Nor did
he fail in telling them that in me Kansas had a great poet in the making
... the professors who were not invited to my hasty reception considered
themselves slighted.
When I saw Baxter off at the station we were calling each other by our
first names.
"Good-bye, Johnnie!"
"Good-bye, Penton!"
"Don't fail to visit me at Warriors' River, this fall, if you can do so
conveniently."
I assured him that I would not fail.
For I had spoken with him of my determination to ship on the Great Lakes
for a few months, to see if I couldn't garner some poetic material for
my poems of modern life that I was writing for the _National Magazine_.
"My wife and I will be at Warriors' River till late in the fall. We're
staying at Stephen Barton's Health Home. Barton is a good friend of
mine.... I am helping him out, since he left New Jersey, where he was
forced, by a series of petty prosecutions, to give up Perfection
City.... My wife will be glad to see you ... she knows your poetry
already."
* * * * *
The weather was warm again. My next to my last college year was drawing
to a close. Not that I was a graduate ... my course was a special one,
and I had not followed even that closely.
"If you'll graduate," Jarvis Alexander Mackworth urged me, joking in the
Kansas fashion, "I will present you with a great bouquet of beauty
roses.
Pages:
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453