cam_hparker_2311_f001_011.1

[written upside down on top edge:]
P.S. Monday Evening Nov 15 Am well. Mail closes soon. Good Night.

Your Son H. A. Parker [Henry A. Parker]

Saturday Eve Nov 13th 1852, San Francisco

My Dear Mother

Your kind letter dated at Pepperell Sept
31st was received last Sunday morning & I was happy to
hear that you were all well at the time you wrote & I hope
you still continue to enjoy health and happiness. I have thus
far received from you five letters since my arrival in
California, dated at Pepperell May 18th Aug 18th Aug 31st
Sept 12th & Sept 31st, all of which I have read & reread with
great pleasure, & I hope I shall continue to recieve letters
from you by every mail from the Atlantic States.

I still continue to enjoy the best of health as usual
& hope I shall do so as long as I remain in this country, for
to be sick at home among friends is bad enough but to
be sick in a strange land among Strangers is doubly worse
& as you say if I lose my health I lose everything therefore
I shall endeavor to retain it. Since I last wrote you I
have been pretty busy my business requiring me to be on
hand from about 5. O'clock A.M. until 6 Oclock P.M. but
as my work is light & I live well &C [etc.] I think I ought not to
complain so long as I remain away from home & friends
which I hope will not always be. It is now nearly nine
months since I left home & a longer time than I was ever
away before & I can hardly realize that I have been through
what I have since I left the good old town of Pepperell
but should I be allowed the privelege [privilege] of again meeting you
all & finding you all the same as when I left I shall be