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4 John has an interest in the land. this land its prospective rise in value is all we have to look to to help us out of
this terrible state of affairs what helped to make things so bad now was the loss of their crops by drouth chink bugs these
two yeas. having to buy feed for the horses. last summer the buffalo grass was dried up. in the fall the late rains have made
it worthless for this winter ( feed is so high there (it is not quite so high here illegible has shiped a car of feed down
from Crete) the loss by Jim stricken word sign? -ing those notes, then the Bankers lost confidence in Jim would have nothing
to do with him so John has gone to Kansas taken Harry with him to help take care of the horses all winter hopeing things will
be some better in the spring. John is five moles from the post-office so we can not exchange letters very quickly. I had
a letter from him last night. he said the had written to Walter to find out exactly what he had done about the land. he said
the weather had been unusually cold on 1 Crete, Neb, Jan 19th, 1888, Dear Bro John We received your letter of Dec.
26. on the last day of the year I can never till you how grateful I am to you for your kindness. I do not wonder that you
are surprised at not hearing from us as soon as I read your letter I wanted to sit down write tto you but illegible said I
had better wait until we heard from Dan. John wrote to him that same evening sent it off) which was Saturday) but no answer
in the middle of the next week he wrote again also telling him he had to go to Kansas in a day or two but still no answer.
So John had to go according to arrangement on Thursday 5 Kansas that they have had some awful blissard? . we had had some
awful weather here too. last sunday morning the thermometer stood at -32 degrees below zero, but it was a still morning, it
did not seem so cold as it was the two days before when it was 20 22 degrees below with a high wind how good it is to think
of the nice weather you are enjoying in Cal I was sorry to hear that Mrs Strentzel is sick I hope she will soon be about again
remem -ber me to them to all the rest with love. what a mine of comfort pleasure your two girlies must be to you all. I wish
I could see them. how good it is that sister Annie is so well now I hope she will soon be