To Bertha Ballou from CC Ballou –
Fort George Wright, Spokane, Washington
My dear _____,
Your letter came a few minutes ago and I am very glad to get it. Your letters would be welcome in any case, but they would be of interest of anyone else wrote them – though I doubt if anyone else could describe things as you do. I infer that you haven’t found any smashed preserves, jelly, etcetera, in your trunk – a matter that gave me _____ concern. What did you think of the _____ and _____ for it’s as _____ splendors and size. It was among years in building, and they _____ were told that when it was completed, Christ would take up his residence in it and make it his headquarters. I dare say that this was meant in a spiritual sense, but the idea of physical occupancy was _____. The labor _____ was _____ noted for its seating capacity – any great for its time – for its peculiar shape, which, as you no doubt observed, is similar to an inverted oval ______ dish – for its remarkable acoustic properties, that no doubt resulted from its shape – and for its fine organ, then the second in size in America. I suppose the old “Lion House” is gone.
We are all well and comfortable. There has been all sorts of weather since you left. Right now, everything is white with snow that fell before daylight yesterday morning. I have begun my carpenter “exercise.” I have some fairly good pine boards, about 13½ inches wide and one-half inch thick, from which I can make since inside _____ for things that ought to be packed double and I find that I can make a nice box, much better than the carpenter would make, in about two hours. Thus far, I have only made only two – one for the two glass lamp shades, and one for the _____ and the Barratta. My next essay will be a smile box for four of your paintings – The two copies, the “still life,” and The Rock ______ Autumn. They differ by only about an inch in width of frames and little more in length. I am planning it in my mind as to have slate separating the pictures, giving each a separate skeleton _____, so as to present any action of their combined weight on any frame. Then I will take up the matter of separate boxes for they ______, _____, _____, etcetera. I get some good exercise and at the same time accomplish something.
We are going to the library this _____ to look for some reading matter. Thursday we had a great time over our bank account. We were sixty-five dollars short. The bank account showed $65.00 less than the checkbook did. After a whole afternoon of research, we found that Mamma had carried forward the “total,” in one instance, without deducting the three checks on the opposite page, aggregating fifty-five dollars. The other ten dollars we were over did account for – probably an error many months old. The result was that we had actually last month a balance of one dollar and eleven cents in bank!! Pretty close to a withdraw! However, it is _____ right now. Well, I must skidoo.
Your loving old Dad.
The Butte companies left there this A.M. to resume station here.