"Don't imagine I am having a good time and spending money for the sake of spending. I am up long before daylight and working hard until dark. This winter I hope to get out 600 posts, and fencing for the farm, besides working round to earn money. I bought fifteen bushels of seed wheat at one dollar, and sowed and harrowed it in my neighbour's piece of breaking. This is called 'renting;' I receive two-thirds of the crop and he gets one-third. As I was not on my land in time to plough enough, this gives me a share in the winter wheat crop, and next year I hope to put in twenty acres of wheat and five of potatoes." In December, 1883, he wrote to his brother: "A letter from you now and again would do no positive injury to either party; send me a line when you can, as I don't expect to be home for some years, and I do not want to lose track of any of you. Many thanks for papers, send me any old magazines you can. I read for company's sake, as I am all alone here, and don't want to forget how to read. "The life here is deuced hard, but I feel certain of reaping a good harvest, and am going to stick to it. At present I am working about two miles from home, cutting down trees for fencing. I then start them down the mountain on a small natural gulch on the snow; they go like greased lightning, and make a terrible noise, which is echoed and re-echoed through the mountains. "I have just completed my stable which looks _boss_, logs with mud chinking; next year I intend putting in twenty acres of spring wheat.... As I have just bought some beef-bones I am making a fine stew; which makes my little kitten mew and skip round, being the first taste for her little sides." "_Jan. 1, 1884._ "I wanted, if possible, to begin the new year without having to write for money, but I am now having the hardest time I have ever had; weather excessively cold, and very little grub in the house.... I don't like to give up my best hopes, so if you can let me have the little balance I mentioned, it would make me even.... It was indeed a quiet Christmas for me, at work in the woods at my fencing; and now comes new year, just the same." "_A few days later._"