Alexander Robb, Nicola Lake, Canada to sister Susanna Robb.
Nicola Lake February 24th 1872 My dear Sister What can be the matter with you that I have not heard from you for so long I have been waiting nearly all winter for a letter from you always expecting one, and always being dissapointed [disappointed?]. And since I have heard that you are or have been so delicate, I am and will be seriously uneasy unless I hear regularly from yourself. How I wish I could transplant you here for the next six months or as much longer as I could prevail on you to stop. Besides the comfort it would be to me to have you near me I am satisfied that a few months in this high altitude and dry climate would completely restore your health, diseases of the chest being a thing almost unknown here, And what a comfort it would be to me to have you with me if for ever so short a time! for I am afraid I am going to be very lonely now I may perhaps have mentioned to you that for these last eighteen months or so a brother of my former partner and his wife have been living with me. I have lately bought his farm and in a short time he and his wife will be moving to a place about twenty miles from here, so I expect to be entirely alone. It is true that my old partner and his wife live only a little over a mile from here but I am afraid I will feel the want of company in the house I will be very sorry too, to part with Mrs Mickle (the woman who lives in the house with me) she has been as kind to me as if I had been her brother and I have come to like her almost as well as if she were my own sister. Her husband is gone now to put up a house on his new place and meanwhile his wife and a little girl are stopping here I expect they will all leave for good in about two weeks. This district is getting to be quite settled up. Three years and one half ago there was not one white settler within forty miles. Now there are twenty #PAGE 2 five within less than half that distance and we expect a further influx next Summer A good many too of the settlers have got wifes [wives?] and young families, which gives the place something of a home look. We have had a very severe Winter here this year. It set in nearly a month earlier than usual and we have had more snow and more cold than I have seen for these last three years. On Xmas [Christmas?] day the thermometre [thermometer?] was down to thirty one degrees below zero. You cannot fancy what such cold is but it may give you an idea when I tell you that at fifteen degrees lower mercury will frieze [freeze?] and strong brandy will become as thick as syrrup [syrup?]. Had you such weather in your damp climate I do not believe anything could live but here we do not feel it so badly. It is however very lucky that even here such extreme cold is rare and never lasts longer than three or four days.Close