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[Upside down at top] I believe 100.00 expense in orcharding, ten, perhaps even five years ago might have made Charles' property 1000.00 better now. Dear Mother & Dear Sister Lucy, I have again got about tired waiting for a letter from you, and do not see but I must begin again to write in advance! I believe it is pretty near a month since I wrote last. Does it begin to look any like Farming Down East yet? Folks hear abouts have begun to plough a little. and prepare Gardens, in dry situations. The frost is pretty well out of the Ground, the Road considerably settled, the grass is springing, the buds swelling. The rye fields, (rye appears to be a principal crop here) look beautifully Green. Frogs, snakes, and birds are abundant this fortnight. Blue birds are extremely abundant & little shy; Robins more scarce than in Maine. I think. Since the first of April I have been out of doors all the time, indeed of about half, and enjoy it much. There is prospect of rather a busy time next month; but then I am getting work done up pretty good jog, that is may be in a state of forwardness, so I can get away. Did you ever know any thing about this town of Northfield; Mother, when you lived in Milo? I believe it would be difficult to find any where, a more idle, shiftless, good for nothing, vicious, set of people than are to be found in this street. Mr. Fields, and he, like most perhaps who call themselves Unitarians, is really little better than an Infidel; Mr. Field ascribes the present character of the inhabitants to the "preaching" under which they were brought up. I think lately that might be the case. Did you ever know of, or hear of , "Old Priest Mason." He was dismissed from the Church here several years since, still lives here, but has never entered the Church from that day till this. I believe he is about as thorough an old Pirate as ever lived. Certain it is that his influence, and he has some, for he is a man of considerable ability, is entirely in opposition to a every good thing. He is an infidel, at any rate, I am informed by those who