Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, May 7, 1945

              I1  2601 East Second Street Duluth 5 St. Louis County Minnesota USA  Hemlock 1419 known as the Webber House the Williams House the Dump  11:37 A.M., Monday May 7, 1945  Why not take a large piece of ^aper and write a real letter! to  you instead of my usual notes of only 3750 words'?  Glad about Kreymborg, the dreamy new suit, Marie Doro, going  down to Rafe's this past week end.  I tried to telephone to you  on Saturday evening; hoped, not getting you, that you had gone  I don't care much for the tw# picture* enclosed returned — /^  probly takes some time to master color pictures. But the profile of you — head turned, standing against trees — is adorable, and your mother begs for one of them.  By the way, I doubt like hell if she'll get back to you much  before June 15, and maybe even July 1st.  Long job getting the  house and service settled, and 1 think she's very  happy here;  loves the town and people — as you will, when you get to be  an old lady of 28. And I ~ or rather we, in hearty agreement  — are firing the MMM cook, an ageddame, at least 70, suspicious,  inquisitive, slow, resentful, so Systematic that m after a  lifetime of housework, it takes Her an hour to do what your  mother or Molly or you would do in 15 minutes.  We have a new  some      cook coming, who looks good, but maybe not for couple weeks —  for/meals/  we'll camp and go out/  New cook Mrs. Cole, maybe 40 and Jolly  - and worked 5 years now in a good house.  mi The drawing room is complete, and it's a dreami. Your couch,  Chinese coffee table, green chairs, love seats, Chink desk-  cabinet — all beautifully cleaned by gent who comes here and  shampoos 'em — all look as though they had been made for  the room, with its new shining walls and lovely ceiling; so do  the Capehart and piano; I have bought from Wendell two large  Chinese vase-lamps, magnificent ■— Chien Lung temple jars —  and finally, tempting everybody to take off his (usually her)  shoes and walk on and in it, the wonderful Klearflax rug, which  must be almost 40 feet long. And six of the seven Chllde  Hassams.  Everybody gasps a$ the room as MMMMgM they used to  at Big It.  An&Tpie room that was so forbidding that Margaret  Banning found it full of spooks and everybody else full of  a cold nothing has become so cheerful and livable — last evening  eight of us sat about it snuggled in peace (and Bourbon).  Then the shabby ""sun room"" with our gay chintz backporch furniture is delightful; and our oak dining-table and the red-leather  and oak chairs are awe-inspiring in the panelled dining-room,  while the original curtains that were there, once they were  cleaned, prove magnificent The new iron furniture from  Altaian's, replacing the white reed junk in the small dining-  room, aleo gay and practical.  My walnut bedroom furniture snuggled into my bedroom (same as  last year) as though it belonged, also — it was pretty  rackety and disintegrated last year, now it's — well, it's my  bedroom.  Those are all the rooms that are completely or nearly settled  — mtearn thanks partly to fact that my study and the oak lib-  . rary downstairs are simply full of cartons of unpacked books.