8                                      Melville Cane

Since then most of our members have bought their own copies. We all
love your poetry and fee! we have missed something by not finding it
sooner. It should be more widely read. Indeed we have taken the
trouble to tell your publisher so.

And if you ever wander away from New York as far as President
AVilliam McKinley's home and Shrine, be assured you will meet a royal
welcome from the Canton Poetry Society and

Your humble biographer.

The letter, so warm and responsi\'e, came as the perfect answer to
my need. Now I pictured myself as an accepted, "arrived" poet
with an official, public endorsement and I indulged myself in fan-
tasying the lively discussion of the evening which must have in¬
spired Miss Cox's enthusiasm.

My debt to the Society was increased a few months later by the
receipt of First Flight, a printed collection of the work of its mem¬
bers. \A'hat I treasure equally with its contents is the list of signa¬
tures of all the contributors, with the following addition:

We, active members of Canton Poetry Society, present this volume as
a small token of our appreciation and pleasure for the grand poems of
yours we have learned to love.

Thanks to that stray item in The Neiv York Times, my mem¬
ories are now sharply reanimated.