Baltimore        Aug 18

           

Dear Sister,

                                    I thought I might as well write a few lines today as to not do anything.

 

            There has not been any frost for several days it is quite warm indeed for the season. most every one has their doors and windows open to let in the cool air. It looks rather hazy down in the South and West as if there might be snow tomorrow. I think today is a regular weather breeder 

 

There has been any amount of rain here the past week It commenced raining last Wednesday evening and rained like a thunder shower till Friday morning and since then it rained moderate like till yesterday noon when it cleared away. Some of the streets near the wharves had water in them two feet deep and a little river that runs through the city called Jones Falls was two feet deep on the bridge a boy got washed off the bridge and got drowned. The people say there is right smart of rain this summer and I think there is right smart indeed too. 

 

            I went down the Bay last Friday with a man that raises watermelons, that is a few. He has fifty acres planted to them alone, and another field of sixty five acres in corn. this is all he plants. no potatoes or garden truck that I could see. He has been in to Baltimore with three schooner loads of them this year and sold I think he is making money for a farmer, but he says there is so much rain they cant raise anything. He and his three boys (all six footers) worked all day yesterday picking off melons and putting them on board the vessel, and in the afternoon I worked too. / His melons were not bad to eat by any means. he would save the very best ones for seed cut them open and eat the inside—that which is inside the seed and throw the rest away This last spring he planted three bushels of seed worth sixty eighty and one hundred dollars a bushel. We worked last night stowing melons in the vessel till nearly nine oclock and then went to supper. this morning about ten oclock we got underway for Baltimore and have just got in, half past two Sunday.

 

            I forgot to send you my directions in my last letter so that you might write to me, in this letter I will if I do not forget it     

L. C. Cook

 

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Direct No. 68. S. Eutaw St Baltimore

where is Ans that he dont make his appearance

 

How are all the folks over to Cooks

 

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write so I can get it so soon as Saturday

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