Transcription:
2 magnificent weather I ever experienced; such a clear balmy, exhilarating air, as to make one feel that each inhalation
brings added vigor and health, also a great deal of rainy weather, indeed we came just about the beginning of the wet season
for they have very little snow and a great deal of rain in winter which has hindered matters business very considerably, another
year he says it will not trouble him much as he will be all ready for it and have plenty of timber on hand for the mill, He
is laying train roads all through the woods and will soon have a little engine to draw the log cars instead of oxen as 01065
1 he has now. He has only about thirty men employed at present but will have more as the business increases The pine timber
is excellent and abundant. I like to go out and look up at the great, tall, straight, pinky colored trunks, they seem so grand,
In speaking of the men employed I meant to say that Walter brought only the mill foreman and woods foreman from the North
all the rest are southern men, a few colored ones, but most of the negroes are shamefully lazy. We have had our meals sent
over from the boarding house thus far but I am going to have a spry little Mullato woman do my work pretty soon, she knows
how