Transcription:
Ever since you were here-I have loved the home as much as I had before loved to wander. - Lib.? and illegible . have grown
as in a perpetual spring time - and I have had no sickness except old age - Mrs. Adams and wife, our best of friends - have
died where you live - and left their all to our institutions. - Work on the ca illegible gie has already begun, - close by
the Oark, - my corner. I see you are to do for Roosevelt what you would gladly have done for me in 1869. - and what nobody
but you could do or can. - In some camp you will tell him how you found me, - and perhaps get some match for it from him.
- telepathy He will be here next Fri. - but barely two hours. - and politicians will hedge him about. - In 1893, he came
here in Jan'y and I caught him brow illegible ing among the stacks of Dutch books in a back room or garret - thinking him
a man I had seen hanging about the legislature for a job as our porter? I thought he had gotten the place - and so with a
hand-shake said to him; So you're a going to stop with us - Yes , said he, but not so long as I would be glad to, etc - He
did not discover my mistake. - We invited him to lecture under our auspices, in the Capitol - and I -(then acting Pres. of
the Hist. Soc.)- introduced him - My words - suggested by his vagabondage, - were as prophetic as the witches to Macbeth.
- Mr R. not of Mass. nor of N. York - nor of Dakota - but of the United States- He began with special thanks for such a send-off.
My ability to walk and talk for six hours day after day was what I chiefly thank god for on entering the year next-to my ninet
illegible - May you live as much longer than I as? you are most useful. Come and see me -or at least look me up in the life
beyond in a region contrasted with that liberty cap of 1869 as much as that does with the platitudes here. Regardfully
James D. Butler.