Oct. 11, 1858 Richard Wait to John Benjamin-1823

Lawrence, Kansas

October 11, 1858

Mr. John Benjamin

My Dear Sir,

Yours of the 28^th ___ was received a day or two since, and I am happy to learn that you and yours are in the enjoyment of a good degree of health and for that blessing alone you ought to be, as I believe you are, devoutly thankful.

The privations under which you are now at the present time obliged from the nature of things and surrounding circumstances to submit to, were, I doubt, not if your health is considered to you be only for a season.  For in a year or two you must have within your reach and means very nearly all of the necessaries and even some of the more needed comforts of life.

 

 

Now take a little survey of the future when the time shall come that you will have your cow, your butter cream, and milk and the curdled milk bring up outside the ___ in a course cloth or fine net until nearly or quite dry.  Then mix it with a little cream, a little butter, and stir to drink.  I am very fond of it for tea, and when you shall have your pig, your hens and their eggs and all the culinary vegetables from your garden, these with a little coffee, tea and sugar, and a nutmeg to___ and having no rent to pay, with employment, from home only part of the time, and these with a contented mind, what more can you ask?   These Mr. Benjamin are specialties of mine.  They may not suit you, but if you will but make up your mind to accept these blessings, rest assured they will come.  God has promised not to forsake those who are resolved not to forsake him and their way.  Every day I keep my dependence upon his goodness ___ remember that without his constant loving kindness and great goodness we can have nothing.  Be sure to give him your supreme love, and next comes love to thy neighbor.  Say to your wife to have hope on hope, ever a faint heart will not win the prize.  She say in her letter to my industrious and hardworking good wife “that if we only had a cow we could live this winter”.  Now assure her for me that the cow shall be forthcoming and that Mr. Wait will commence for her benefit the catalog of good things on the opposite page.  (Cow, butter, ham, eggs, ___) and a kind provider will in due time supply the rest.

 

 

You will now take my direction in the matter of the cow.  Without delay and at once seek out ready to obtain.  By this time I send you the money, a healthy young handsome and gentle cow.  I have added stress under word “gentle”.  I should have said also a good milker.  If you could only write-up what I am accustomed to almost daily morning and evening in an unruly ___, you will pay particular attention to what I say.  Mr. Burlene, a gentleman of my acquaintance, drives up his cow on horseback or she will not come up of her own accord, and when up, a dozen efforts are made for her to stand and be milked.  He has often drove her up to the gate and off she would go again on the gallop out of sight almost.  And Mr. Burlene said to me if he could not sell her for beef he would pay someone to take her away for she was a perfect nuisance.  So you must be very careful in your selection.  If I were you I should hardly venture to purchase a stranger’s.  Purchase one if you can in the neighborhood or vicinity, and I would recommend to you to take her a week or so on trial before paying the money, as by such a course you would be likely to suit yourself better. 

 

I do not wish you to select a ___ cow because cheap, and contrariwise and extravagant and high priced one, as a high price does not necessarily bring superior cornmeal.  But get a good young milker and write me what such an ___ can be bought for and I will at once remit you the money to pay for her.  I shall have to send the money in a letter and will try to send you such bank lines as you may designate but I suppose ___ money is good currency with you.  It is No. 1 with us.  Mary says she is glad your dear wife is to have the ___ as she would sure she should have it than any one she knows of. 

 

Yours,

Richard Wait

 

No 2.

 

In my desire to do something for the comfort of Mrs. Benjamin and the children, I had overlooked you and your letter, where you say “I would almost give a ___ for a cow now”.  Therefore as I find you have approximated near the sum which ($20) will be required for that object, and wishing to give you more to do as I have requested to wit:  to purchase a young, healthy, gentle and good milker, I send you $25 and I command you by no means to outlay the money for a worthless one, but to give you promise for the further sum of five dollars in addition if it shall become necessary, and I again command you to send to me for that amount.  And as the animal (if a good one) will in all probability conduce so much to your comfort, I am extremely desiring that the money shall not be wasted in a poor one, nor one cent of it appropriated to any other purpose, for if so, I should if I knew it, be displeased.  Now do not let yourself be imposed when, if you are not competent, seek other advice and be sure if you can to mind how these animals conduce to our great need and will bring on pleasurable satisfaction in the good thing they provide to us.  And then see how wicked and unsuccessful it is in us to neglect them as we have seen them neglected and even wantonly and sourly treated.  A good cow, if so neglected, will speedily run out aside.  Some folks are so confoundedly ignorant (when they have been so treated) as to look about them for the failures or cause of it, instead of seeking for it in their own ___ doing.

 

Now how unreasonable in us to export milk and cream and butter and the good things to be made from them when the poor cow is suffering daily and nightly from cold and wet ___.  Some people say “Oh! They are animals”.  What I ask were they given to __ for, and have they not, as well as me, enjoying of their own.  ___ the question is answered, do to others and to animals as well, as we wish to be done with, each according to their capacity their wants and their needs. 

 

At present, or if not, by and by, the giving to her a quart of corn meal, less or more as you can afford, every morning and evening, more especially in the winter season.  It is very grateful to put it into the water in the summer to drink and in winter in warm water to drink.  In summer I should sometimes mix it like dough or mash ___ in winter the same with scalding water. Now when this shall be your practice, I think you will find she will more readily come up morn and evening and give you infinitely less trouble.  I do not take you to be ignorant of these things, but you must allow me, if I please, to unfold any benevolence. I flatter myself.  I have a small portion of it and I am thankful that I occasionally at least find in my heart and mind a desire to do a little of those things which are written “Happy are ye of hearing these things, ye do them”.

 

Write me one word by return mail that I may know you have received the money. 

 

Wishing you better days which I am assured will come to you, I hope so.

I am your friend,

Richard G. Wait