had to kill a calf yesterday, for we'd run out of meat. As
we're in a district that's too sparsely settled for a Beef Ring, we
have to depend on ourselves for our roasts. But whatever happens, I
believe in feeding my workers. I wonder, by the way, how the fair Lady
Allie is getting along with her _cuisine_. Is she giving Dinky-Dunk a
Beautiful Thought for breakfast, instead of a generous plate of ham
and eggs? If she is, I imagine she's going to blight Romance in the
bud.

I've just had a circular letter from the Women Grain Growers'
Association explaining their fight for community medical service and a
system of itinerant rural nurses. They're organized, and they're in
earnest, and I'm with them to the last ditch. They're fighting for the
things that this raw new country is most in need of. It will take us
some time to catch up with the East. But the westerner's a scrambler,
once he's started.

I can't get away from the fact, since I know them both, that there's a
big gulf between the East and the West. It shouldn't be there, of
course, but that doesn't seem to affect the issue. It's the opposition
of the New to the Old, of the Want-To-Bes to the Always-Has-Beens, of
the young and unruly to the settled and sedate. We seem to want
freedom, and they seem to prefer order. We want movement, and they
want repose. We look more feverishly to the future, and they dwell
more fondly on the past. They call us rough, and we try to get even by
terming them _effete_. They accentuate form, and we remain satisfied
with performance. We're jealous of what they have and they're jealous
of what we intend to be. We're even secretly envious of certain things
peculiarly theirs which we openly deride. We're jealous, at heart, of
their leisure and their air of permanence, of their accomplishments
and arts and books and music, of their buildings and parks and towns
with the mellowing tone of time over them. And as soon as we make
money enough, I notice, we slip into their neighborhood for a gulp or
two at their fountains of culture. Some day, naturally, we'll be more
alike, and have more in common. The stronger colors will fade out of
the newer fabric and we'll merge into a more inoffensive monotone of
respectability. Our Navajo-blanket audacities will tone down to
wall-tapestry sedateness--but not too, too soon, I pray the gods!

Speaking of Navajo reminds me of Redskins, and Redskins take my
thoughts straight back to Iroquois Annie, who d