A TEACHER: A STUDENT OF LAW, AND TUTOR. 63 



is slowly mending, and my mind recovering its accustomed 

 tone. Since my last, my mind has been greatly relieved by 

 your welcome letters of the 19th, 20th, and 21st of January, 

 in which I have the satisfaction to find that your situation 

 is perfectly agreeable, and I am now easy concerning you 

 as to everything but the climate. But trusting in God and 

 in your personal temperance and caution, I hope that you 

 will escape 



TO MK. G. S. SILLIMAN. 



FAIRFIELD, May 9, 1797. 



I STILL continue at home, in the same employ 

 ments which engaged my attention when last I wrote. I 

 endeavor, as much as possible, to lighten the cares and 

 to cheer the spirits of that mother to whose anxious care 

 and unwearied exertions we owe those superior advantages 

 which it has been our lot to enjoy. I have taken the whole 

 care of the farm and its appendages, so that she has no 

 further concern in the business than merely to give her 

 advice. It has been since the breaking up of winter, and 

 still is, an object of constant attention to put every part of 

 the farm into the best state of improvement of which it is 

 capable. The fences are all repaired ; the lot which occa 

 sioned so much ill blood last year, and the lot before brother 

 Noyes's door, are sowed with foxtail and clover seed, and 

 next season I do not doubt that we shall have from them a 

 plenty of the best of hay. The orchard is to be ploughed 

 and planted with corn in order to extirpate the elders which 

 have overrun it, and the other lots are improving in some 

 way or other. We calculate that the productions of the 

 farm will, this year at least, support the family, which you 

 know was far from being the case last year. My present 

 employment is far from being one to which, at the present 

 period of my life, I should wish to give my time. But I 

 have found by experience that it conduces to my health and 



