Transcription:
Martinez, Cal. Jan. 14, 1908. Dear Mr Calkins: Many thanks for your long kind letter, I am still perfectly pen barren
amid a lot of distracting cares but thank Heaven benumbing anxiety about my darling Helen is beginning to lift Three weeks
ago, or as soon as she was able to travel a day on the railway I made haste to get her out of the coast fogs, to the Mohave
desert. Near Daggett, on a ranch belonging to one of the noted Van Dyke family I built her a little cottage with an open porch
where she sleeps, with a warm room to dress in where her nurse companion sleeps. She is already much better - has gained 5
pounds is as merry as ever. Nevertheless the doctors say she will have to stay there or in some other dry desert region a
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