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Lennox, S. Dak. February 8,1910 Mr. John Muir, Martinez, California. Dear Sir: It has been so long since I recieved
your kind, and welcome letter, nearly a year ago that I am almost ashamed to write, but office duties have crowded in so thick
and fast that I have had but little time to attend to personal correspondence, but as I have a little time at present I shall
answer yours first of all. Unless you are of a sensitive nature, like myself, you little realize the thrill of pleasure
it gave me to hear, and know for a certainty that I had at last discovered the whereabouts of my old school-teacher whose
peculiar scientific experiments left such a deep impression on our young minds that, I at least, have never been able to erase
them even if I would; for instance, your weekly lectures on philosophy, your experiments with mice placed in jars containing
hydrogen and nitrogen gases; your firing corks out of a funnel shaped receptacle which pleased Wesley Stevens so well that
he wanted to keep you at it all night; your clock constructed out of a common water-pail; your other clock made out of wooden
wheels hung on a burr-oak bush shaped in the shape of a scythe which hung on the wall of the old log school-house, and last
but not least the clock which took the whole of the old black-board to serve it as a pendulum which hung in the back part
of the school-house on the evening of the close of school; these and many other impressions come crowding into my mind whenever
I think of that winter. Father died in the spring of 1888 and often spoke of the arguments which you and he used to have
over the subject of perpetual motion. Do you remember about it? With regard to the scholars who attended the school that
winter, I can furnish you but little information I am afraid, as we moved away from there to Iowa a short time afterwards
and, while we kept track of a feww of them for a while, still there was so many changes going on that we finally lost track
of them all, except our immediate relatives My oldest sister is now living in Wadena, Minn., is married and her husband is
County Treasurer of that county, of course she was (Over) 04699