July 1, 1913
Dear Alastair,
I am sending this letter to you, as promised, though there may be a delay as mail carriages pass through Calhoun rather infrequently. The inn where I am staying has promised to mail my letters so long as they have the proper postage, but I fear that you may get them out of order or all at once, or even arrive back in Providence before they do!
It is a wonder that my father ever met my mother if Calhoun’s remoteness was anything then like it is now. After arriving in the state capitol of Jackson by rail, I had to switch to a smaller spur line which mostly handles freight traffic and eventually hire a carriage once the last vestiges of the rails gave out. Calhoun is a day’s ride from the nearest town of any size, and it seems to be surrounded not by the farms I expected but the rugged undulations of the north Mississippi hill country. I had thought myself prepared for the oppressive heat of this place—how Grandfather was able to fight in this weather with General Grant, the both of them in thick cotton, I never will know—but not for the remoteness and the silence. If not for the buildings of the town itself, I would think myself at the edge of the world in the deepest part of the Amazon.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 