halcyon decade—it’s like reading fairy tales. Not a Messerschmitt in the whole lot.
We’re still in possession of a couple of books of yours but haven’t forgotten them, and will be returning them presently when another wave of doing-things-up overtakes us. Getting together an anthology is a test of strength and twine. It takes a heap o’ wrappin’ paper to get out an anthology. Our progress is still pretty slow, partly because my wife is a conscientious gal who can’t decide on anything till she has read everything, and partly because I keep sheep.
Up until about a week ago our summer was a miasma of sickness and despair. Joe got a sinus infection, K got intestinal grippe or summer complaint, and I got my annual hay fever only in a new big improved package. We are emerging into the light this week and looking around. The only thing that brightened life for us during the bad spell was an exchange of diplomatic notes between me and the Columbia Broadcasting System on the question of using my long poem (July Harper’s) on the Columbia Workshop hour together with a poem of Steve Benét’s. My messages began coming from a man whom the Western Union operator at this end described as Max Whlye. I was pleased as punch to be in communication with a Mr. Whlye, and the whole affair improved steadily, because it turned out that Columbia was objecting to the word “Spry” in the poem (Spry is a vegetable shortening and a Columbia client) and they felt that it was an improper theme for a poet. I countered. They counter countered. Finally I gave them the word Crisp, which delighted them. The upshot was that they finally gave the hour over to Black Jack Pershing, an upstart bard who wants us to lend some destroyers to England. Benét and I and Crisp were shelved for a week, and will appear (I hope) this Sunday at 8 pm advt.1
Katharine sends her love to you, and we both do for that matter, and thanks again for the help.
Yrs,
Andy
To EUGENE SAXTON
North Brooklin, Maine
19 August 1940
Dear Gene:
About the suggestion that pieces of Meat be published in book form, I am by no means against this idea and hope I didn’t give that impression. I doubt that there is enough material to pick from, at this date, however. So far I’ve written only 25 departments and of these I should imagine that less than half would be suitable for book publication. When the autumnal calm settles over North Brooklin, if it ever does, I will glance through the files and be better able to judge.
There is one objection to the project which is on my mind and which perhaps made me sound unenthusiastic: my last two books have been clipbooks, and I have been hoping that before publishing another such I could produce an Original Work. This would do a great deal for my spirits, even if it did nothing very much for the American public. Although I fell down on my face in attempting an Original Work last June, I still have hopes of regaining my poise and my stride; so if I seem apathetic about One Man’s Meat it is only because it would mean just another clipbook. . . .
Andy
To KATHARINE S. WHITE
North Brooklin
[August 26, 1940]
Monday
Dear K:
Pleasant callers today were Dr. Edmund Devol and the Bishop, in a sport coupe.1 They had just had lunch with Fritz Kreisler and were on their way to Dr. Moorehead. They looked well and sleek and were sorry not to have seen you. The Bishop has just come into some money ($52,000). He beat Joe two games of croquet. I offered them drinks but they abstained. The Doctor was enchanted with our house, and poked around among all the bedrooms, punching the springs and looking behind things. They leave Bar Harbor shortly for a spell at Newport, and then back to the diocese and the enema.
No mackerel last night, after a hard try under perfect conditions. Apparently nobody’s getting them and they just aren’t in the bay this summer. I may try Orcutt’s harbor as a last desperate chance.
. . .Had a nice letter from Frank Sullivan this morning, all about the difficulties of being a Roosevelt supporter among the tycoons of Saratoga-in-August. He is confident that England can’t be licked.
Mrs. Milliken phoned, inviting you and me to lunch on Thursday when the N.E. cruise comes in. She said she thought perhaps we would like to see the fleet “from a different viewpoint.” I refrained from explaining that not seeing the fleet at all was a big shift in viewpoint, and, from our position, practically perfect. I told her you were in New York and that I couldn’t come. If the radio has anything to say about it, the cruise is going to get rained on. All signs point to wet weather.
