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stamp and when she did all she read was "was it hard to get off."
That was a mean sort of joke, wasn't it. And she took nearly
half an hour to steam it off, when all she had to do was to hold
it up to a strong light just as I did yours.

Every time I go into a moving picture show, I see some
picture that has been filmed in California and it makes me
homesick to get out there again. It is only a matter of time amd, [and],
business now. How long, I can not say, but I think that I will be
here till after Christmas, at any rate. In the fall, I should
make a great deal of money here and I should stay here till I
can take full advantage of that probability. It takes money to
live in California, you know, though it can not cost any more
than it does in Detroit. This is the most expensive city in the
world in which to live. It costs me from fifty to seventy cents
a meal for the plainest sort of food and I get up from the table
hungry still many times.

Now, it is a quarter of one and I must go to sleep. I will
stay at the studio tonight. I like it better here than in my
room, even though I do sleep on hard boards here and in a good
bed there. At firs,t I could not sleep very well on so hard a
surface, but now, I have become accustomed to it so that I like it.
It does seem strange for a man to pay for a high priced room and
then sleep on pine boards, but I guess I am a strange duck in
some ways as that.

Morning and nine fifteen at that. I had plenty of
sleep after all. Now I will go out to some restaurant and get
my breakfast and then I will read a lecture on color. Then while
these ideas are all fresh in mind, I will paint for awhile on
a large painting that I am making. It is of "The Tourist."
An ex service man is seen kneeling at the grave of his friend
on a battlefield in France, just a lone cross in an out of the
way spot. The red poppies are everywhere and he holds one in
his hands, while dimnly seen beside him, is the shadowy presence
of the man that died for his country there. It is quite effective
and I want very much to get it done before Decoration Day.
You know that the American Legion has adopted the French poppy
as their flower.

I am also doing a portrait of a girl, from life, and it
also is coming along fairly well. I have another one in mind to
be made for use as a magazine cover. If I can get started on
that line of work, I can go anywhere I wish and send my work to
the publishers, I wish, no matter where I am. In that case, you
know where I will be part of my time, don't you?

This is about the end of this page so I will have to
stop the letter, that is, if I am to leave anything to tell at
some other time.

With love from,
Uncle Fred