Your letter was received one week ago last Tuesday, and I would have
answered it by the next mail but it so happened that there was not a
sheet of paper about the house, and as Spring has now set in, I do not
leave the farm except in cases of urgent necessity. Father's letter,
enclosing Mr. Bagley's relative to the Camp business, was received one
or two weeks earlier, and promptly answered. My reply was long, giving
a detailed account of my whole transactions with Camp, and a copy of
which Father can have to peruse when he comes along this way next.
Julia and her children are all well and talk of making you a visit
next fall,--but I hardly think they will go. But if any of you, except
Father, should visit us this spring, or early summer, Julia says that
Fred. may go home with you to spend a few months. She says she would
be afraid to let him travel with Father alone; she has an idea that he
is so absent-minded that if he were to arrive in Cincinnati at night
he would be just as apt as not to walk out of the cars and be gone for
an hour before he would recollect that he had a child with him. I have
no such fears however. Fred does not read yet, but he will, I think,
in a few weeks. We have no school within a mile and a half, and that
is too far to send him in the winter season. I shall commence sending
him soon however. In the meantime I have no doubt but that he is
learning faster at home. Little Ellen is growing very fast, and talks
now quite plainly. Jesse R. is growing very rapidly, is very healthy
and, they say, is the best looking child among the four. I don't think
however there is much difference between them in that respect.
Emma Dent is talking of visiting her relatives in Ohio and Penn^a this
Summer, and if she does, she will stop a time with you. Any talk of
any of us visiting you, must not stop you from coming to see us. The
whole family here are fond of planning visits, but poor in the
execution of their plans. It may take two seasons yet before any of
these visits are made; in the meantime, we are anxious to see all of
you. For my part I do not know when I shall ever be able to leave home
long enough for a visit. I may possibly be able to go on a flying
visit next fall. I am anxious to make one more visit home before I get
old.
This Spring has opened finely for farming and I hope to do well; but I
shall wait until the crops are gathered before I make any predictions.
I have now three negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr.
Dent's, which, with my own help, I think, will enable me to do my
farming pretty well with assistance in harvest. I have however a large
farm. I shall have about twenty acres of potatoes, twenty of corn,
twenty-five of oats, fifty of wheat, twenty-five of meadow, some
clover, Hungarian grass and other smaller products, all of which
require labor before they are got into market, and the money realized
upon them. You are aware, I believe, that I have rented out my place
and have taken Mr. Dent's. There are about two hundred acres of
ploughed land on it and I shall have, in a few weeks, about two
hundred and fifty acres of woods pasture fenced up besides. Only one
side of it and a part of another has to be fenced to take the whole of
it in, and the rails are all ready. I must close with the wish that
some of you would visit us as early as possible. In your letter you
ask when my note in bank becomes due. The seventeenth of Apl. is the
last day of grace when it must be paid.
Give Julia's, the children's, and my love to all at home and write
soon.