To Marna (Papurt) Wolfe [Letter 330]

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March 20, 1948 

Dear Docky: 

Please forgive me for taking so long to answer your letter. I have been working so hard on my novel ever since I came back that I could not do anything else. 

Thank you for your nice letter. You really write very well, so I hope you will write again and not share the sin of all the O’Connors who are even worse than I am about correspondence. 

I was very interested to read about your first stage experience. Mimi wrote to me about it too and said that you were very good. If you find by now that you enjoy the work, I wish you a lot of success with it. 

I am sending some clothes for you and Mimi, and I am mailing them to Mimi’s address because I am not sure that you are in New York at present. The blue suit, which I am sending, is for you. I hope you will like it since you seem to like the same kind of tailored clothes that I wear. It’s probably much too large for you, but I think it will be becoming when you have it taken in. 

I won’t attempt to tell you about my ride in the engine now. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you in person. It was a wonderful experience. 

What was it that you wanted me to tell you about Oscar and Oswald? They are two lion cubs (stuffed), and they are supposed to represent the bad sides of Frank’s character. Whenever he pulls a bad joke, he blames it on Oswald; and whenever he loses his temper, it’s supposed to be Oscar growling. That’s how it all started, but now they

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have become very real members of our household in the same kind of way as Charlie McCarthy.[*] They have specific characters of their own. You will have to see and hear them to believe any of this. 

Now as to the address of the place that has the creoles, it was a German pastry shop on the east side of Lexington, a few doors before you come to the corner of Eighty-sixth Street, coming from downtown. I don’t remember the name of the place; I think it was something like Bauers.[**] I don’t know if it is still there. If you find it, and they still have the creoles, please buy a pound of them for me too and send them to us along with a bill. I would love to have them, but I want to say in advance that I don’t want them as a present because they are quite expensive. 

Please let me know what you are doing and how you are getting along. I will try to answer you more promptly next time. 

Love from your Aunt and Uncle,

*Charlie McCarthy was a ventriloquist dummy popular on radio who engaged in comically-combative dialogues with his puppet-master, Edgar Bergen.
**There was indeed a Bauer’s German bakery in the Yorkville section of Manhattan as late as the 1970s.