Transcription:
4 at the wild and novel business of sheep shearing, had very funny, lawless, exciting times. There was about thirty men
in the first gang I worked in, composed of Spanish, Indian, Irish, English, Scottish, mixed mongrel unanal- yzable elements
of Californian society too numerous to mention All of this pied regiment in driving the sheep into the shearing pens would
hoot and yell like demons the sheep, wild as antelopes, would become ungovernable, a sort of wholesale sheep hunt would commence
in which deeds of romantic daring might be witnessed in the heaving, surging masses of men mutton equal to those of the knights
of old in illegible tournament These sheep are not like those of Palestine - dumb before there shearer's for many of them
keep up wild obstreperous warfare with kick bleat, from the first snip at ears to the last at tail in margin: My love to
Allie? My little ones. Please write very soon advise Maggie J Reid? all the rest? to write affectionately JM M illegible not
dated. Praising the country. Sheep Shearing JC? 1 On Merced River near Snelling, Merced Co Cal' July 14th 1868 . Dear
Bro' David I have lived under the sunny sky of California nearly 3 1/2 months, but have not yet rec'd a single letter from
any source - perhaps a few went to the dead letter off' while I was in the mountains, but I am settled now with a ranchman
for eight or nine months, hope to enjoy a full share of the comfort of letters during my long isolation. I traveled along
the San Jose valley from San Fran' to Gilroy crossed the Diabolo Mountains by the Pecheco pass, crossed the plains river of
San Joaquin, traveled on into the Sierra Nevada's to the mammoth trees magnificent Yo Semite Valley, thence down the Merced
to this place. in margin: Send my letters to Hopeton, It is nearer than Snelling. Address illegible deleted Merced Co California