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Tomorrow is Saturday & I will attend to your cloak & your gloves.  I leave on the fifth so when you have this you will I hope have stopped writing to me a week at least important letters.

Father,
[[upside down]] Father




Dear Father, 

I am thinking about skating and if I should take back my old skates you would have to go back to such low ones you would find little pleasure or if I should take the low ones I could not begin to do on them as well as I want to & I would be so far behind my old comrades that although I have the excuse of absense I would be ashamed for I was once at their head.  So I think it best to get a new pair & if you think so too & that it is worth the money this is my device.  I have a pair of stout lace shoes without heels which [[strikethrough]] would be f [[/strikethrough]] are famous for skating!  I have drawn carefully the two projections of the iron.  This would exactly fit the sole of my boot.  The two lines between which I have marked the letter a would represent the slight curve across the iron from side to side, the curve a shoe has & keeps by wearing. [[strikethrough]] My projections [[/strikethrough]]  This is the only exact portion of the drawing that of the iron & [[strikethrough]] I conceive th [[/strikethrough]] the foot will set very solid on such an iron.

As to the runner I have merely guessed at the height.  I would have it a trifle higher my old ones or the same height plus + the thickness of a strap for the straps I want fastened under the [[strikethrough]] runner [[/strikethrough]] iron in despite of beauty.