Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, May 29, 1945

              /76.  SINCLAIR      LEWIS  2601     EAST    SECOND    ST.  DULUTH   5,  MINNESOTA  Tuesday, May 29  A darling long letter from you, yesterday.  Same finds  us with house all finished, except for three or four  (or nineteen) tiny details which don't matter, and which  will get themselves done before long.  The last long continuing job is that of the stone mason, whom I have working on the place below the Grand Stairway where a hole  was left in the wall — he is finishing that up, making  a pleasant circular seat there with no hole for the small  boys in the neighborhood to crawl through And I believe that in about a week we get THE KITTEN. ...a gentleman (to be altered, poor thing) so we'll probably name  him Mars, after guesswho, not Cleo.  The worst thing that Molly did here, among a lot of incredibly pretentions and uncompleted things, was to corrupt the ingenious but weak-minded local decorator,  Wendell, so that he thought he was an Intimate of the  house and the dearest buddy of Mrs. Povah and myself, as  he certainly was of Molly.  He was inviting himself to  eat three meals a day here -- and I mean just that. He  mi had to be shown his error, not too gently. Also, he  walked out on us with about l/10th of his work unfinished, and Mrs. P and I have finished it up better  than he would have done — such last details as getting  (from material that had been In the house but whose  beauty that h.a. Molly never saw) bedspreads to finish  up the Red (formerly VICTORIAN) Room.  Now, raising my bloody but unbowed head from the dust  anqmortar, I finish up an Esquire review and begin to  think of seeing the country. Last night, a long, dull,  kindly party at Fred Buck's — I think your mother enjoyed  it.  She won't be with you, by the way, till July 1st,  and don't try to hurry her, because I think she is MfcS  enjoying it all, and doing the most beautiful, and for  me most necessary, Fussing of the Highest Merit. She  seems really to love Duluth and her Increasing friends  here.  And Lillian does, too, and has a friend coming as maid  on June 15th.  Yes, Lillian is cook again, and much better  than was Lyda, to whom she turned over that job only because Lyda was not strong enough to rush around the house.  (Lyda has been ill this past winter, soft will not return. ) I see no reason why Lillian should not stay here  for the rest of the lives of herself, myself, and all  silly millies whatsoever — which reminds me that now,  in my beautiful large study, there is a Killy corner devoted to originals by Jas Thurber, Stan McGovern, and