[A few paragraph breaks were added for ease of reading]Home, Exeter Apr 25. 93
Middle of afternoon -My dear Charley -
Here sit the minister & Henry Hudson playing chess for diversion this rainy day - They are in the habit of doing so after dinner nea
trly every day - Sometimes if not oftimes the minister gets used up - rather oftener. than Henry I guess. They lay all their blunders to "too much pork" for dinner[.] We had a very nice roast from Mr Sullard last week & it is hardly gone yet.Henry has been clamming & picking our apples & pearing [sic] them this afternoon - [...] Dominic has been riding out down to Dea Loomis. & down to the school house after the mail. Your letter & Lizzies were both mailing there. Th road is so bad that we dont [sic] ride over it oftener than we can help. The other roads are good, dried up mostly & hard again - Yesterday Pa & I took a ride to Willimantic & left Henry & Alice here to do the washing & other work.
Pa went on his pension business & I to get the impression for my tooth - Dr. Ranker couldn't give the [...]s he wanted because he was the examining surgeon and it wouldn't do so he has written to Dr Hastings - The doctors don't know much about him - the fact is - He bought me a new black dress yesterday because I told him how pretty it looked. It wd. make the girls a pretty dress & I presume they will get it yet.
There is blue sky - guess there will be a little chance to work at the wood pile yet. Watkins [?] finished drawing the wood yesterday & took his five dollars for it. That is a relief - surely - Mrs Brown called last evening for me to go to the singing school with her so I went although I was rather too tired. Turner has got all but one dollar of the sixty now - he probably means to hang around till he gets that - "I pity you I do I fairly pity you" when I think of that Thesis & no way to escape it. Don't for pity's sake take in another roomer & bedfellow - get all the rest you can & then I expect you will study yourself to a shadow before June. 1. Here domes those scissors that you gave me for Christmas once. Alice brought them out of some hole where probably she left them sometime. 'Those that hide can find." [sic] Yes, yes - the minister says - I might to have done that more than an hour & a half ago & that finished one game of chess just as the clock strikes three since dinner. He got the better of Henry for this time but Henry beat him twice in succession the other day -
I wd suggest that you come up to visit with Henry if you wasn't so driven, but I guess Henry will be here quite a while waiting for the estate to be settled - He pays his way pretty well & gives the minister quite a rest. Pa is going down to the school house with these letters so I can't write much longer. That acid phosphate wd. be good for your headache - Don't give it away - Dr Ranker gave me some tablets yesterday - for nothing.
[Unsigned but in his mother's handwriting]