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Thompson Falls, Montana

Dec. 11, 1884

 Dear Isabel

I received your letter yesterday and was glad to hear you was all well and it found me as well as __?___I have had a severe cold for some time and my back has given me a great deal of pain. I have been almost past going for two weeks but am better now. I am not doing anything for thear  is nothing to do -- now and then I get a small job and make a few dollars hardly enough to buy grub. I am keeping Back by myself have got a small shack and a sheet from store and I live as snug as a bug in a rug a man can live very cheap here flour is only $2.40 a hundred, potatoes from 65 to 90 cents per hundred pounds cabbage 3 cents lbs carrots & rutabagas one cent per pound onions 2 cent beff

 20 cents bacon 18 cents venison 5 cents  I can live well on  six dollars a month we have had but little snow yet on the summit it is 15 or 20 inches. It is not as cold here as it is in _?__or Nebraska or even in the eastern part of this territory. Bozeman is the coldest part of the territory. This is a good climate and a good country for a poor man if I had

have two or three hundred dollars last spring I could have made money. Since thear was no work to be got by the month  for thear was 10 men to one job but I think it will be different next spring for thear won't be so many men or at least so many broken ones come here to get work thear is some rich digins but it is all taken up and it is a small scope of country that is placer digins. there is quartz all over the country what is _?_ work thear & par.. how many calves was thear and how many will you have in the spring. Did you find the cow that was at Aunt Mineys or did John Kennedy take her. How are the horses are they fat and how are the cattle looking. You never say anything about them just like you thought it was none of my business and I. it ain't for it is uncertain whether I

even see any of them or not. I wish we had the money for them and the place & you and the children was were with me. I was in hopes that you could have sold out this

year and left the country for I did not want the Boys to make another crop in the dam country it is strange that no one wants to buy now when two years ago I could have sold a dozen times I reckon someone is waiting for you to give it to them. What did you say

Willie Dun was doing I could not make it out in your letter. I never have written to his mother although I should like to hear from her and I have not been in a place where I

could mail a letter often as I had a chance to write until the last two months -- where are all the folks going to and what have they done with their place what did they do with John Allen in Austin if Haywood had money to come out here I think it would be the best thing he could do for it would be good .. Here in the spring wages are 40 + 50 dollars a month what work I have done I got 50 dollars a month they pay from 4 to 6 dollars a day for mining and board and when this camp opens up in the spring wages will be high he can come for $125.00 dollars or less it cost me $26.50 to Kansas City $71.00 dollars to Bozeman $25.00 to Thompson Falls first class fare second class is a good deal cheaper and its just as good $15.00 dollars will be __?___Well I would like to see our boy have you named him yet if you have not named our little girl yet I will send you a name for her _?_ of one when I hear from you again so I will close write often don’t wait to get a letter from me before you write as ever.

Yours 

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