Faribault Sept 22-190_
Dear Lucy,
I must write a short letter so that you can hear from home. We are all plodding along in the usual way. It has been an unsual rainy summer and fall so far. It has been hard for farmers to take care of there crops.
A letter from Dakota tells us of heavy rains and of a regular blizzard of snow on the 12. No frost here yet, only on low places. We have quite a little fruit this year, beautiful apples very large and nice, lots of grapes, a few plums. I have put up as much as a hundred qts of canned fruit. Corn is late but if this nice spell of weather last, I geuss it will have a chance to ripen.
I visited Aunt Mary a few weeks ago. She lives alone in her house in Farmington. She has not been able to rent this summer to suit her. I think she will sell her property there when she gets a good chance. The boys are both living in St Paul now. Aunt Mary and I made them a visit of a few days. Thad has a home just out of the city limits. He is working for the Hoist & Derrick Co, a large works. Gets from 75 to 80 dollars a month. They have two girls. Arthur rents. He only moved to St Paul this summer. Is working for the same company. I dont think Arthur is very rugged. He had an operration last summer for appendicites. Was in the Hunter Hospital here two weeks. Do you remember where the old St Marys stood? The corner building has been converted into a Sanitorium. Clarence Donaldson is one of the Physicians. Martha Hatfield is Matron. It is quite an inviting looking place. I expect you take solid comfort in fixing up you acre of land. You will in time have a beautiful home. Do you expect to live on it another year? Now I think of it, did you get a book I mailed you last spring, Shrouds with Pockets? Did you get my last letter with some pictures enclosed in it that Clarence sent you?
I must bring this to close with love to you and all the rest hoping to hear from you soon. It makes me feel lonesome when I think how far all my girls are away from me.