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  Dear Walt:

I hear through Kennedy that you are ill or was so last Monday. I do hope you are well again. Drop me a card if you are able & tell me how you are. I meant to find time soon to come down & see you, if company does not bore you. I shall think of you   as able to be out occasionally enjoying these June days. The world has not been so beautiful to me for a long time as this spring: probably because I have been at work like an honest man. I had, in my years of loafing, forgotten how sweet toil was. I suppose those generations of farmers back of me have had something to do with it. They all seem to have come to life again in me & are happy since I have taken to the hoe & the crow-bar. I had quite   lost any interest in literature & was fast losing my interest in life itself, but these two months of work have sharpened my appetite for all things. I write you amid the fragrance of clover & the hum of bees. The air is full these days of all sweet meadow & woodland smells. The earth seems good enough to eat.

I propose for a few years to come to devote myself to fruit growing. I have 17 acres of land now, mainly all of it full in grapes & currants & raspberries. I think I can make some money & may be   renew my grip upon life. I was glad to see Kennedy. I like him much.

How I wish you was here, or somewhere else in the country where all these sweet influences of the season could minister to you. Your reluctance to move is just what ought to be overcome. It is like the lethargy of a man beginning to freeze.

We are all well. Julian goes to school in Po'keepsie, & is a fine boy. He goes & returns daily in the little steamer. I hope O'Connor is no worse. So drop me a line.

With much love J Burroughs   see notes July 3, 1888