Postmark April 18, 1899

Monday Eve 7:00


Miss Nellie Lang

Ft. McCoy

My Dear Miss Nellie,

An honest confession is good for the soul. Were I to write to you every day it would be a pleasure to me to confess my love for you. Without you life would be no pleasure. I feel that I could never get over any unkind thing you could say or do to me. It would hurt me to the heart.

You say you keep all my letters. Indeed you may. You seemed as though I was very careless with yours by tearing it to pieces and throwing it away. That my dear doesn’t show lack of affection. Every line of that dear letter is written plainly before my eyes consequently I can never forget even a line of it.

You made a vow before heaven did you; that you’d be true to me. I have been thinking of you the whole day & winding up my days toil. I can’t sleep until I write to my own dear Nellie & confess to her that too make the same vow before my God that I’l be true to you & love you to the end.

There is only one reason I dislike to approach your Father with this subject & that is I fear he’l think we are to hasty & rather insist that we wait awhile. Then you see we would wish we had waited longer however if you think it’s the thing to do I can & will make an attempt Sunday after we return from S.S. I am yours & you are my all. Then why not if you think best ask him. Just when you want me to. Miss Nellie it has worried me some about your asking me if I didn’t have an idea you had money as though you thought I’d be disappointed. Now my dear this wouldn’t be a disappointment at all. There is only one way I could be disappointed & that is were you to prove not to be a good true Christian girl. Now don’t think that I have a doubt in my mind but what you have a true & noble heart. I only write this to explain the one & only thing I could be disappointed in.

My dear girl I fear all the disappointment will be on your side. I am a poor hard working boy but I believe I can truthfully say that no man can ever love you better than your old Glass. I can’t promise you a better home than you have yet I’l love you & welcome you in the kind of home we may have. I know that I am n ot worthy of you yet I want you & must have you when the time comes. (before Sept)

While we may not have a fortune to begin with I feel that with your good influence love & help we can strive together and accumulate maybe enough to get along on.

While I am & have been living an aimless life I feel were I to get a girl (Nellie I mean) with as much thought of life & as much energy as you, we together could make our lives a pleasure to each other & could by some means manage to live. Now my dear please don’t think I can’t trust you or that I am jealous is why I don’t want you to go to Ga. Just imagine how lonely I’d be without you. Its hard for me to live without seeing you from one Sunday until the next then why should I not get the blues and get lonely were you to leave me. I give you my heart & ever spare moment of my life. This I understood of you would make you happy now I beg of you my own dear girl to give me all & be mine & live for my pleasure & not leave me all alone.

While I can love you in your plain dress yet I’d much rather you’d buy your white silk with the Ga trip money.

You seemed to think you couldn’t give up your young [illegible] correspondence.

Well my dear it’s OK if you don’t want to, however I wrote the two fatal letters this a.m. that I told you of Sunday. Now I had several correspondents I got letters near every day. When I give these all up I’l get no letters only from you & these days are very lonely when I don’t get a letter so my dear I’l want you to write real much to your old white head boy. I will expect your first letter this week on Wednesday. Shall I live until that day in Suspense only to be disappointed!! I truly hope not.

Do try to answer this one in Thursdays mail & I’l get it Friday.

I [illegible] will be out Thursday aftnoon.

With much love I am your own boy
Glass