169(5; Sixteenth Street . 
Dear Will:- 
Washington, Dj.C .Feb*13; 1905 . 
We have a blizzard hereabout every other day and the one that 
started in last night bids fair to make a record for disagreableness.1 am 
glad to hear that you are able to keep up the work you have got so far along 
I know of nothing finer than to be able to work and to feel like like it..To 
have to work when you do not feel equafl to the task is the thing that kills; 
I have made no progress towards ascertaining my status in the civil 
service which is preliminary to everything else.I am happy to say that I 
am in much fetter shape physically and mentally than I dared to hope when 
I oame onimhe fact is Barnett found enough eye strain to aeoount for much* 
possibly for all, that dizziness and head trouble^and the proof that he is 
right lies in the fact that in two days after i began to wear his oor-j 
rected glasses I began to feel better,and that I feel better and better 
each day;and this notwithstanding the fact that I am in every way doing 
much more than when I was in Mass .So I cannot being hopeful for the&uture. 
i$.ust now I am undertaking to do a little writing for the Bureau of 
Ethnology but without payol must begin somewhere and why not help the Bu¬ 
reau outfit is the irony of fate that I should be at work upon the same 
0 , 
volumne that I planned and spent several years of my life in writing.Now 
it is to be brought out by the Bureau and to be filled by individual contri¬ 
butions of the members of the Bureau,each sjgnediDf course the basis for all 
