Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman on his improving health, his brother, Sarah, and finances

Nov. 6th, I believe,

I am still slowly improving, I am in fact considerably improved this morning. My face is rather peaked and washed out. The bumps and veins of my brow are a little more conspicuous, my beard is growing to a point on my chin, etc. I contemplate going over and hearing a few classes this afternoon. I think I may hear classes from 11 to 12 and from 2 ½ t 4 now in a few days, though now I am ardly stong enough to make two trips per day. The fine weather is at an end, for a spell at least. It has been foggy and rainy for the two past days, and is still cloudy. W. does not like the place here very well, has not been feeling so well for a few days, and as he would rather like to go on next year at the Grove he thinks he will go back soon. Captain Grimm is here and out of a job and perhaps, or rather very likely, would take a place in the institution here. The captain and I might [?] the institution for equal shares and so W. and J. go home as soon as the latter is able. It might be a little lonesome for me to stay here all by my little self this winter, but no doubt I should stand it well enough, especially if you kept up a fusillade of letters W. will surely do this if he can get the extra [$100?], and I think likely he had better anyhow. It is too confining for him to teach 6 hours a day it wears on him a good deal, and with the malaria and bugs of this region, he may be worn down very considerably. At the lowest calculation I would clear about $320 for the next two terms, and I might run the school the last term by myself and make $100 [or?] more; I mean by the Grimm arrangement. W. going home would relieve father entirely of school work, leaving him time for reading and writing and working in the [school?] and garden, and recuperating. I fear very much to have him go on with school work for a good long time. 20 years of almost constant drudgery (60 percent of his work has of necessity been drudgery) is enough to wear a man down considerably. So Father take pity on yourself and on Willie and let the boy go home and take the place while you give yourself to the work of [resting?]. You might do preaching in some of the districts around, if you could not restrain your [?] to do good. I do not think Sarah will be very strong for some time, and it would be better for her to go home. She could not take charge of the primary [?] for a good while, a month or more, and I fail to see how we are going to keep it up during the interim. She will hardly be well enough to do homework for several weeks needing care herself for a couple of weeks [?]. If she would be content to go, she had better. You, [M?], might [?] dark suggestions in your letters, and I will do the same by word of mouth. She cannot carry on her friends much longer. [We?] have read [?][?][?] folks out already. If there be no primary [?], she will have no work to do in the school, and if she kept house for me, and we pay $20 per month [out?], the [people?] would be left-handed, if she stays and [?], of course it would not pay. But this line of reasoning need not be presented to her at first as it might discourage her. J. and W. had [?] go home

I enclose a letter of Uncle Williams [?] W. opened

*in second-page margin* W. has had several headaches