Rube and Jim Burrow, about this time, purchased a small tract of land, paying six hundred dollars for it. They also bought a few head of stock and made a fair showing for a few months at making an honest living. The restless and daring spirit of Rube Burrow, however, could not brook honest toil. As he followed the plowshare over his newly purchased land, and turned the wild flowers of the teeming prairie beneath the soil, he nurtured within his soul nothing of the pride of the peaceful husbandman, but, fretting over such tame pursuits, built robber castles anew. While planting a crop in the spring of 1887 he had for a fellow workman one William Brock, and finding in him a dare-devil and restless spirit he recounted to him his successful ventures at Bellevue and at Gordon. Thus another recruit was added to his forces, and one, too, who was destined to play an important role, as subsequent events will show. Time grew apace, and Rube wrote, in his quaint, unscholarly way, affectionate epistles to his relatives in Lamar County, Ala., sending them some of his ill-gotten gains. Two of these letters, written on the same sheet of paper, the one to his brother, John T. Burrow, the other to his father and mother, at Vernon, Ala., are here given _verbatim et literatim_, and show that a collegiate education is not a necessary adjunct to the pursuit of train robbing. ERATH COUNTY, TEX., March 10, 1887. _Dear Brother and family_: All is well. No nuse too rite. the weather is good for work and wee ar puting in the time. Wee will plant corn too morrow. Mee and james Will plant 35 acreys in corn. Wee wont plant Eny Cotton Wee hav a feW Ooats sode and millet. i am going too Stephens Vill too day and i Will male this Letr. J. T. when you rite Direct your letr too Stephens Vill Erath county and tell all of the Rest too direct there letrs too the same place. i want you and pah too keep that money john you keep $30.00 and pah $20.00. the Reason i want you to hav $30 is because you have the largest family. john i don’t blame pah and mother for not coming out here for they ortoo no there Buisness. john i want you too rite too me. i did think i would Come Back in march. i cant come now. Rite. R. H. BURROW too J. T. BURROW. ERATH COUNTY, TEXAS, March 10, 1887. _Dear father & mother_: