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leaves only the spring and autumn months as enjoyable,
Furthermore, I find that there is a gang of negroes and half breeds who have a settlement about two miles from my farm and scattered cabins at a distance of five or six miles in either direction. These people are called "hunters and trappers".  If they confined their pursuit to the products of the streams and forest they would not be particularly objectionable to me, although, of course, I should like to control shooting and fishing on my own property, but that is impossible.  It is depredations of one kind and another done by this gang that I particularly dislike, and gradually I find these and other things prejudicing my mind against erecting a permanent residence in that locality. In fact, as I now feel, I doubt I will every erect anything beyond farm buildings there.  Sometime, however, I may bring myself to build a rambling inexpensive sort of bungalow place, of small proportions, where I can go and take a friend or two occasionally during May and June or October and November, but I shall never take my pictures or valuables of any kind there, and when the bungalow is not in use a key can be turned in the door, leaving nothing to attract the "hunters" of the neighborhood.
You have been more than kind in giving so much of your interest and time to the plans, and that of your assistant as well. I am sure that if they had come to a final state, the re-

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-08 16:05:12 page 11 missing so last word cannot be completed as per instructions