Otego June 25th (1882?)

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Dear Brother

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I’ve put off writing to you shamefully and I will try to do better for the future but I don’t have much time to write, only nights and Sundays and I’m so tired I can’t write nights for I can’t weave without my glasses and my head and eyes get so tired wearing them all day long that I don’t feel much like doing any thing that I have to look at very close after my days work is done. We have had a cold backward spring. The apple trees did not blossom out till nearly June and there was a good deal of corn planted in June. The fore part of spring was cold and dry then after it commenced raining it was cold and wet. Things did not grow much but now every thing seems to jump right up and grow awful fast. There is promise of abundance of fruit. Lucius’ oldest boy has got to be a great tall boy. He is rather slim and the other boys are tall of their age. Mrs Horning was here last week. She is ninety years old and she is real smart. Her eye sight has failed so she can’t see very well. One of Adeline’s little girls was married last Christmas. I don’t know but I have told you Orrin Houghtons health is very poor - he is not able to do much. They say his heart is diseased. He has spells when he can’t hardly breathe. The school at Franklin closed last week and all the societies I suppose had their festivals. Well I don’t know what to write that will interest you. The old land marks are all being removed one after another, there is but few left. Avery and Elmina are living in Franklin, George Reynolds is in Mass. I have a paper from him occasionally. Elvira is living with me. We rent two rooms and a bedroom and we live quite comfortable though I should like it if we had one more room. Once more I talk to you about coming home. Seems to me you might sell out there and come to a more congenial climate. There is lots of land you could get where it is warmer and you would not have to irrigate and I feel as if I must see you before we cross the death river, but if it is otherwise ordered let us so live that when we are called to pass the gates of death we may into the rest prepared for those that love the Lord.

Do you have potato bugs up there or is it so cold they can’t hatch. I go over my potato patch almost every day and gather the bugs and pick off every leaf I can find that has eggs on and burn them up and the current worms get on my bushes. Those I sift on hillchore and kill them. Orrins folks get this itch weed and boil that and sprinkle their bushes with it and it is just as good. Now don’t follow my example but write immediately, just as soon as you get this for I want to hear from you awful bad.

T Chase