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Dear Sister Jenny,
Received your welcome letter of April 11 and all, children
included, was glad to hear from Aunt Jenny. Susan is well and as nimble as a young
sixteen and sometimes feels as young and as full of mischief --- today is her birthday and
I have taken her to Logan and bought her a new dress and a wringing machine. The
Boys & girls are all well 6 of them going to school. Jenny has some teeth and
also a temper of her own.
Our grain, 8 acres of Rye &
5 of wheat, looks well also have 1 acre of potatoes, but I have not put in all my land
this year and but little in the garden because the grasshoppers (locusts) are here, but
have not done much damage yet. We are having a very dry time --- we have no apples
this year but good gooseberries and promise of currants. I went to Salt Lake City to
April Conference and visited Lehi City and the Utah Lake and had a good time. Susan has
been on a visit to Brigham City, Box Elder Co., and visited the Woollen Factory. John now
goes to Logan with the team alone. We have now started to build a cellar and a
grainery over it, close to the house.
Last winter was the shortest and
mildest I have ever known in this country. There was little snow or rain and the
streams and rivers and wells have less water than ever known this time of the year.
Lucy and Mary's Books came all right --- but when is Aunt Jenny coming, why don't
she come are the questions asked by them. I would rather hear that you were leaving
Sturry Court to come here than to go somewhere else. You surely do not lack the
means to come, it can only be the inclination and I hope that you may be weak enough to
stay there or Providence overrule that you shall until you make up your mind that you will
come. I wonder how unstable you are in your ways and changeable in your mind.
What do you want to wait for the means for the double journey for, if you will come
I can assure you of friends on the journey, a trip of only 20 days, a home when you get
here, and the means to go back if ever you were foolish enough to want to for good.
I hope that I shall visit England some day but I do not know when --- it may be in a hurry
but don't wait for me to come, but come here to me. You have more friends and
relations here than in all the world, besides you may not believe this quite, but come and
I will prove it to you. You say that there was some spirit in the Church Service on
Easter Sunday. I went to a Protestant Church while in Salt Lake City, and thought
there was no spirit at all in the service, that they were dead to the spirit if alive to
the form, or as the Bible says, having a form of Godliness but denying the power (spirit)
thereof, and from such turn away, and so I did.
Write soon as you get this and
tell me that you have made up your mind and written to Mr. W. Budge (a friend of mine) at
42 Islington, Liverpool who will make all arrangements for you, and tell me when you are
going to start, so that I may come and meet you. And may you have a mind of your
own, to do right and may God help and bless you and with love from all.
J.H.
Barker |
