Mary has written you pretty regularly, once a week and has I believe replied to all your letters. I am better now than when I wrote you last—better than I have been since January. Perhaps Jenkins and Van Buren are right and Ayres wrong but Ayres made a careful exploration and the conjecture of Jenkins that my trouble was due to excessive tea drinking is certainly wrong as I have drank no tea since I left New York, having before that entirely lost my relish for it, and my health has improved without any change of regimen but by avoiding study and writing and making up my mind to be more careless about my business than I have been accustomed to be. Giving myself less to do, I go to bed earlier and rise with more regularity. If I was going to try to do as much as I have been used to do, or if I took as much interest in my business as I have done till lately since I went on the park, I should return to my old habit of working at night—sure that I could do the same amount of work in that way with much greater efficiency, ease to myself and saving of wear and tear than by attempting to do it subject to the inevitable frictions of day-light.

We are now living in much ease and comfort—purchased at a frightful rate of cost, to be sure, but for the present, I don’t allow myself to be worried about that—and we are all I think gaining health for it. John is the only one who is not distinctly better, and he is growing rapidly. Mary and Charlotte have improved most markedly—Mary has gained quite wonderfully in courage and patience and Charlotte is growing to be a nice young woman, simple, straight-forward and self-possessed. She is John’s master in everything, and makes nothing of mounting an unbroken donkey, taking Owen on behind and cantering off three or four miles. Mary who turned ill and threatened to faint the first time she followed me over a mountain trail, now gallops over the worst places faster than I want to go, and dashes up the steepest declivities, where I a little prefer not to follow. She generally overdoes it, and is half crazy with nervousness for a while afterwards, but these turns are getting less frequent and less protracted and severe. Owen is a perfect cub—the climate seems only to make him more clumsy, imperterbable, ravenous and prone to fall anywhere [236]

The Olmsted Children
Left to right:Marion, Charlotte, John Charles, Owen.

We have been exceedingly favored in the season. Having missed the usual winter’s rains, we had more than the usual number of late spring showers, and though, now, it is intensely dry, we have had not hot weather. While Doctor Bellows was here we kept up our parlor fire at night. It is sad to see the trees wilting—the buckeye leaves were brown & withered before the blossoms dropped—and the dust is dreadful, but we care for it less very much than I supposed we should.

I wanted to reconnoiter the most distant part of the estate last week—where we have no works and no tenants but a few Chinamen—and took Mary with me. We went in a carriage with a servant on horseback, camped at night, put saddles on the horses in the morning and rode through the gulches and over the hills where a waggon couldn’t approach, the greater part of the next day. It was very rough-riding & the weather [237]pretty warm, but we both enjoyed it and collected a heavy pack-load of quartz samples for closer examination & assay at home. Came into camp with a good appetite for a good dinner, and only suffered from the twenty miles of dusty driving in the evening which brought us home. Mary is getting a quick eye for quartz, and the children are all becoming experts with the “pan.” If California does nothing else for them it will educate them to be clever observers in geology & botany.

I am useing yet, a good deal more gold than I get, but the mines I think promise better than they did six months ago, and I expect to turn the corner in August. The stock-investments which I made several months since have not turned badly so far, for while California (Mining) Stocks have recently fallen about 50 prct on an average, the four which I chose have all but one advanced, and on an average, I could now sell out at a profit of over 3 pr ct a month. The operations of our Company have caused some increase of population and advance of property as well as demand for money, here. Two or three good, thrifty men have asked me if I could not borrow for them at 2 pct a month, offering good first mortgage security on property with which I am familiar.

I have lately bought out the branch business of a large San Francisco mercantile house, at Mariposa, for $40,000. It adds about $400 a day to our trade, with satisfactory rate of profit.

I was a little surprised at the Company’s printing my January Report. I hope you will have seen it. I hear almost nothing from them. If you have not received the Report—Manager’s General Report—January 1st 1864—ask Mr Farley for it, as well as for Profr Silliman’s Report—which I presume they will print, as it is very favorable—too favorable.

We enjoyed Silliman’s visit as well as Dr Bellows’ very much.

You asked me some time ago what I thought of Fremont. I would as soon select a candidate for the Presidency by lot from among the New York aldermen as take him. I enclose the most respectful and careful comment I have seen or heard in California upon his nomination. As far as his California reputation is concerned it is every word true and patiently measured. He is a bad man and not by any means a wise or clever one.