Livy darling, it is 7 a.m., & I have this moment finished the tedious & exasperating job of packing—it took me just an hour by the watch.

I was mighty glad to get your & Susie’s & Bay’s letters last night. But I must warn you of one thing: you had better let Susie spell her own way; I would not try to assist her, the result is too disastrous.

I am becoming a good deal of an early bird; & if I were at home I would rise up & help Susie brush the dew off the world, these fine mornings.

I went to see them make ice, yesterday. The ammonia gas turns the big iron pipes, all through the mill, a beautiful milk white, like porcelain (that is to say, coats them with milk-white ice as thick as your hand[)], in an open, spacieous building where one occasionally needs a fan to keep himself warm. Under one’s feet are hundreds of little tanks of water two feet deep & a foot square—tin tanks, they are—tin boxes—& these are full of pure clear water undergoing the freezing process. (It takes 24 hours.) Men are constantly removing the lids & dragging out the great oblong blocks of crystal-clear ice. Some of these blocks had huge bouquets of splendid fresh roses & other flowers enclosed in them as in shining plate glass. These are to tower up in the middle of a dinner me table & cool the air. This ice is solider than that which nature makes, & takes much longer to melt. They make 60 tons a day in summer & 100 in winter, & sell it at a cent a pound.

Goodby We leave this evening for St Louis, direct, in the City of Baton Rouge, Horace Bixby master, dam this pen, & shall s arrive there next Friday, remain a few days, then a day in Hannibal, Keokuk; Quincy; then straight up to St Paul & across country to home.

Goodbye, I love you, darling.