Dear Ones in Kan,

Once more I am seated trying to answer your most welcome letter of last Sunday that we recd yesterday afternoon. will had just started to town & met Jap with it. & then he come back & heard your letter read & went on to ta-m, but I read it more than once & seemed to me I was right there with you but I am sorry to hear of Ma being so palsied & having sick spells. but hope they will grow lighter & cease to be entirely. I guess we are having our Indian Summer. it is awful smoky but pleasant weather. the past week has been nice but the wind has been blowing from the south today. & Nett I feel as lonely as you & sometimes I think am homesick. I feel like wandering off & cant tell where when the days are so still & smoky & lonely. This fall seems to be so much like two years ago also ten years ago if it were not for the cherry trees being so bare our place would be as green as the spring time for the clover & the grass is so green & my flowers blooms & blooms & now my crysanthums are in bloom & are yet outdoors & adds more to the beauty of the yard & the timber has just now began to turn from the green leaf to the beautiful hues of autumn. & not but a few leaves have fell yet. & not any when Dick thought they were falling in your old grove. for we had no frost then & only one since & that was the night you had a frost. yes it was of [illegible] us for it turned cold about 4 o'clock & poor Ross come home looking sorter blue with his linen suit on but set into raining at dark. & the next night was frost. Well I have forgotten to tell you how we are [illegible]. the children have head colds but Ross is the worst. he got up a barking pretty hard this morning & is quite hoarse & will is not very well but has been taking quinine & physic. he had his tooth pulled last Monday & since his jaw & throat has been sore & has hurt him almost as much as the tooth did. I think it must have come very near gathering. he is lying on the lounge asleep but promised to help me write tonight if we went to Japs today & so we did. but I see sleep has overcome him. Japs are well as common. we all walked & when we come home Japs all came up in the corn field with us & loaded us down with pumpkins. Will had two & me one & Ross & Blanche with two little ones. & now you can see us coming home with our pumpkins & we are going to have some pie.

[Illegible] the children have gone to bed & laughed & talked them selfs to sleep & kept telling me to write this that & the other. & then would ask me if I had wrote it. Blanche said tell Aunt Nett to bake Granma some mush & to cut it in short pieces for she thot she could eat it better that way & she knowed she would like it (she means to fry it). I tell you she likes it fried. have youns had any yet & Ross says to tell her that he can read in his first reader & liked to go to school & I am glad of it but some of the schollars are so mean. You know when he started & he can read now first rate in the short words of his book & he knew nothing but his letters when he started. Oh they just tickled & laughed when I read of Tiger running off with the bell rope & they think they would like to see him. & Blanche talks of going down there to get some of Granmas good dried peaches to eat. she says she just knows she would let her have some to eat. they talk of Kan a great deal but she cant consent to leaving her Pa to go there. & indeed I dont knew what to tell you about my going there. It seems to me I must go sometimes for I want to see you all so bad & especially Ma for she is sick. & then when I think how bad it would be here for will to get along without us & how he might get sick & no one to take care of him it seems to bad to think of it. I am so afraid he will have the fever & know that I could enjoy a months visit there but think there will be enough there without us. am glad to hear you enjoyed Mrs Holloway visit. we very often see items from Lawndale in the paper & would always say to our selfs that from John H[illegible] but would like to know who was the Missourian that had just got through & startled the neighborhood with their noise. & telling of sights they had seen in Kans. untill they all thought it was Indians. Will said that he must have meant it for John. he spreads it on pretty thick about that country when he writes. Well what will you all do when you plaster. will you have to pich the tent. & I feel afraid that Ma will take cold moving her about & especialy when you move her back to it. & think you will have to be expedicious about it & I dont believe that I would let all of them go off to work at one time. you three must feel rather lonly but then you have so much company I dont see how you ever get time to take a stitch. Oh if I could just go in once in awhile to relieve you of some of it. would you be glad to see me. do I look natural in your dreams. I dream of you & Ma sometirnes. A year today you was after hickory nuts. Yes how well I remember & I can see you yet start to get out of the wagon when you thought Will said I wanted my shawl. what a girl you are to remember days & dates. I have forgotten what day of the month the quartly meeting was but I knew you remember it. did you think of Blanche her birthday. we all paddled her. she told Will he had ought to got her a cashmere dress. I wish you & Ma could have her with you awhile some day to talk. she is so funny. she took a little striped piece of calico you sent yesterday when I was reading your letter & spred it over her eyes & layed on the lounge & says you cant see my eyes. Yes I think they are real pretty & especially yours. in your other letter you said you expected I washed on Wednesday. Yes I did & did you heare the wind whipping my clothes or how did you ever know that I washed. I dident take as much satisfaction as you think hanging them up for the wind blew a gale & I brought them in as quick as I could. we heard that Mrs Williams started the first of last week & did he intend to come back after thier things or is there a mistake about it someway. if we see him & get the chance to send something you may be shure I will. Well I thought when I opened your letter yesterday & set down on the lounge to read that is was so close together that I never could get through but I succeeded in that a great deal better than you will in this for I do write so poor when I am sleepy. now I dont want you to feel like crying when you get my letters. Remember that its enough for one to do that when you are all there together to read & write & here I am alone. you have pa & ma with you & how can you think that I could go to Wolfes & go by home & see somebody else there that ought to be you.

Will was hauling rock for Coble to fix his cellar & saw a real pretty girl at Lesses place & then he said at the old place a woman setting in the kitchen & I just thought how could it be other then you or Ma. & Blanch has wanted to go over there ever since she heard him tell it. she says there is somebody there now & we can go just as well.

I told Will I guessed that I would go that day. He said if I did that I would be crying all the time. I had no notion of going but just said so to hear what he had to say.