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happiest days scrap portions of my life were in that old slant walled garret among the smooth creeks that trickled among the
sedges of Fountain Lake meadow In recalling the mechanical achievements of those early days I remember with satisfaction that
the least successful one was that horrid guillotine of a thing slicing off gophers heads Those money receipts are all right,
You say that business is dull but that you expect to live through it all, certainly you will, As a family we are pretty firmly
united you know that no one tree of a close clump can very well fall, In my walks through the forests of humanity I find no
family clump more inwoven in root branch than our own. I have completed the saw mill here It works extremely well. If not
a kirk a in margin: mill. I have at least made a house a mill here March 24. Yours of Feb 8th recd. (Social) 1870
Yosemite March 20 Dear Brother David G Your last of Jan. 6th reached me here in the rocks two weeks ago I am very heartily
glad to learn that your dear wife, wee ones have escaped from sickness to health- Ten weeks of fever Mercy what intense significance
these four words have for me after my Florida experiences-We were taught to believe that Providence has special designs to
accomplish by the agency of such afflictions I cannot say that I have the requisite amount of faith to feel the truth of this
but one invariable result of suffering in a love knit family is to deepen affection sympathy in margin: I am glad to hear
of illegible and illegible health of the welfare of the twin? Joanna My love to all JM