This is a letter from Alice Kirby to her aunt Ada. In the letter, Alice talks about how her father and brothers have been very busy making hay, and are so driven by their work that they camp out in the fields where they are baling. Alice says that she feels like her father is working too hard for his age, and hopes that her uncle John Mallory (her mother’s brother) will come and help them with cultivating.

This is a letter from Laura Kirby to her aunt Ada Kirby. The letter discusses how Laura no longer plans on attending school and how the weather has been some of the coldest they have ever had in Kansas. Laura talks about a fair they attended and says that her uncle John Mallory wrote them a letter for the first time in seven years.