All is well. No nuse too rite. the weather is good for work and wee ar puting in the time. Wee will plant corn too morrow. Mee and james Will plant 35 acreys in corn. Wee wont plant Eny Cotton Wee hav a feW Ooats sode and millet. i am going too Stephens Vill too day and i Will male this Letr. J. T. when you rite Direct your letr too Stephens Vill Erath county and tell all of the Rest too direct there letrs too the same place. i want you and pah too keep that money john you keep $30.00 and pah $20.00. the Reason i want you to hav $30 is because you have the largest family. john i don’t blame pah and mother for not coming out here for they ortoo no there Buisness. john i want you too rite too me. i did think i would Come Back in march. i cant come now. Rite.
R. H. Burrow
too J. T. Burrow.
Erath County, Texas, March 10, 1887.
Dear father & mother:
Eye will Rite you a few Lines. all is well. Elizabeth[A] has a boy. it was bornd on the 28 of february. She has done well. Mother i want you too pick mee out one of the prityest widows in ala. i will come home this fawl. pah i want john thomas too hav 30 dollars of that money eye want you too Buy analyzer a gold Ring. it wont cost more than $4. i told her i would send her a present. pah that will take a rite smart of your part of the money but it will come all right some day for I am going to sell out some time and come and see all of you. Rite.
R H Burrow
too A H Burrow.
[A] Elizabeth was the wife of his brother Jim.
“We have sowed a few oats,” wrote Rube. Whether this was meant as a double-entendre, and referred not only to a strictly domesticated brand of that useful cereal, but also to the “wild oats” which Rube and Jim had been sowing, and which bore ample fruitage in after years, it is useless to speculate.
In the midst of seed-time Rube tired of his bucolic pursuits, and concluded to try his fortunes at Gordon again, and on the tenth of May the chief gathered his little band at his farm in Erath County and, under cover of a moonless night, rode northward to the Brazos River, about fifty miles distant. They found to their disappointment that the river was very high and was overflowing its banks, rendering it impossible to cross it by ferry or otherwise, and spending the day in the adjacent woodland, they rode back to Alexander the following night, to await the subsidence of the floods, which, however, kept the Brazos River high for some weeks.
Again, on the night of June 3d, by appointment, Henderson Bromley and Bill Brock met Rube and Jim Burrow at their home near Stephensville, in Erath County, and, after consultation, Ben Brook, Texas, a station on the Texas and Pacific Railway, seventy-five miles south of Fort Worth, was selected as the scene of their third train robbery.