It was somewhat badly spelled, but he made it out to be
as follows:
"EUPOLIA, KANSAS, Sunday, March 23, 1873.
"MY DEAR LE MOYNE:
"I have been intending to write to you for a long time, but have
been too busy. You never saw such a busy country as this. It just
took me off my legs when I first came out here. I thought I knew
what it meant to 'git up and git.' Nobody ever counted me hard to
start or slow to move, down in that country; but here--God bless
you, Le Moyne, I found I wasn't half awake! Work? Lord! Lord! how
these folks do work and tear around! It don't seem so very hard
either, because when they have anything to do they don't do nothing
else, and when have nothing to do they make a business of that,
too.
"Then, they use all sorts of machinery, and never do anything by
hand-power that a horse can be made to do, in any possible way.
The horses do all the ploughing, sowing, hoeing, harvesting, and,
in fact, pretty much all the farm-work; while the man sits up on a
sulky-seat and fans himself with a palm-leaf hat. So that, according
to my reckoning, one man here counts for about as much as four in
our country.
"I have moved from where I first settled, which was in a county
adjoining this. I found that my notion of just getting a plantation
to settle down on, where I could make a living and be out of harm's
way, wasn't the thing for this country, nohow.
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