And then, besides all this, the Island needs some personal attention from someone in this family. You, neither of you, are able to go, and if you were, it would cost you three or four times as much as I will need to live there. (My expenses would be just the boat fare and after that about 5 dollars a week for board with the Simpsons.) I need absolutely no more clothes or equipment in any way than I presently have, so that needn’t be bothered about. I would have a chance to breathe in some clear air, swim and use my body a little freely. I could live very simply and constructively--and really make it pay besides by seeing the lay of the land, how things are being cared for, what marketing opportunities are developing in the way of cooperative fruit markets, etc. I think this and other letters of mine have said enough about living conditions in New York as it has now become--to make it plain that you will never want to settle here. I have never accented these points in any particular relation to you--but I am more and more certain that you will never want to _live_ here. Rents are terrific, food very high and unless you have unlimited funds you have to content yourself with trying to keep clean in a dinky stuffy apartment without a porch or any of the outdoor privileges that go with the poorest shanty. I think we have been not fools, but fooling ourselves, to have worried so about selling the island place. That is the best place to live I know of,--the place where you will be far happier than ever tied up in an overcrowded city--paying out every month more money than your food would cost you for a year on the Island. Besides,--that grove is going to pay, and _pay well_ sometime. It will pay you well enough to afford a month’s change in New York every year. And that’s enough! I have learned that from plentiful experience. After the winter I can come back here to New York and get plenty of jobs that will pay more than what I have now. I can come back with a fund of health and energy that simply couldn’t be gained here even if I weren’t working at all. I think I deserve this much assistance not only as a son--but as [a] man who has done his best to cope with all situations that have come up, and I have been faced with some hard ones. This isn’t a dodge--it’s a sane precaution, and if you really care for me in [the] right sort of way you will give it your approval, I’m sure.