Letter #58
One
sheet blue lined paper 7¾ x 9¾”
embossed in upper left corner
Date: 6/16/1859
Place:
Pacheco
From:
Ann
To:
Mother
Pacheco.
June 16, 1859.
Dear
Mother.
Yesterday Clara went to the store and Harris gave her your
letter of May 16. I was not only pleased but surprised as I had not
heard the mail had arrived. H sent me word he should write you this
morning and I have left everything to do the same. Parkers business (as
I think I have written you before) is teaming. anything he can get to
do, he has plenty of work at 3 or 4,00 dollars per day as his is the
only team here devoted to that. The warehouse that the boats come to
now is about a mile from
here, and everything must be hauled from there. besides he takes jobs
of putting in
grain, hauling wood, hay, &c. He is now at work in the hay.
After it is cocked he hauls the cocks and stacks it at 75 cts per acre.
he made a horse rake and the boys haul it and he pitches. Guy rides and
guides the horses while D- holds the rake. They go about 3 miles, take
their dinner and stay all day. Before starting in the morning they
milk, feed the calf, pigs, and chickens, carry water and chop wood for
the day. At night do the chores again, and Guy drives cows for two of
the neighbors, makes 50 cts per week at that. They are gone now. Clara
has sung over the dishes till they are done and is now sweeping, Sarah
and Jane are playing woman and ’bisiting’. J- comes
to me about every other minute “Miss Main how do. I berry
well.” We are more pleasantly situated now than ever before
in Cal. Our house is small but if we are ever able to finish it will be
convenient. The end fronts the road. The size is 16 by 24 feet, 1 and
½ stories high. It is divided into 2 rooms, 12 by 16. The
parlor has a good, cheap, wool carpet on the floor, and a curtain
across one side behind which is my bed and a trundle bed. The dining
room has a curtain, the boys bed, and China matting on the floor. Back
of that is another room 10 by 16 for kitchen, store room &c.
Now we have a little corner partitioned off for Claras bed. have no
spare bed, no room for one. when we need one put the boys on the floor.
Begin second page
I Have tried to show you our plan
for finishing but have not succeeded very well I fear. You can see we
intend a Verandah to cover the dining room windows and extend around
the parlor. The wings will furnish bed rooms and a sitting room for
constant use. I dont expect to have a nice parlor and shut it up, but I
wish to keep it clean enough for anyone to come in and sit down in
comfort. Each bed room will have a closet or clothes press and we can
finish
off two good sleeping rooms up stairs if we wish. Back of all is a room
for a wood house well &c. If we wish an outside door to our
dining room we can put in French windows or in place of one window a
door with a glass sash in the top. The whole could be finished for
about $200 but we cannot do it this year. The lot has a good picket
fence on two sides with a small barnyard, hen house &c. The
other sides only a temporary fence. The house and fence are paid for
but not the lot. Have given you
full particulars because I thought it would interest more than anything
else. Can you suggest any improvements, or Father either. you know we
must go on a cheap scale. The frame is boards stood up, the
inside to be clothed and papered. But I must wind up, time is slipping
away and I have got ‘stacks’ of sewing to do. Do
you know I have the sewing machine fever
badly.
Could we get them here at the Ohio prices would have one
instanter.
It keeps me slaving from one years end to another to barely clothe the
children, and we are not able to hire. The San Francisco price for a
good family machine is $105. so I have no hopes. Many thanks for the
flower seeds you sent but they were rose moss, and I have 5 different
colors growing now. If you could get some Cypress seed without too much
trouble would be thankful. I have Cactus and a Fushia in bloom in my
dining room window. But I cant
write the half. how I do wish you could step in and spend this
beautiful summer day with me. Mother it is actually an aggravation to
write you. It always makes me restless and dissatisfied. Money is said
to be the root of all evil, and I know it is best for us to be poor, or
it would not be so,
[The
following is written upside down at the top of the first page.]
but
I cannot help feeling that a little money to visit you with would be such
a blessing.
Good Bye.
Hope you will all accept much love from
Ann.
[The
diagram is scanned from the original letter in Ann's handwriting.]
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