
          St [Johnsburg?] [Vt?] 12 Sept 1856


 My dear friend


 It is long indeed since
 I received your tardy answer to my letter
 this spring but I am almost literally
 answering it at my earliest leisure.
 I have just enclosed  to the Harpers the
 last of my book except preface. I expected
 proof sheets enough to keep me busy
 here & home now so that for 26 hours to
 come I have no N Granada to do. I am here
 nominally on a visit to a cousin, really to
 see Pres Lohance who has looked at me and
 gone home. Their Corporation meet to vote
 about me next Tuesday. They will [concede in?]
 a year [crossed out: a] minus a term for absence in N.
 Granada at some future time. I ask a
 year & a vacation say from Nov 1858 to
 March 1860. I have not yet told our folks
 what is in the wind - have refused to take
 the matter seriously into consideration till
 elected. The only other man they had in
 view was lacking in morals so that they
        