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You owe it to yourself to make some estimate of the amount you have expanded for taxed and retain the same. What disposition would you make of the remainder? Does Mother hold simply a third, and is the rest to be divided equally among the heirs? Am so busy during the day that I can find no time whatever for writing, and at night I am generally very tired so that I can usually write no more than is absolutely necessary. I shall try however to send you some up... in, a short time, for what they call "spring" has some here too, though with so
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changed a [mein?] that I scarcely recognize her. The temperature has sent the mercury up to 90" quite frequently of late and I apprehend that very hot weather must soon follow. Several varieties of the cochis family are now in bl... and the other thorny and prickly plants for almost every plant that grows in this desert land has a "pricker" on it, or has a sharp pa.. and so is one itself--are beginning to show signs of life, though I can't see how they can, growing, as many of them do, of the dry hills on which no rain has fallen for many months and on which the sun has been
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shining fiercely almost all the meantime. Yet they do manage to bring forth fruit in their season, and I'll send you some of it. When you ... in the news papers that bloody battles sometimes occur then and that many are killed have no fear for me, for I am not of them. The ... eaters of flesh. Love to all. Remeember me to that "boys." I wish they could see some of these funny little harmed triads, and swift. Write some. Your Aff. Bro. S.W. Bessey.
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El Paso, June 21st 81.
Dear Bro:
I send you today – in an old [?] a few specimens of flowers. Am very sorry they are not more and that I cannot put them up in better style, but I must either send them this way or throw them away – as I have no time to arrange them. Today we leave El Paso for the West. Hence my haste, I have snatched up these few specimens during the [house?] & perhaps ought to have [?] – so continuously and hard has been my work here, and though I have been here many months yet I positively have not had time of my own – even on Sundays to do this little work of love which you so much desire of me. I am recovered from my late illness and will soon be on the way toward Arizona.
Love to all, H. W. B.
El Paso, [?] T and P, Engineers.