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Dear Walt—

I now send you on with loving remembrances & good wishes our little contribution to the record of your birthday—a draft for $19495 (£ 40) from Bessie & Isabella Ford, William, Ethel & Arthur Thompson & myself. I hope it will reach you safely—you might send a line in reply. The draft is payable at the Tradesman's National Bank, Phila.

Glad that you notch another birthday among us—tho' I fear the time is often wearisome to you. The spring comes again with the cuckoo & the corncrake calling all day long, & the grass growing thick about our feet already (very early this year) and the trees all in leaf—the old vigor somewhere down, the perennial source which even in extreme age I guess people sometimes feel within them. I trust you have still good friends near you, and do not feel cut off from those that are remote. Ernest Rhys has just sent me some lines or verses of greeting to you—but perhaps he will send them on himself. I heard from Bucke a fortnight ago telling me he had been with you. I have just been weeding strawberries & come in to write you these few lines.

All goes well with me. I am brown, & hardy—& tho' I live mostly alone I have more friends almost than a man ought to have. Some kind of promise keeps floating to us always, luring us on. With much love to you, dear Walt,

as always Edw Carpenter

ans'd

May 28