LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

Here is a letter from a wife in Massachusetts to her husband in California. She don’t intend going through the world with the blues:

- “My dear Husband: - As it is now some time since you left for California, I suppose that you would be glad to hear how we are getting along in your absence.

I am happy to say that we are enjoying very good health on the whole. Just at present two of the boys have got the small-pox. Amanda Jane has got the typhus fever. Betsey is down with the measles. Samuel got hooked by a cow the other day, and little Peter has just chopped off three of his fingers with a hatchet. It is a mercy he didn’t chop them all off. With these trifling exceptions we are all well and getting along nicely.

You needn’t be at all anxious about us. I almost forgot to say that Sarah Matilda eloped last week with a tin peddler. Poor girl! She’s been waiting for the last ten years for a chance, and I’m glad she’s married at last. She needn’t have taken the trouble to elope though, for I’m sure I was glad enough to have her go. She was a great eater, and I find baked beans don’t go off near so fast now as they did. The way that girl would dip into pork and beans was a caution to the rest of the family.

The cow took it into her head yesterday to run away, which was very fortunate, I’m sure, for the barn caught fire last night and was consumed. I was in hopes the house would go too, for it’s very inconvenient; but the wind was the wrong way, so it didn’t receive much injury.

Some boys broke into the orchard the other day and stripped all the fruit trees. I am very glad of it, for if they hadn’t I presume the children would have made themselves ill by eating too much fruit.

Hoping you enjoy yourself in California as well as we do at home; I remain your affectionate wife.”