Pleasant Corners Ills.

July 30, 1864

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Dear Brother

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When I last wrote which was in January I thought I would write you at least once in two months during the summer but when spring opened I found abundant employment for all my time. The war has drained the country of men to such an extent that it is next to impossible for farmers to obtain help and it is becoming quite a common thing for women and girls to work in the fields both in planting and harvesting. Elvira came up here to spend the summer and keep house for me and let me teach school again and so for a number of weeks before I commenced school I worked out of doors more than I did in the house and then at night I felt too tired to write though if we had much hope or courage about your getting our letters we would willingly sit up to write however tired. I thought surely that after I commenced school I would have plenty of time to write but there is always something that seems to claim attention and so I have put off week after week. Some Saturdays I have hoed corn or melons. Sometimes one thing and sometimes another has seemed very necessary to be done and so writing has been postponed.

And then it seems as if I had written everything and there was nothing to write about that would interest you and so I feel discouraged about writing. If I could say any thing that would induce you to come home or better still to return to that Heavenly Father from whom we have all wandered far I would love dearly to write but when I think that perhaps your heart is so engrossed with the greed of gold that all higher thoughts are like idle tales it makes one sad, and I almost fear to write least it should be but another means of steeling your heart against the truth.

I have been teaching school nine weeks and have three more to complete the term. I have $14.00 a month and board at home walking a mile morning and evening: have a small school of about 20 not very far advanced in study but quite tractable obedient pupils; so that on the whole it is quite pleasant to me.

Elvira intends to return to Ade’s as soon as I close school to help her get ready for a journey east to our old home. Why couldn’t you come and so take the journey with her. Elvira intends to stay and keep house for her while she is gone and when she returns perhaps Elvira will go home and perhaps she will stay another year.

We have had a great deal of dry hot weather this summer. From the first of May or at least the middle to the last week in June there was no shower that wet the ground to the depth of more than half an inch and not more than two or three even such showers for seven weeks.

The grain and grass dried up so that it looks scorched and we feared that the crops would be an utter failure; but our Heavenly Father kindly remembered us and the last week in June sent welcome refreshing rain that soon gave a new appearance to all nature born, looks well now and our oats are quite full and good though short. The wheat through this section is injured very much and some fields entirely destroyed by a bug but in other parts of the state and in other states probably there will be a supply.

All kinds of clothing and provision bring a high price now: calico from .30 to .50 cents a yard; common unbleached sheeting .40 to .75 and every thing else in proportion. Perhaps if Gen. Grant succeeds in taking Richmond it will bring down the prices but that is of but little consequence compared with the salvation of our country and the lives of our brave soldiers. Do you have access to many papers or other means of gaining information in regard to our country’s affairs? I suppose not and I can not imagine how you can content yourself to remain in a foreign country and have no share in this great struggle for freedom! For our youngest and as it seems to me our most tenderly loved brother whom we have always regarded with honor and pride for his enthusiastic love of country how can he stand aloof and look coldly on when this intense struggle between righteous law and government on one side and lawless tyrannical despotism on the other is being waged in our land?

I can not account for it in any other way only that you have been deceived in regard to the cause and origin of the struggle and even then it seems as if your heart would prompt you to embrace your country’s cause and trust with child like faith, that that cause whatever it was must be a righteous one.

We are all in usual health. James has been working for one of our neighbors during the week and has got pretty well tired out. Yours lovingly

Mary

A widow sister of James is now with us with her little girl five years old so we have quite a family.