To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
Keokuk,
Iowa, June 10th, 1856. My Dear mother
& sister,—I have nothing to write.
Everything is going on well. The Directory
is coming on finely. I have to work on it occasionally,
which I don’t like a particle I don’t like
to work at too many things at once. They take
Henry and Dick away from me too. Before we commenced
the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how
much work could be done during the day, and manage
accordingly—but now, they throw all my
plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their
work. I have nothing to do with the book—if
I did I would have the two book hands do more work
than they do, or else I would drop it. It is
not a mere supposition that they do not work fast
enough—I know it; for yesterday the two
book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all
the afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set
up five pages and a half —and I set up
two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper,
night before last, and I don’t work fast on such
things. They are either excessively slow motioned
or very lazy. I am not getting along well with
the job work. I can’t work blindly—without
system. I gave Dick a job yesterday, which I
calculated he would set in two hours and I could work
off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper
time, but he was transferred to the Directory, and
the job, promised this morning, remains untouched.
Through all the great pressure of job work lately,
I never before failed in a promise of the kind.
Your
Son
Sam
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.