you start you may succeed. & if you should.  I think I shall not go on a farm but get a few acres near Des Moines.  So that you could carry on your buisness & I could keep a team or two of horses & work a small place to profit.  You say you will not let me work so hard I will second the motion for I know that I have worked too hard for a year or two & I intend if it should be the will of our Heavenly Father to spare my life until I reach home to take it more easy & try & enjoy the social &  religious privaleges that Des Moines affords.  O my own dear sweet girl how happy we might be if I were at home & would be contented to settle down in this way I would wish an elevated piece of land, dry & nice such as it is about Reicheneker or Bro Nash & I have sat while away out on Picket alone & looked away under the North star when you were probably asleep or looking to the South & I have laid out many plans for the future, many perhaps that we may never realize, but my precious let us hope & pray & trust that God will soon bring about a peace to our country & that these hopes & other long cherished hopes may yet be realized.  let us hope that there are many blessings yet in store for us.  And now my Mary I must bid you good bye, I do it reluctantly, for I love to write to you.  please send me 2 or 3 postage stamps every letter I owe the boys some & feel bound to pay them I cannot get them here.  forget me not  Lyle A Garrett
