
Sept. 5. Dear boy Pete,
Your letter, with cheering wishes & prophecies came last Tuesday—God bless you, boy—for all such things help much—I had a bad spell this morning—have something of the kind pretty often—Still it seems certain I am improving,
generally,—& that my general strength is better I am not near as bad
as I was five weeks ago—have some hours in which I feel quite like myself again—Keep up good heart nearly all the time—& you must too, dear son.
—So I see Beau Hickman has died of a stroke of paralysis—in the paper this morning I see a piece about his body being resurrected from potter's field—
—Pete I see a collision of some trains on the B. & P. road reported in the tunnel at Baltimore yesterday morning early in which a brakeman named Hawkinson was instantly killed—

I was over to Philadelphia yesterday—there is a large reading room, the Mercantile Library, 10th st. where I go occasionally—it is quite handy—they have all the papers from every where—have the Wash. Chronicle Capital, &c.—Then I took a ride in the Market st. cars, & was caught in a violent rain at ½ past 7 coming home—the moment I got home, it stopt, & cleared off a beautiful moonlit night.—It is clear and pretty hot here to-day—I am sitting here in the front room in the same big old mahogany chair I gave mother 20 years ago, by the open window writing this—I am feeling better since breakfast.

Pete the papers you sent came last Monday all right—I have rec'd a letter from Chas Eldridge—& another from Walter Godey, the young man who is working for me as my substitute in the office—all was going on well in the office—I send a couple of papers to-day—nothing particular—send the Herald
Did I tell you that a doctor I have talked with here says my real disease is the brain not being properly furnished and nourished with blood—(it is a disease the doctors call cerebral anâemia)—the doctor says it has been long a-coming, & will be long a-going—says I will get over it though—says the paralysis comes from that, & that it (the paralysis) is not very 'formidable'—I am following Dr. Drinkard's advice, taking no medicine, living very carefully—
Walt.