Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, April 21, 1942

              OCJ>  SINCLAIR   LEWIS  Route One  Excelsior  Minnesota  Tuesday, April 21  Day after tomorrow I'll be in residence at the lake,  and delighted to settle down.  I've been dashing abt  like a drunken bee, looking at houses and country,  and the placidity of merely writing 9876 words a day  will be delightful.....for maybe a whole week.  The Harts arrived all safe yesterday, after a fine  run, NY. to Minneapolis (Mpls, we call it) in five days,  including almost a whole day in Chicago.  More about dinner with Milton, in ChicagoI  I imagine  his salary is very small; he lives in a rather skinny  but not uncomfortable wooden house, in walking distance  of the campus.  I can't MMfcl remember one thing about  the interior; so probably it wasn't very distinguished.  His wife is a pretty, soft-spoken Jewish young lady,  attractive, bright enough, also not distinguished, I'd  say; his kid a gay charming little girl, busy as a  qquirrel or even a sillymilcella.  They had, for dinner,  a pretty good University prof pair, and Bill Benton....  I'm afraid Bill can be pretty dull, taken in long doses,  l\e  never listens: he asks you about something you have  just explained; and I'm sure he feels  and I will do pretty well when we get  35 and get some  shock people.  that both Milton  to be old men of  sense and quit trying to be cute and  «»••<•  /3  It would be wonderful if you could come out for a week  between shorthand and Peterboro.  I'd like to have you  bring your mother with you — both because it would be  fun to give her a trip to a new part of the country,  and because now you are a Grown Up Young Lady I'd like  to avoid the scandal that might all too easily spring  up in this town — so small as well as so big — where  I'm probably known all too well.  I'd have plenty of  room for both — the house is about as big as the Lakeville  *) elephant.  Have you thought about it since we talked  on the phoneTyJXou could get to Minneapolis, where I'd  meet you, between about 4 o'clock one afternoon and some  time the next evening, changing at Chicago to day train  ;o the Twin Cities' or you could fly out here in about  eight hours.  Let me lamia  hear — lots and often, chipmunk!  Xerxes,