June 21, 1879

NOTE: Lucius is illiterate, so these are thoughts, not letters on a page.

Ah am awn a mishun frum Gawd. Wile we wuz fightin’ tha bernin’ man, I wuz attaked wit devilree, an’ whus nocked out. This iz when an anjul showed up and tol’ me God had a plan fer me. He show’d me that Tobias Jones has an angul wachin’ him ovur two.

After wards, I explaned to Lt. Jamez what happens. Like Sterlin’ said, we wuz gonna get paid. ‘Corse he said if we lyed he wuld lock us up, but we did not, so I wuzn’t worryedin’. But some bodi said we wuld wait to gets payd fer a week. The we don’t get lockin’ed up. So we stucked around town.

O ya, Tha nite befer, I wuz in a fite that I lost. The feller was stronger than me, and I culdn’t get a blow in that wud nock hem down. He gots a few gud licks in an I wuz out uf it. I thaught Mongo wiz over, ’cauze he wuz gonna kil hizselve.

Wel, wit that an werkin’ fer God, I kneed a better fightin’ way. So I iz gonna duk and dawdg more. I evan got set up wit sum practicin’ time soze I culd get better wit my new fightin’. The Reverdand helped me sum, so I wuz ready next Fite.

Seamus also wanted to hav a big tellin’ of our defeet of da burnin’ man. So I trid to get Mr. King to agree. He sayed he waz about fitein’ not storyin’, so that didn’t werk. In sted we gona host our own tellin’.

To Be Continued…