Haw Patch July 28/67

Dear Father,

I received yours of June 23d about two weeks ago and have neglected to answer it but I will try to do it now. I was sorry to hear that you wasn't well. We are all well here. So is the folks at Albion. Ma was here day before yesterday. George has been here for three weeks helping in the mill. Our mill works well but we haven't done much for two weeks on account of harvest. We sawed them big logs last week. I had to take the top saw off to saw them. We have got thimbles in the boiler and it works well. We have got a new belt, it cost us 100 dollars here but it is the heaviest belt I ever saw. It will hold all the horse can pull. I am running the saw yet & it works tip top, but it is here with me as it was with you to home. I have everything to do. Alf aint better than a wooden man to drive things. He lets the wood way as it will, but he is contented still. He says if you come back & want to buy part of a mill, we will buy a new one and you take one & I the other. We have sites for logs to last us a year. We could get another set here, but we cant stay for we have to go up east sure and we talk of going to Diamond Lake for McConnell. He will move us free and give us 7 dollars per thousand feet for sawing. Alf is up there today looking at the logs. We can get 1000 logs two miles north of Frank BAKER, all of one man & we can get 3,000 up to Clear Spring or where PLANKS mill was, you know where it is. The folks come here and offered them to us. When you come home, I wish you would bring me a good pony if you bring any. Money has been scarce here, but I guess it will be plentier now, for there is lots of wheat threashed and selling for $2.00 per bushell. Wheat is first rate take the county over & it will average 20 to 25 bushells per acre. Corn is poor on account of the weather being so dry. We have not had any rain for six weeks, until last Friday and that wasn't much better than none.

The hands have all quit at the mill at Albion & they have been laying still on account of it. But they have hired Ben CLARK now & HADLEY is running the saw, but who is milling I don't know. Ma said Billey SMITH was going to Rome City for $75 per month. Bob ASCEW is at Rochester to work. He says he hates to see the old Albion mill going as it is. He says he can hear some complaint every day. I have got the wood saw to going. I was most afraid to start it for it was cracked in 4 places, but I drilled it and in the worst place I countersunk on each side & put a rivet in, so I think there is no danger now of it bursting. I strained my wrist a day or two ago and it aint very stout, so I will have to quit for this time. Write soon.

PS My papers are behind time, but I will send them.