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in pencil Wyman, Dave 12/12/80 Dear Sage of Moberly:

Ahoy & avast, me hearty!   It has been another summer & part of a winter too since I've written. But it's not that we 

don't often think of you. I hadn't taught my 1920-40 course since the fall of 1977, until I got back into it the past spring. (the g ap came because of my time off & halftime stints in 1978-79.) I've repeated it again this fall. small classes each time, because "out of sight, out of vogue" in the groves of academe. anyhow, the newcomers, as had the old, appreciated underline THE DISINHERITED /underline. On my anonymous book-rating form, 30 of 31 acclaimed the book & agreed that it should be used next time the course is given. Fortunately for the benighted dissenter, the survey was anonymous.

 The N.H. summer outdid itself for mosquitoes. So bad, it was the talk of the state for 6 weeks. The bird-life was also at a peak,

& that was a pleasure. The wood thrushes began to turn up the summer before. Then this past summer they seem to have staked out a mile-long strip along our road, several hundred feet back, in the forest's ^edge. Their flute sound is near magic.

 The old place looked like it had been moved to Missouri or Iowa. The Shaker colony borders us on two sides, & the farmer leasing

their fields went in big for corn. underline Tall /underline corn. Way over my head. Midge got a little peeved as the growing season went on. She declared it was not New England-like & if she wanted to live in the Midwest she would have settled there. (Bless her transplanted Hoosier corn-fed soul -) Imagine a chicken kickin' about being hemmed in by corn! "It blocks the