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                                                                                                                                         Home Saturday Oct. 26, 1851

My dear friend,

  I cannot tell you how much I rejoice to receive a letter in these days of anxiety. Yours, dated Oct. 12, reached me to night. I have been wishing I could have a letter, all day long, but not daring to expect one. So it was all the more welcome. I do thank you for writing so fully about your health, though I have been feeling very sadly to think how sick you have been. But I have just concluded that I ought to be very, very thankful that you were better. - So the dark clouds have disappeared, & the sunshine gleams just enough to let me begin to write. I think it is quite as well that you mailed the letters you refer to, without adding that the Ague, with all its horrors had really come; for we should have felt an increased solicitude. I do hope it may have left you entirely; thought I cannot help fearing a return. Very great care must be necessary. How very fortunate that you were at Mr. Root's, where you found your

[left-hand side and top] Father seemed better to day - he came out and ate breakfast with us this morning. If he takes no cold I think he will soon be well as usual. A week or two ago, he took Jenny and me to his woodlot to help him find the "lines". We purchased the lot about a year since, and thought the boundary was pointed out to him then, he had been there alone since and could not trace it. When we got there, he told me the direction as well as he could, and found one one marked tree; and then called me the Engineer {now, wasn't it ministerial,} and said I must go ahead and find the lines. O scrambled along bushes and brambles and fallen trees and across running streams {not very large ones}, and did my best so did we all, but the marks on two sides, we could not find, and gave it up. But we had delightful ramble, and a fine ride and came home in high spirits- bringing a part of the forest with us- specimens of the brilliant, many-colored Autumn leaves. Well the clock says dinner time and I must stop.