Page:The life and letters of John Brown (Sanborn).djvu/43

1848.] to have them with me, if I continue in my present business, which I am by no means attached to. I seem to get along middling well, and hope to return in a short time. Wrote Jeremiah some days since. I shall pay ten cents very cheerfully to hear that you are alive and well, at any time; and should not grudge to pay more for such kind and ever seasonable pointing me to the absolute vanity of this world's treasures, as well as the solemn future which is before me. It affords me great satisfaction to get a letter from you at this period of your life, so handsomely written, so well worded, and so exactly in point, both as to manner and (what is much more) matter. I intend to preserve it carefully.

Your affectionate son,

.

, 1st Nov., 1847.

,—After some three or four days' delay on the road, we arrived here safe to-day about noon, and found all here well; but our hard hearts are never thankful as they should be. Always dependent and constantly receiving, we are ungrateful enough to be cast off,—if that were our only fault! Our business, so far as I can judge, has gone along middling well during my absence. Watson is not yet very stout, but is perhaps a little improved since I left. We shall all be anxious to hear from Lucian, and from you all, and how you got home from Austinburg, as soon and as often as we can.

Affectionately yours,

.

Mr. Hubbard has deeded his swamp form to John Sherman. Has not sold his thirty-acre lot at Munroville, but has offered it for sale to William Hickox and Kelsey.

Affectionately yours,

J. B.

, 2d Dec., 1847.

,—Yours of the 9th November was received a few days since, but I have delayed writing on two accounts since receiving it. One is the greater press of business, and increased anxiety on account of the sudden change in money matters; the other, that it is always hard for me to make out a letter without something to make it out of. We have been middling well since I returned, except John and Watson. John has had a short turn of fever, and Watson has seemed to have a number of complaints, but both are better now. Our business seems to be going on middling well, and will not probably be any the worse for the pinch in the money concerns. I trust that