{The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Nova Scotia
Office of the President.}
Bridgewater, N.S.,
Dec. 11, 1912
Dear Mother:
As it has been a week since I wrote you last, I will try to give you a few lines again tonight. It is only two weeks from to-day till Christmas, but it hardly seems like it as the weather is so mild. It has been the mildest fall and has held out the longest of any that we have experienced these many years. It will shorten up our winter quite perceptibly. It is a very muddy time, however, and the roads are in desperate condition. I am in hopes that when we do have winter it will be solid and steady. I would like to see snow for the holidays, but don’t know whether we will get it or not. Monday I expect to go down to Halifax. I will probably not be back before Wednesday. I think we will go down by the steamer Kinburn. It will not be as nice a trip as it would be in the summertime, but as I have been down by train it will be a new experience. I am having a suit made, so that I will present a decent appearance in the city. The latter part of last week I received the formal resignation of the Rev. Paul Weller as a member of our Synod. I had been after him hot and heavy for some time for fellow- shipping with and preaching for the Universalists in Halifax where he at present resides. I
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am glad that we are at last getting rid of him and his pernicious influence on our Church. I think he will join the Universalists as he intimates his intention of withdrawing from the Lutheran Church. In fact I doubt if he ever was a real Lutheran at heart anyway. He has not been engaged in active work in the ministry since he left Wentzel’s Lake, but has been eking out a precarious existence with a little private preparatory school in Halifax. I am publishing his resignation in The Lutheran (Philaˊ) and in the Nova Scotia Lutheran. On the 4th Sunday in this month I am to preach a Christmas sermon and an Orphans’ Home sermon in the Rose Bay parish for Pastor Behrens. On New Year’s day I am also to preach for Pastor Weaver at Lunenburg. Yesterday we had an addition of three children to our Orphans’ Home. This brings our present number up to 13. The father of these lost children died about a year ago of consumption, leaving a family of eight children. The mother is also now down with the same disease, and as the family were in the depths of poverty the Poor Overseers took the case in hand. They put the older children out and placed the mother and baby in the Home of her brother, and asked us to take the remaining three. They are boys aged 3, 6, and 9 respectively.
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The Poor Overseers of the district will pay us about $40 a year apiece toward the maintenance of the children. This will help out our finances a little. I sold one of our cows the other day for $45 and bought another in its place for $40. The one I sold was a poor milker, only giving about a quart at a milking. I got a good one in her place. I haven’t sold any potatoes or farm products yet. Have been waiting for better prices. Potatoes only bring 40₵ yet. By spring I can probably get 75₵ a bushel. I will have a hundred bushels or more to sell. Next week we expect to kill two pigs that will dress probably 200 lbs. apiece. I will sell both of them and get 9 1/2₵ a lb. for the whole carcass. I haven’t got in much money lately but I think everything will work out all right after the Christmas collections come in.
The children, Carolus, Herman, and Marion are all well. Marion is growing fast and is becoming increasingly interesting. The boys can’t do enough for their father and almost fall out over which one shall wait on him. Herman is the greatest talker for his age I ever saw. He is a very polite little fellow too and never forgets his manners. Carolus talks like a grown man. He has improved wonderfully in intelligence since you saw him. But I must close, as it is bed time. With love to you all and all good wishes, I am
Most Sincerely Yours,
[signed] Carroll H. Little
