Letter 18980216

Feb. 16, 1898

Mr. & Mrs. E. E. Delk of
Dunkirk, Ind

Dear Brother Sister,
Uncle & Aunt

It is a long time since I have written to you or heard from you. I think if I am not mistaken that I have written you two letters since I have received any from you. I have wondered a great many times why you do not write but I wait a little longer thinking I may hear from some of you the next mail but if you have ever written I have failed to receive it. The relatives here are all in usual health except John Dickson. He has been ailing for some time. Has hardly been able to do any work this winter. I hired him to work in the timber. I have been paying him ten cents per hour. I let him have a hog at four fifty per hundred in advance that amounted to twenty six dollars and fifty cents. He has less than one third of it worked out & nearly three weeks at it so you may know that he don’t  do very much. I have been working my timber and I have some more than four hundred logs cut in lengths from 6 ½ feet to 32 feet long but mostly run from 8 to 16 feet long. My timber is pretty good. Have only cut a few trees that was an entire loss. I have had three other hands beside John to help saw and chop. Jim Peek, Fred Carder & Elisha Dickson all at ten cents an hour. They board themselves. I work everything that will make a split post. The 6 & ½ stuff is for sawed posts. I have not got any engaged yet but it may be I can sell them at a price that will pay me to have them worked up. I will have I expect enough cuts ready for a least 1,000 or 1,500 split posts. They are most always ready sale at from 2 ½ to 5 cents a piece. Brother Tingley will move his mill in soon as the weather will permit. Joe Coppock  does my hauling of logs at $1.00 per thousand what they will saw out at the mill. I am not quite done chopping yet. Will have probably an other hundred by counting some hickory that I will cut for lumber pickets and ash tree timber. I have lots of very fine shell barks . I expect a man could get sticks forty or fifty feet long that would square 8 X 8. I won’t cut it now unless some one wants a bill of building timbers. They make nice plates for barns & C. I think I shall build a house this fall. I am getting my studding timbers my sills & all rough timbers the right lengths. I will make it 16 x 28 feet with 18 foot studs. ?? one out a bill for it. & if I do come out & help one build it I don’t know yet but what I will make a basement under the whole thing that is if I make anything out of my lumber. Then I will try & find a cook that will take compassion on me & will want a home. I would ask Anna if I thought there was any show of getting her. She would make a good man a loving wife. Her & ?, D. C. have plaid out for good. He is in a bad box & is a bad egg. Well we have had a big snow knee deep on the level. Commenced the eleventh. Snowed more than two days. Didn’t drift so very bad. To day it is thawing. Well I will close. Hoping to hear from you soon. Tell me Alfred Ws address number & street. Yours in love to all ??. I remain your in F L T.

F. O. Delk