I was very glad to get your letter, very glad indeed. I have not answered it before because—it is not very easy to tell—probably pretty much the same reasons that you did not write it before. I am kept pretty busy—and can’t set down to write calmly & deliberately as I want to—never. I am going to try now to get this done if I can before the mail closes.

I have not yet written Emma, though I have been “agoing” to—every day—and thinking I would before I went to bed again. But I don’t like to scribble off a letter without thinking what I am going to say or how I am going to say it, or whether it is likely to bore her or please her—to a lady, even though so good and charitable a friend as Emma. Besides, after working perhaps in the dust—coming in tired and sweaty, and with one’s head full of mould board and furrow slice—it is a great deal easier to read than to write. If you doubt, just try the experiment some night after a hard trouting where you have toiled all day & caught nothing. Do you remember—of course you do—our trying to write to Miss Abby that night at Canaan Falls?

I need not assure you of my sympathy—on the death of your uncle. Your Aunt Mary must feel it sadly; but how much less so than she would if he had departed without the happy change in his character you speak of. Doubtless his conversion was in answer to much prayer. What an encouraging thought it is, too, Charley. “The effectual fervent prayer of the Righteous availeth much.” How much—more we realize than we used to.

How did you like Dr. Bushnell’s letter to the Pope? I suppose folks laugh at him a good deal. It does seem a little self conceited—(pardon!) but that’s the way to do the business—if you could only get the old fellow to read the letter. I believe we can do a great deal more for deluded men—Catholics [241] —or Unitarians, drunkards, & Slaveholders—by praying for them than by spotting them, blackguarding them through the newspapers, and exasperating them. Acting as if we hated them as much as we did their doctrines. Let us agree to pray for the Pope. And treat them kindly. Reason with them as though we might be the mistaken ones—for truly I think in my heart we may be. Be more anxious to show them the lovely features of our own faith than the absurd and shameful ones of their own. Men are oftener drawn to Truth and the Christ, I believe, than driven.

I think myself the Pope and his adherents have got to “come out of that,” pretty soon. It will attend the next great stirabout of this big kettle of ours. Perhaps this little war with Mexico will be the pudding stick. Speaking of guns do you parade from eleven till one daily, Sundays excepted? I calculate you Seniors feel altogether too large to play soger. “Martial Exercises” I presume don’t accord with your dignity.

They are having an interesting time there though, are they not? Will you vote for Taylor—the hero of Chaparral?

This is an interesting country. John will have read you all I have written about it. The brooks so full of Carbonate Lime, tufa is deposited over anything dropped in them for a year or two. The soil is much of it Gypseous—Gypseous shale—tufa & limestone the common rocks.

There are a good many Indians about here. I see them occasionally. The women almost always with a white blanket over their heads—blue dress—pantletts—or pantaloons. I saw one here with a pair of genteel half gaiter black pants—buttoned over her moccasin. They generally have bangles of white metal—beads. Huge silver rings, &c., too.

I am pleasantly situated enough—and I think advantageously—as regards farming—pretty much as I wished to be. A pleasant and well informed family.

I am glad to hear your family are well. Give my love to Mary when you write. How does your father like to teach boys?

There are not “any girls here” to console me. Nor any where—else. So—you know. Write as often as you can conveniently—& tell me all about the girls—and the college & the fellows. Sorry to hear the P.C. is broken up. Where are you now—and all of “ours?”