[The letter had no page breaks, so some are added hear for ease of reading]Shelburne Mass. Dec 9, 1874.
My dear Sister Martha
I intended to have written to you last week but some way or other did not get time. I am tired all the time and then I get through work and sit down I dont [sic] feel at all like writing. I do wish the letters would write themselves. The folks are all as well as usual Uncle R. is as smart as a cricket Father continues well and works most of the time when it is not too cold. Mothers health is about as good as usual, and I am as well as I ever am. The folks in the other part of the house are as well as usual Eliza goes to school down here to the Center and Helen packs her satchel fourty [sic] times a day to start for India to see Aunt Martha and bring her home.
Lafayette has started for the west for good he went this week Monday Dec. 7. he started from Conway and took the cars at South Deerfield only Sarah and Robbie went with him Georgie is agoing to stay down to Mr. Andrews and go to school to Bethia. I do not know whither he will go west in the spring or not I rather think he will want to see his father by that time. Mary is going to school at Westfield to take drawing lessons she does not have to pay for them all she has to pay is her board at the boarding house and [it?] is not as much as she would have to pay elsewhere. She is agoing to fit herself to teach drawing and painting and then is going west to teach. Adaliza Long is dead she died Monday and is to be burried [sic] tomorrow.
Friday Dec. 11. I have been cleaning our kitchen to day I am rather behind hand about it but I did not want to do it till after the apple sauce was made and we only got that made this week. We cut and fixed our apples this week Tuesday and Wednesday and yesterday Mother boiled the apples or stewed them which would you call it. I have been dreading making it for ever so long and I am glad it is over with and my kitchen is all cleaned.
I suppose you must have reached your destination before this and have therefore received a number of your home letter[s]. We have not as yet snow enough to make sleighing and I dont [sic] know as there is much prospect that we shall have and we have not had any very cold weather either, it is very fortunate that we have not for the springs and streams are very low and there would be a good deal of suffering for want of water if cold weather should set in[.] Mrs Marsh wanted to know [...] if you would not write something about your work out there to be read in our prayer meetings when we have monthly concert, she asked me quite a while ago but I though[t] I would wait till you got there I do not think there [is] as much interest in our church just now but still we have very good meetings. There are revivals in quite a number of the towns around us in Heathshire [?] is a great deal of interest and a good many conversions. it is the first revival they have had there for a great many years. The church there is very small and weak so few are the male members that there are not enough to officer the society and they had to choose Ladies to some of the offices there is also quite a revival in Montague.
Saturday Dec. 12. Today I have been baking and ironing and if you could just step in you could have three kinds of pie apple pumpkin and mice and some apple sauce. We had a boiled dinner today and you could have some of that. John has been to Greenfield today. I wanted to go with him but as it was my baking and ironing day I could not go. Thornton is going to work down [?] to Daniel Bardwells this winter.
Oscar Loomis, Mary Smith's husband has married again it is only about five months since she died and he was then inconsolable and said if it was not for his children he would not care to live, and now Mary hardly four months dead and he married again. I think he got over her death pretty quick. I suppose there is some excuse for him on account of his children, it being very difficult for him to get any one to take good care of them but it does seem to me that he might have waited a little longer before he got married. I told Clarinda that if my husband should get married so soon after I was dead that I would haunt him all his life to pay him for it.
Have I told you that Fannie Duncan Mitchell has got a baby boy it is now about three weeks old. Fannie was very sick when it was born about as bad I guess as Sarah she has just got now so she can come out to table with help. William Wells wife has a baby girl born the next day after Fannie's boy was and Wm. wife has just got so she can sit up but she cannot walk any yet. John and Tyler are just tracing your route out on the map in Johnsons apple then Mother was talking to me and made me write apple instead of atlas.
We sent your diary last week Saturday. I carried it down to our office and I suppose it would not go out till Monday from Bardswell Ferry and would be sent from Boston last week when they make out their mail to send abroad. We did not pay any thing on it farther than Boston for we did not know what to pay. Thursday I went down to Adaliza Longs funeral and after the funeral I stopped to Helens in[...]ing to spend the afternoon as the funeral was on the forenoon but I had not been there more than half an hour when John came back after us (father was there too) to come home for Carrie Wills and her father were at our house to make a visit so we had to go home I was glad to go for I have been wanting to see Carrie for some time and it has not been so I could go down there for I am not able to walk so far and it has not been so I could go to her the folks have been going by there. The folks are all well and all send love. Mother has had a letter from John Wilson and he says that Henry Lake is agoing to be married think any one is a fool to have him. John Wilson sent his picture and I think it looks like Mr Lake and Mother told him I thought so and he says is coming down here to make me take that back.
With much love I am your affectionate sister
Susan E.