
Camden New Jersey Dec 20 '76 Dearest Hattie (& Dearest Jessie too,)
Your letter came this morning, & not until we got it could we believe in the
change—so different from what we supposed the programme was arranged to be, in St Louis, housekeeping &c.
Dear Hattie, it is real lonesome here since you went away—it is more a "receiving vault" to me than ever.
Thank God though I am certainly better this winter, & more like a prospect for me
physically, than for now nearly four years. (It will be now four years the 23d of January, since I was paralyzed)
This makes me more cheerful & buoyant under the chilling atmosphere, (both moral &
meteorological) of this house. Dear girls, I sometimes lately feel as if I was going
out in the world, to take some hand again in some work that suits me, even if ever
so little. Wouldn't it be a blessed thing?—You see dear girls I just talk
freely & confidentially to you both—I want some one
to talk to—& it does me good—
—Hattie, I have just got your pictures (after some delay) from the photographic printers. I will send you one very soon—& will send your father one, & your Aunt Hannah at Burlington wants one. Your Aunt Lou has one in the parlor already, & it looks very nice—it is a plain head only, looks like an engraving, no fixings or bows or jewelry, but a simple fine classical head, just as I wanted it—But you will see when I send it you.
Your Uncle George, Aunt Lou & Cousin Eddy are all well as usual. Tip is also well as usual—It has been & is very cold here—the ground is all covered with snow—but it is bright to-day. I have just been out about three blocks off in an alley, to see a poor young man James Davis, who is dying of consumption—You know I like to visit the sick—I have to stay in most of the time just now though, as it is very slippery—Little Helen Ewing is staying here now—
If I keep as well as now I think of going on to New York on a visit next month. Lou will write to you soon.
Love to you dear, dear Hattie, & Love to you, dear dear Jessie, from Uncle Walt