I received your letter of the 11th inst. I have also been very busy—have been working steady since I got back home. I am very glad to hear that you appreciate my poor efforts at letter-writing.
Too bad about your girl getting married. You are right about the girls all wanting to marry a man with money. I guess that's the reason I'm not married. Never mind, old chap, you will find another girl—there are others, don't you know.
You state in your letter that since returning home you have been troubled with the asthma, and on account of the moist air and the land being so low and full of malaria you feared an attack of pneumonia. I hope you are well again and are rid of the cold.
I see you are in the grocery business. That proposition is all right, if you stay at home for a few years. Stick to it, old chap, for awhile, anyway.
I intend to stay at home for awhile, and any time I do go away I will let you know about it. Perhaps we may meet again out in the tall and uncut wild and wooly.
Say, Jack, do you remember in San Francisco "Murry & Ready," the "St. George" where we stopped, "Madera," the "Sugar Pine Co.," the sixty-mile "stage ride," the run-away, the comfortable little cabin on the side of the hill where we slept that night, the long tramp next day out of the Sugar Pine Mountains, and the boss we had in Fresno at the Madera Planing Mill? Them were some great old times.
My folks are all well, thank you. Trusting the same of yours, I will close, with kindest regards and best wishes,
Your old side partner in California,
PHIL.
P. A. Franck, 3851 Juniata St., St. Louis, Mo.