I have had to go to school these two days and then I have to study medicine with Lovelace Peyton almost all of every afternoon, so I haven’t much time; but I think by to-morrow night I will have told about a thousand dollars’ worth of things about my father and I can send it all off to Cousin Gilmore Lewis.  The time the butler in our North Shore cottage, summer before last, told the newspapers so many things about the way Father and his family lived, he got three hundred dollars for it; so it does seem that if his own daughter told almost a whole small book about Father it would be worth at least a thousand dollars to a big magazine that prints things about everything in the world.

I heard Cousin Gilmore tell Father last spring that it wouldn’t be long before he got to him in his magazine, and I have two reasons for wanting to beat the one who is going to write Father up.  One is that I need the money for Lovelace Peyton’s eyes, and the other is that before all this comes out about Father and the stolen steel patent, I want to write about him like he might be, and ignore what the world may consider him.  I want to tell about him like I feel toward him and not like I know people will think he is.  If the weekly comes out every week, they ought to print what I say about a week from Saturday, and maybe it will take Judge Luttrell that long to get his prosecution ready.  The Judge doesn’t work much harder than others in Byrdsville, and I can trust him to be slow.  Of course, I couldn’t write a thousand dollars’ worth of things about just Father himself, but I am telling all about Byrdsville, which is his present home, and how distinguished and beloved he is in it.

A lot I have written I have just copied down from you, Louise—­who are a better friend than I knew when I bought you—­such as the descriptions of the apple-trees and landscape and Father’s charity to Mr. and Mrs. Satterwhite.  It filled up two pages just to mention the things he gave them, and it was a page more when I told a few of the grateful things they said to me.  I left myself out and had them say the things right to him.  What his generosity in the matter of buying jewelry from Mr. Snider did for the seven children—­with just three of the names mentioned, because I think Sally Geraldine, Judy Claudia, and Tom Roderick are interesting as names—­made more than a page more.

I wrote until nearly twelve o’clock last night about the Byrds and their family history and how wonderful it is for Father to have made such friends as they are.  I just described the Idol as he really is and told what a great inventor he is without dwelling on what he invented, because that will be published when Judge Luttrell gets out the injunction.

I mentioned Lovelace Peyton’s accident in detail, because some day when he is a world-famous surgeon a good account of it will be valuable.  That took up fourteen pages.  I am going to send that kodak picture Tony took of Roxanne, with a good description of her to be printed under it.