July 3, 1859

Dear Safiya,

I hate it when you stop in the middle of something like that.  Why was Thomas not able to stop her from basically killing herself?  He was older than her, right?  Please reply to this quickly.  I want to know.  No, I need to know what happens.  You’re right.  It’s keeping me distracted.

The MacJohns are still terrible.  I’ve lost breakfast now along with dinner, so now I just have supper, or lunch, or whatever you want to call it.  I still do all of the work in the house.  It isn’t really that bad, dealing with the hunger.  But I’m starting to feel ill.  Light headed and such.  Maybe it was just something I ate.  I don’t know.  It’s probably nothing, whatever it is, if anything at all.

You know, it just hit me now.  With you writing me I never really got time to think about Grandma Julia’s death.  But she’s isn’t going to come back, is she?  She’s really dead, and not just hiding somewhere with you?  Or are you my grandmother?  I don’t really know anymore.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention this.  A new family moved in next door, just an acre away, which actually really isn’t that far considering we’re in southern Minnesota and everything is flat and there aren’t very many trees, mostly farms.

To get to the point, he’s a few years older than me, and he looks exactly like how you described Thomas.  Tall with dark hair and bright blue eyes.  He’s a roof thatcher as well, and since we have a leaky roof he promised to come over and look at it and fix it in exchange for a few dinners with us.  He heard that “Cindy” is the best cook in the town.

That’s just some random facts.  Thought you’d like to know.  I’m making meat pies.  What?  They’re good, aren’t they?

Oh, I almost forgot.  Tomorrow is Independence Day.  The MacJohns won’t let me go to the celebration, so I didn’t think it would be worth mentioning.  Oh well.

Sincerely, Lucy