Some say the hand of fate guides our destinies and it was so to be, but I am at a loss to understand why it should so be. I have lived clean, I have always met my obligations with the strictest honor, no marks of dissipation, inwardly or otherwise, have scarred my form and thank God he nor any other can find any danger signals that can isolate me from a free transport to the narrow path. I have been economical, conservative and kind and I think I have done my very best. I have treated every one with the closest application that can be unravelled from the ten commandments and the additional commandment established through Christ.
All through my married life I have been attentive to my wife and in any room of our mortgaged home you can see many tokens of affection that she has received. I have endeavored to lighten her domestic burden and almost every Monday morning for the past twelve years I have been the propeller at the washing machine. Hundred of times I have arisen between the hours of three and four and wended my way to the family kitchen and waded in on the soiled linen. I never sneaked out the back way to avoid using the tea towel on waiting dishes. I can use the broom, duster and make the beds. I can scrub, polish the stove, cook the steak, and perform almost the entire category of domestic needs; but when it comes to baking I would rather face the cannon’s mouth (a silent one like in the city park in Denver) and die like a martyr. I have often acted as maid. I recall once when I was a maid my wife was bed fast for three weeks. We lived in a strong church town, somewhere near eighty per cent, it seemed nearly all were Christians but during dearie’s sickness there was not a single Christian woman or suffragist came to see her, offered her services, or was in any way interested. I am sorry this happened in this broad land of boasted Christianity and civilization. Some of these same Christian ladies never failed to appear when the dues for foreign missions were bordering on delinquency or when some rations were needed for a church spread.
I believe in doing good and giving cheer. You can always notice a gleam of pleasure in your wife’s face when you give her a box of candy, a dress, a dish, or some little token, and how she clings to the missiles of love that you may have penned on scraps of paper, chunks of wood and other things. They always speak for something I think meritable. I think the pathway of dearie can be made more cheerful if she is remembered daily and not all in one chunk at Christmas time, and then let her wait for another twelve months. I never feared I would kiss my wife too much. I kiss her more now than when I courted her and they are just as sweet as ever. It helps to keep the love light in her eye.
I have three fine children. I am not conceited about them; other people say they are good. I have done my best to raise them well. Two of them are in the County High School, the eldest a girl of sweet sixteen and the other a noisy boy of fourteen. The remaining one is a baby of two and one-half years. I must leave these three children and dearie and look for employment. You can realize how pleasant it is to be separated from them. How sad it is to kiss dearie and the others good bye and have the many cute sayings of a strongly attached baby ringing in your ears, not only through the dreary, lonesome days but long after the shadows fall.
Such is life with its pains and sorrows. They come to us all and while I may think my road is rougher than is allotted the ordinary individual I suppose others think the same. The one great consolation I have is that dearie is almost a strong, well woman, and that is worth all I have passed through and I would gladly undergo it again for her. I must be getting ready, the colonists reduced rates of our liberal hearted “S-T-E-E-L” railroads is near the finis of the twelve-day limit. The parting is at hand. I kiss the loved ones good bye, cling tenaciously to my second-class ticket, guard well my pneumatic pocket book with its ragged puncture and try again in pretty California among the salty ocean breezes, the cheerful flowers, the fragrant orange blossoms and the shady pepper trees to find work and health for those I love. GOOD BYE.