Dear Grandma: --/--/ As for myself--things couldn’t be better. I have great quantities of fine Guernsey milk every day from a neighboring farm, the finest butter and eggs and fresh vegetables--and so much outdoor exercise than I am brown as a nut already with the sun and all greased up at the joints. Sleep nights like a top and the uric acid trouble has disappeared completely--at least for the time being. When you consider that this is only about my tenth day out here such results seem astonishing, don’t they? I should have written you more if there had been a moment, but you have no idea how busy we have all been. There has been a great deal--tons--of wood to clear away from the house, rubbish, also, and a lot of old plaster they threw out in making alterations. Then we have been building bookcases, shelves and tables for the inside, as well as scrubbing and rubbing down floors. Getting up every morning at five-thirty. The air is so fresh and the birds so sweet that you simply can’t stay in bed a moment longer. And how good breakfast tastes! We have bought a good oil stove, which works on about 10 cents a day. All our cooking and lamp-oil comes to much less cost than similar means in the city would cost. Brown has a Ford which he got for 35 dollars! We go marketing about 7 miles away to the nearest town every three or four days. This place, you know, is quite delightfully isolated from other houses. It’s about 150 years old--and did I tell you that a lot of wonderful old rope beds and furniture came right along with it? --/--/ 210: TO HIS MOTHER _Patterson, N.Y._ _July 10th, ’25_