The steamer yesterday did not bring me a letter from you or your mother.
I was much disappointed. If you had written as late as June 3rd it would
have reached me. I got one from Hiram, he is well and his bees are doing
well. There will be no other chance to get letters until we return the
last of July. I dreamed of you last night and you told me the grapes
were not doing well. I read in the papers of the heat in the east and we
all wish for some of it here. I got me a heavy flannel shirt here and
I feel warmer. The mercury is from 52 to 55 to-day. Dandelions are just
past the height of their bloom, currant bushes just blooming, peas are
up ten inches and weeds have a good start. There is no agriculture in
Alaska, though potatoes do well. I have seen one cow, a yoke of oxen and
a few horses. There are no roads except about one mile here. The streets
of most of the towns are only broad plank sidewalks. Yet hens scratch
here and roosters crow the same as at home. This town is very prettily
situated; back of it rise steep, dark spruce-covered mountains,
about 3,000 feet--in front of it a large irregular bay studded with
tree-tufted islands, beyond that ten miles away rise snow capped peaks,
from the top of which one could look down upon the Pacific. No land has
been cleared except where the town stands. There may be 1,500 people
here, half of them Indians. The Indians are well clad and clean and
quiet and live in good frame houses. Many of them are half breeds. The
forests are almost impassable on account of logs, brush, moss and rocks.
We have nothing like it in the east. The logs are as high as your head
and the moss knee deep. There are plenty of deer and bears here. Day
before yesterday one of Mr. Harriman's daughters shot a deer. There are
four nice girls in the party from sixteen to eighteen, as healthy and
jolly and unaffected as the best country girls--two of Mr. Harriman's,
a cousin of theirs, and a friend, a Miss Draper. Then there are three
governesses and a trained nurse.
This is a land of ravens and eagles. The ravens perch on the houses and
garden fences and the eagles are seen on the dead trees along shore. The
barn swallow is here and the robin and red-start. One day we went down
to the hot springs and I drank water just from Hades: it reeked with its
sulphur fumes and steamed with its heat. I wish we had such a spring on
board, it would help warm us. I have met a Hyde Park man here, De Graff.
I have met four people here who read my books and two at Juneau and one
at Skagway. We leave here tonight for Yakutat Bay, 30 hours at sea. I
should be quite content to go home now or spend the rest of the time in
the west. I would give something to know how things are with you--the
vineyards and the celery and what your plans are and your mother's. I
still eat and sleep well and am putting on flesh. Love to you both. Let
me find letters at Portland in July.
Your loving father,