How fast the days, weeks, and months are passing. We take no note of time but from its loss, -- as we look back over our lives how quickly they have passed. I can remember when a small boy seeing a picture on the wall in the old homestead of Grandfather Campbell's, representing life from childhood to old age, showing the steps from the babe to childhood, youth to manhood, and then steps down to old age. As one¹ has truly said, when the great Scorer comes to write against our name he will not write whether we have won or lost, but how we have played the game.

Since our last Cousins Letter, I have been retired after forty-five years service for the Northern Pacific Railway, on a pension commencing January 1st, 1924. It seems very good after such a long and continuous service to have a well earned rest. Em and I want to go East this fall and meet you all (if God be willing) at the Cousins' Dinner in September. We will miss Cousin Em Parks who recently has passed over the river to be with loved ones there. Em was a dear, good woman. Jim and her brothers and sisters have our deepest sympathy.

We expect to spend the summer here doing a little garden and lawn work. We hope to be able to do some good in the world yet, and if all is well, spend next winter in California. Em belongs to several clubs which take part of her time and keep her from getting rusty. There is a bright side to life and we have had many things to brighten our way, and we are to blame ourselves if we do not get some of the joy out of life. So my advice to the younger generations is to first get the right viewpoint of life and then play the game straight and you will surely win.

How we did enjoy the last Letters, especially from the second and third cousins whom we have never met, -- a good many of them not born when we left good old Pennsylvania. Though the most of our lives have been spent in Minnesota and Washington our minds go back to our native state and childhood days and the dear Cousins.

We send you all a hearty greeting from the good old State of Washington, with lots of love. This is a beautiful spring morning, -- the old earth putting our new life, birds singing, trees and flowers in bloom. We have also had a fine winter, no snow and not much rain.