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I think and almost worry sometimes about some of our folks at Bangor. I do not know whether Joseph had better keep this present position or not. True, his wages appear good, though if he pays his own board, his board, & clothing, & etceteras, will take at the least half of it. However, wages, present wages, does not seem to me just the thing, the principal thing, for a young man, a young man like Joseph: It is - what are his prospects? I consider that a good situation for a young man, where he has a good chance for going ahead, for bettering his condition & situation, for making a man of himself, even if his present wages & immunities are small. I should not consider Joseph's situation a good one, though his income were much greater than it would be in some other circumstances, if he had no better prospect for the future in that direction; nothing but the $400,00 or even $700,00 per year, year after year. Even if his health and spirits were good, and agreed with the business. I do not like Josephs' looking so pale and being so dull, - too dull to write to me - and having no disposition to take exercise. It looks as if he had not very good courage himself, as well as the Confinement. The paleness & lack of rugged health, incident to his confinement of life, I suppose would wear off in time, by in the spring perhaps, a sort of reaction, that is if he would take Exercise; though I do not think him fitted by natural Constitution, & physical education, for a sedentary life. Few - very few young men have been accustomed to so unremitting hard labor as he has, It has perhaps been an advantage in some expects (sic), given him a
Written across the top upside down: some of the young men had taught perhaps more than I ever did and unclear of them got this winter is 14,00 I believe most of them 10 to 12 or less!