I feel grateful to learn that you were all then well, and I think I fully sympathize with you in all the hardships and discouragements you have to meet; but you may be assured you are not alone in having trials. I believe I wrote you that we found everyone here more or less unwell but Wealthy and Johnny, without any sort of a place where a stout man even could protect himself from the cutting, cold winds and storms, which prevail here, much more than in any place where we have ever lived; and no crops of hay or anything raised had been taken care of; with corn wasting by cattle and horses, without fences; and, I may add without any meat; and Jason's folks without sugar, or any kind of bread stuffs but corn ground with great labor in a hand-mill about two miles off. Since I wrote you before, Wealthy, Johnny, Elen and myself have escaped being sick. Some have had the ague, but lightly; but Jason and Oliver have had a hard time of it and are yet feeble. Under existing circumstances, we have made but little progress; but we have made a little. We have got a shanty three logs high, chinked and mudded and roofed with our tent; and a chimney so far advanced that we can keep a fire in it for Jason. John has his shanty a little better fixed than it was, but miserable enough now; and we have got their little crop of beans secured, which, together with johnny cake, mush and milk, pumpkins and squashes, constitute our fare. Potatoes they have none of any account; milk, beans, pumpkins and squashes, a very moderate supply just for the present use. We have also got a few house logs cut for Jason. I do not send you this account to render you more unhappy but merely to let you know that those here are not altogether in paradise, while you have to stay in that miserable frosty region.... I feel more and more confident that slavery will soon die out here.--and to God be the praise!... November 23d, he wrote: Since Watson wrote, I have felt a great deal troubled about your prospects for a cold house to winter in, and since I wrote last, I have thought of a cheap, ready way to help it much. Take any common straight-edged boards, and run them from the ground up to the eaves, barn fashion, not driving the nails in so far but that they may easily be drawn, covering all but doors and windows, as close as may be in that way, and breaking joints if need be. This can be done by any one and in any weather not very severe, and the boards may afterwards mostly be saved for other uses. I think much too, of your widowed state, and I sometimes allow myself to dream a little of again sometime enjoying the comforts of a home; but I do not dare to dream much....