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thoughts upon something or you never can excell in anything Could you ever get back to Bowdoin again if you should keep trying to go a dozen diferent ways at once or if you should not achieve that you would try to go there " Decision fulcrum of the mental powers,, you can think how much I want to see you you'll be gone so long that I am afraid you wont look like the same dear little Isaac I us'd to have
you have crack'd up your school so much about being easy, easy to govern that I am afraid you'll have something hard and disagreable before you get through
Dear Brother
Joseph wrote to you in all the confusion of a short visit at home with a good deal of work to do, and Mother and I put in a few words without hardly looking at what he had written, so we fear there will be a misunderstanding on your part, which may occasion you some anxiety of mind to say the least. We therefore write another letter sooner than we otherwise should. Everything goes on here as it used to. We plod along day after day, through the same round of cares & labors. Our potatoes, & indeed all about here, are almost worthless, so Charles does not dig all his. He raised a little corn, quite a lot of beans, & pumpkins & considerable many Oats. He has no one to help him now. He ploughs some, some he fats his hogs on pumpkins & Oatmeal, and some he cogitates & lays "plans" as usual, big with expediency & future profit for the whole family. Mother & I do the work, "cut Pumpkin" etc. and take care of our little Jane Rogers. Almeida takes care of her household as usual & runs down here two or three times a day for advice etc. Thus passes each day. Nothing new. In the evening we gather round the old stove & talk, work, read, or eat apples, "as the case may be." Good times after all, but it would enliven the scene in no small degree could one of the loved "absent ones" drop in and spend a season with us occasionally. Our hearts have been this gladdened by a short visit from the Bangor brethren, but we have no expectation of enjoying
[ upside down between lines of the above] Nov. 2 I am afraid Joseph does not feel quite right towards Charles & it is a trial to me. C refus'd to give him for his work last fall partly because he had determin'd that he would continue to get along without giving any notes and partly because he thought he asked to high a price for his work C has all along determin'd to pay him as soon as he could sell the oxen but was not quite willing to give him note. Joseph has 8 or 9 sheep which he wants to sell or let & Charles wanted to buy & would pay next june with the wool or would take them but J says he wont have any dealings etc. He left his watch with Billington to sell and give him a fair chance to make five dollars on it. I am sorry he feels so for tho' Charles may have done wrong some times, I think in general he has been as good a son and Brother considering all circumstances at any rate he has had a great many & severe trials & has had to practice a great deal of self Denial - & frequently really good intentions owing to adverse circumstances have mistaken and set down against him - and possibly his disposition may not be quite as aimiable as it would have been if he had had less perplexity and embarrasment Dont be alarmed now and think there is any difficulty for there is not much not any perhaps that they are aware of but let us all pray and try that there may be perfect union and kind feeling among us all C thinks J close and unfeeling more perhaps than he ought to you have been as good boy about writing your feelings cares etc. but yet I want to know a great deal more particularly about you.
I dont know but this would be a good place for a tavern we have had more travellers call here for entertainment since we mov'd than in seven years before we have a little Peddlar here now staying over the Sabbath have had one or two before.
O how I want to see you -- watch and pray