The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1903-04-02
BILL ARP
xxxExxxzxxxxxxH3&&ExxxxxxS
Kind friends, please forbear. know

strain my mind. haven't been out OF
the house but twice in three months.
My wife and the doctor watch me and
won't let me go. A few weeks ago |
slipped off TO my daughters one pleas
ant evening and haG to be hauled back
in a buggy, for it is up hill to my
house, and l was weaker than l
thought. You see l had sunstroke
last June and have never recovered
from il. Every night. if the weather is
bad. have to get up about midnight
and sit by the fire and cough FOR an
hour or two. But l can answer letters
and have from dozen TO score every
day. 1t pleases me to answer the let
ters Of the young folks. for many OF
them need help. know that did
wher | was away OF at school. Ny
father was al Old school teacher cna
knew how TO help me. He wrote nearly
all of my junior orators speech ana
got credit for it, though | only crossed
the is and dotted the is and put my
name to the end of it. But there are
hundreds of boys and girls who have
no help and | am sorry for them ana
so for many years past l have trieo to
help them. Some Of them just want
help little, few ideas, but others
want the whole thing. In fact, one boy
asked me to write him two so that he
could take choice. Many OF them forget
to enclose stamp and my postage ac-
count got to be such burden that, as
Rip Van Wrinkle said, 81 swort OIL
and quit answering such letters. It is
bad manners to write to man on busl-
ness that does not concern him and
expect him to pay the return postage.
| receive many long manuscripts with
requests to read and criticise and re-
turn and tell where to have publish
ed and what the writer will probably
get paid for them. have two on hand,
lust received-no stamps enclosed-one
is a grammatical curiosity. Hardly
line that does not contain bad gram
mar or a misspalled work. 1t takes
nearly half line for the word "specra-
cles" and it has fourteen letters in it.
The word angel is spelled angle, and
yet the writer expects to get paid Tor
the story.
The other manuscript is an inquiry
INTO the race pro5lem-lo s,amps-and
it contains seventeen questions for me
to answer. Another long letter on FOOLS
cap wyites OF the good old times and
says in conclusion that if / will answer
il he will write me again and put his
name 70 the next letter. There is no
name to this. He Is an lrishman,
reckon. One other request | wish to
make about letters. Please place your
postoffice address plaily at the top and
your name plainly at the bottom. Many
a time | have passed letter all round
the family trying to decipher the Sig
nature. Sometimes l have cut the sig
nature off and pasted it on the back
of the reply, thinking that probably
the postmater at the writer's home
would recognize it. If the postoffice ad-
dress is omitted and the postmark on
the envelope is blurred, as it frequently
is. it is impossible to know where
reply should be sent and II / guess at
it and guess wrong it goes to the dead
letter office. Now, you young people
must not forget these little things, Tor
they are important, especially the
stamps. Sometimes we literary men
are greatly perplexed to know what to
do with some letters. One more re-
quest. Do not write to me at Atlanta.
| do not live there. My home is in
Gainesville, and thought that every
body knew it by this time. have been
living here over twenty years.
And now let me ask the good chari-
table ladies who seek to do something
for some good cause to send no more
endless chain letters to me. They are
nuisance and have annoyed me
greatly. thought that when that COM
mon cheat and swindler, Joel Smith, OF
Monticello; Fla, was broken up and
arrested the endless chain business had
stopped, but of Late it has revived and
I received three last week. One of them
started in Canada for so-called mis-
sionary work and got all the way
down to Louisiana and from there to
me, waiting me to copy two letters
and send ten cents in Christs name,
and under no circumstances to break
the chain. Well, l broke it and shall
break every one that comes to me, and
shall burn the letters for they never
contain any return postage. Some years
ago the good ladies Of Fredericksburg,
Va, wrote 10 me. saying they wanted
about S300or S4O0 to place head stones
to the graves of 2G0 Georgia soldiers
who were buried there. l made an
earnest appeal to our people and asked
for a dollar from each good man or
woman, and | raised $500 in three
weeks. Adjutant General Phil Byrd
sent me 81 all the way from New
Brunswick. l bought the marble. all
lettered nicely from the northern men
who own the works at Marietta
bought them at one dollar each, which
was less than the cost. for the COM
pany said they helped to put our boys
there and they ought to help mark
their graves. The railroads shipped
them free. There was no endless chain
in that business. Three thousand
neglected confederate graves, at Mari
eta! Our boys, our dead buried on our
soil, died in defense of their homes,
their state, their people. On the other
side OF the railroad are about as many
who were trespassers on our soil
,o,doJe uho came as Invaders with