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                                                                                                                                                         June 2, 1839

My Dear Son

      Having an opportunity to send I'll just write a line or two though I have nothing particularly interesting unless to tell you that I have had another severe attack of the rheumatism but I got over it very soon confined to my room 3 days only. I have got a clever little girl eleven years old Olive Packard sister to Mrs. Hagar she helps me nicely about chores etc. & goes to school. C. has bought him a horse cart Sat. He fill & rigg'd them on to the ox cart & puts on both horses he has gone away with cart & horses to work out his part of an additional tax of $200 on the middle or Brownville road (mount hunger uncle Jim calls it)- J.M. & E.W. are gone up the interval in thier boat (they caulk'd & tar'd it yesterday) to hoeing corn beans etc. took thier dinner with them so I am quite alone today. My health is not so good generally this summer as it has normally been I suppose I have work'd too hard. you will wonder why I let Lucy go. I do need her at home some but I thought it would be for her advantage to be there a while as she will enjoy many privileges for improving her mind and manner which she could not have here I hope she will rightly appreciate them. I wish you to write to her and give her some of your Sage advice. If it is not very sage if you do the best you can I dare say it will do her good & you no harm. I charge you to give my kind regards to Mrs. Harlow tell her I sincerely sympathize with her in her bereavement & that tho' many years have pass'd away her kindness and attention to me when a stranger are fresh in my memory & my son see that you are particularly attentive and kind to her possibly being a very old lady she may be childesh and ? on some things notwithstanding see to it that you always treat her with defference and almost fillial regard and whoever else in the family is neglected by you take care that she is not. you may perhaps wonder at my saying so much on this subject - but you will not if you live to be old. Young people are very prone to forget old people I think they do not generally know or realize a thousandth part of the inconvenience & distresses that old people suffer. I enjoin the duty upon you in this instance more particularly to cancel the obligation I feel for her goodness to me when I was about your age.

   You say you shall be a farmer.   that the professions are very full etc.etc. nonsense & never mind - dont be discouraged this is a wide world we live in - aye and a great deal of ignorance and darkness to be dispeled by the light of knowledge and truth there are now a great many well educated amiable devotedly pious young men wanted yes! really needed now even in New England and ten times as many more in some other parts of our own Country to say nothing of the nations that sit in darkness & the shadow of death. And then think how greatly the number will be increased before you can become such an one- think of these things I say and go ahead  - climb a long what if the ascent be very steep and the Summit hid in the clouds every try and every step brings you a little nearer to it - besides if you should let go now even is nt it possible that you might fall so far as to dash your brains out
  Look up my Dear boy & "dig,, cheerfully on with all the helps you can get till you are five & twenty or so and then follow farming or any other "honest

calling,, that you prefer and I shall be satisfied. but you'll say whats the use of latin & greek for a farmer - well! what if it is of no use but to learn you to climb or dig (just which you choose to call it) I fully believe it wont be labour lost.

   I am sorry you did not have a Cap in the first of the season you might have get you one C. could let you have a little more money enough to get your Books, but if you have not got one and think it is best to wait till Ann comes let me know and I will write to her to get one or you may write to her. I want to know when your vacation commences perhaps we can manage it so that Ann will arrive at Bangor just in time to come home when you do. how does the frock coat answer your purpose - if it is best for you to have a new Coat before winter it will be best to get the cloth if we can so as to have it cut out at Bangor before you come home & perhaps have it made here - if we send to have Ann get cloth for one we ought to write soon & I dont know what to do about it.