Dear Grace and Grandma: --/--/ Tomorrow afternoon I leave, stopping off for a couple of days at Ridgefield, Conn., as a guest of Eugene O’Neill (the author of _Anna Christie_, _Emperor Jones_, _Beyond the Horizon_, etc.). I met O’Neill at some friends last week end when he was in town. He likes my poetry very much and invited me to come to stay with him. He has a regular estate, I am told,--an establishment that is quite complete, and breakfast for guests is never served out of bed. If everything goes right they are to drive me up to Woodstock on Sunday,--about three hours through beautiful hills and foliage. My address from then on will be _Woodstock, N.Y. care-of Slater Brown_. --/--/ I am depending on you to help me some, as I said in my last letter. I think you will agree that a thoroughly out-of-doors life for a month is not only a sensible thing for me, but really due me after all the time I have denied myself such a natural privilege. If you don’t understand such a rightful desire on my part, then I can only say that your vision is warped. It was fine of you to ask me home, but I know you will realize that the atmosphere of Cleveland is anything but conducive to rest _for me_. The amount to which I am asking you to help me will not exceed the carfare to and from Cleveland--at most. Brown is poor and can only offer me the hospitality of the house he has taken,--and extra board he is unable to provide, so I am anxious to do my part and be decent about not stretching his hospitality unreasonably. So please send me fifteen dollars in cash or check at Woodstock sometime next week. Even if you have to pinch a little bit, I think that the things I am trying to do deserve a few sacrifices. I make as many as I can myself, and still keep sound and living,--and I hope you will [be] faithful enough--whether you see my complete ends or not--to lend me some assistance. I hope you are both well and happy. Don’t worry about me. I know damned well what I’m doing. 163: TO HIS MOTHER _Woodstock_, [_New York_] _Nov. 8th, ’23_ Dear Mother and Grandmother: Felling trees and piecing them up for warmth is a new sport to me, but I have taken to it with something like a real enthusiasm. This is my fourth day here in the mountains, but already I feel like a new person. My muscles are swelling and blood simply glowing. It is quite cold, even snowed today and the top of the nearest mountain is hooded white. Slater Brown and Nagle make wonderful people to live with. I told you how fond I was of B. when I was home last summer. I am made to feel not at all a guest, as to a large extent I am not, of course, but they want me to stay all winter here with them now. I may and I may not, depending on how I find I can manage to earn enough money by poems and articles. Certainly I should like to become a giant again in health, as I naturally am. And I have never had an outing like this before in my life.