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                                                                                                     Perry Co. Illinois Aug. 15. 1851
                                                                                                                                "       17. 1851

Dear Brother Eliab

   Your letter of July 29. 1851 dated at Woonsocket R.I. reached me nearly two days ago.

I wanted very much to dispatch a letter at once to Westfield, hoping it might meet you there; but it was almost impossible. I should not have minded stopping the Party while I wrote it, but the expense of sending a man off to Post Office express 8 or 10 miles with it would have been perhaps $2. or 3.00 and add to this the extreme probability that if it arrived at the P.O. that evening it would get started before tomorrow morning. In short, it was best to wait. You expected a letter from me at Woonsocket. Well, you do not yet realize how far out of the world I am, nor the difficulties in the was of the rapid transmission of intelligence to certain portions of our Country. I did not receive your letter requesting me to write to Woonsocket until Aug. 9. 1851, more than a week as you perceive after you left Woonsocket. If I had written immediately to Woonsocket, it would probably have arrived there sometime early in September. Again you will perceive { if you ever have a chance} the great impossibility of your ever receiving this letter in Westfield. So it will probably reach there sometime in September.

  The first letter I received from Maine, the first I heard from there after I left there in May last, was I think Aug. 6 or 7, when I received one from you, enclosing one from Alabama, and merely stating that you had all written week or two before. Moreover that you hoped Lucy was a little better than she had been. Well I did not know whether to think she was very sick or not. But two or three days after came other letters written a week or two before, and I have got one written by Lucy just after you left Bangor.

You can hardly imagine how much better I have felt since. I believe I have written to Anne twice since I came here, but have not yet received any thing from there. To Bangor or Milo I have written or intended I intend to write about every week.