Dear Brother Deerfield Feb 11^th 1785

your kind favor of y^c the 4^th instant
had been duly received, assure you it met
with a hearty welcome, had long been anxious
to hear from you, and want of opportunity
the only reason y^t I have not wrote to you-
don’t know why you should think of it "would
be more agreeable to me to write to someone
not so nearly connected by natures ties" have
not wrote to nay one since you left Dfd till
this week, and I never omit scrolling a few lines
to you every time I have a Conveyance &
wish you to do the same
it is probable y^t you will before the
reception of this, see our sister (who is in
your Neighborhood.) and be informed by her
of all affairs relative to the health and
happiness of our friends in a much more
agreeable manner than by me should I
attempt it shall therefore omit it-
I don’t know what to tell you with regard
to Stephen. we are trying to look & settle
our old accounts, get along pretty slow and

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William Stoddard Williams' unmarried sister, Cynthia, writes him a letter in answer to his of the week before in February, 1785. He is practicing medicine, his first job, in Richmond, Massachusetts, and she and her sister Martha (Patty), live at home with their widowed mother and their 3 younger brothers in Deerfield. Cynthia could read and write, as could most young women in the 18th century. She speaks of their cloth at "the Mill" and the fact that the Mill is not presently running so they are in short supply for material for clothing. Problems with "collecting money" are mentioned and Cynthia touchingly states her view of life when she says that she hopes he will get on "without suffering" and that she begins to think "that is all we are ever to expect."

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