Thank you very much for writing me. My hurt is trifling and I keep my bed under the doctor’s orders only because if I were knocking about I might get really hurt and also because I want to earn $15 from the Accident Insurance Compy.

It had better be a secret between us three that he is too good a fellow to travel for if it should get abroad his occupation would be gone and there an end, for he gets his living by it.

The book is growing well, I know, but I am glad to hear that you think so. I have been to see the Ames Monument. I heard from several sources and one that should have been authoritative that it was being spoiled by pebbles blown against it, and I obtained an order to have the Pacific train stopped long enough to let me go to it. I saw no evidence of injury. I never saw a monument so well befitting its situation, or, a situation so well befitting the special character of a particular monument. It is not often seen, apparently, except from a considerable distance, being on the peak of a great hill among great hills with a shanty village on the slope through which the train passes. A fellow passenger told me that he had several times passed it before and it had caught his eye from a distance but until he saw me looking at it he had supposed it to be a natural object. Within a few miles there are several conical horns of the same granite projecting above the smooth surface of the hills. It is a most tempestuous place and I have no doubt that at times the monument is under a hot fire of little missiles, but they will only improve it, I think. (I may be mistaken. I could only glance at it; there was some snow upon it and the wind and cold so horrible that my eyes were half drowned.)

Sincerely Yours