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Collyer, Kansas, Dec. 11th, 1888. Dear John: I am still out on the prairie, helping cook for ourselves and hired hands,
and making butter. We make about 6 lbs. a week from one cow's milk and wash and mend, etc., as we used to do when we first
went to housekeeping (us two old bodies) to save keeping a housekeeper, and it has been costing them so much to have a family
in the house and each pay them so much a week for board as they have been doing till lately. I did not think of staying so
long when I came, but I have been feeling so much better I was glad to be able to help a little as the girls can get along
finely without me. But I don't suppose I can stay here much longer, as the house here is not so well fixed for winter, and
I begin to long to see the children. But I hate to leave John to do all the housework as he expects to do till spring anyway.
It is very quiet here. There has only been two ladies in the house the three months I have been here. The neighbors are nearly
all Germans and Bohemians. I hope you are all well and that you are not working and writing too hard. How near completion
is your book? Kiss Wanda and Helen for me, and remember me to the Doctor and Mrs. Strentzel. Tell Wanda I have not had a
letter from her in a long time, and Aunt Annie is not there to tell me about Baby and herself. I enjoy hearing about them
so much. With much love to yourself and Louie, I close, Maggie Margaret Muir Reid