Didn’t get much done on comment today, what with the callers and so forth, but hope to progress tomorrow. Pre-blasting operations were being carried on, drilling the rocks preparatory for the charges of dynamite. Howard thinks we should take out the small clump of trees in the field—not the peninsula but the island. I am now in favor of this, although I wasn’t at first. Have studied the matter carefully today and believe it will improve rather than detract from beauty of field, besides making great advance agriculturally. Would appreciate immediate wire from you on this important matter, as I don’t want to do anything without your permission, but time is at hand to strike. Howard says a good farmer wouldn’t hesitate a minute. These are days for high courage.
Everybody is fine here, Joe is asleep, Roger reading breaks for me, Myra just returned from the day’s outing, Fred and Min2 curled together on one cushion. I must quit now to get back to work on comment. Don’t get all razzled out in the city, and come back fresh and ready for a Fair day.
Lots of love from all,
A
To KATHARINE S. WHITE
[North Brooklin, Maine]
[August 27, 1940]
Tuesday night
Dear K:
No appreciable progress on comment, and it has to be mailed tomorrow morning, so this will have to be a quick note. The rain didn’t materialize—instead we had a beautiful day, too good for you to have missed. Dynamiting started early—the men as happy about it as the little boys. Everyone danced and shouted and waved red flags. Not much damage to the rocks, but great good to everyone. This afternoon I worked with Howard digging out rocks, and am dead tired, like a chump. Walter Pierce [a neighbor] has noticed that cars slow up as they pass our place, and has been studying over it. This afternoon he announced that he at last knew the reason. It is because our field is the biggest plowed piece in this part of the county, he says. . . . Joe is fine—was host to large numbers of itinerant croquet players this afternoon—and tonight sat by the radio listening to a sob ballad about a little boy named Joe who was everything to his mother. He was visibly affected. It’s quite cold tonight, and I have a fire. Frost is predicted for some sections. We miss you and will be looking for you back.
Love,
Andy
To KATHARINE S. WHITE
[North Brooklin, Maine]
[October 14, 1940]
Monday night
Dear K:
We had a beautiful drive home, with Joe scarcely able to sit it out, for thinking about his eel traps. We stopped last night at Concord and made an early start this morning. . . .
Lawrence was here to welcome Joe back, with the sensational news that all the eels except two had escaped from the car. It’s either sabotage or a faulty car. The grim work of catching them all over again has begun.1
I have a letter from Fred Allen (Hartman is in Atlantic City again, where his roots seem to be—I think he must model in sand on the side) saying that he cut two sentences out of my piece about automobile design, because they “seem to me to be libelous on their face” and because “they would probably make it impossible for us ever to get a line of automobile advertising again.”2 It seems odd to me that it is “libel” when I say that it is hard to back an automobile without running over your own dog or child. I am just back from a thousand-mile drive, and the only trouble with my piece is that it is an understatement. Twice on the trip I had to send Joe out of the car, to wig-wag instructions to me during commonplace maneuvers.
&nbs
p; I’ll send you some mail in the morning, and will attend to the grape harvest.
Lots of love,
Andy
PS. Am being very courteous to Fred during your absence, out of respect.
To BERNARD DEVOTO
North Brooklin, Maine
18 October 1940
Dear Mr. DeVoto:
This must mean you. Apparently this reader begins at the beginning of my department and goes through to the end of yours without catching his breath at your by-line.1 What do you say to union now?
Yrs,
E. B. White
To FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN
North Brooklin, Maine
[October 20?, 1940]
Dear Fred:
I am a fairly good natured guy but not about modern automobiles. The modern car is not only an atrocious piece of designing, it symbolizes the degeneracy that the magazine boys are yapping about. It is dishonest (all this nutty emphasis on streamlining is so much bilge) and it is deadly. My 1939 Plymouth, bought in the summer of 1938, had three dented fenders before the dawn of the year in which the car was supposed to have been made. These busted fenders were contributed by my wife, a careful woman 5 feet 2 inches high. She dented the fenders because she has to guess where she is in relation to the tangible world, and her guesswork is not always one hundred percent accurate. My own guesswork is a good deal better than hers because I have been driving ever since I was taken off the breast and put on solids; but the fact that driving becomes increasingly a matter of guesswork makes me very, very mad. I am just back from a 900 mile drive, and twice during that drive I had to let my son out of the car so that he could direct me, by hand signals, into or out of a narrow spot. Only a man of rather childish faith dares back a modern car without a stooge to give him the All Clear.