To an old business friend and acquaintance, Joshua Aubin, Esq., the agent of the Amesbury Company, who had from the beginning been associated with him in this first and favorite manufacturing enterprise in which he had engaged, he writes on September 18, after receiving a quantity of manufactured articles for distribution among the poor:
"You are brought very near to me on such a day as this (when I am shut up in the house), by your work as well as by your words.
"Now, as to your last consignment, I have derived, and expect to derive, as much comfort and enjoyment from it as I ordinarily should from a cash dividend on my shares. In truth, I am able to employ these _odds and ends_ to such uses and for such persons as will make me feel as though I were spared here for some use.
"For instance, I had a call from a most respectable friend (president of one of the best colleges in the West) last week, who agreed to come again this week to do some shopping as soon as he got some money for preaching on Sunday, and look over my stock of goods.
"I intend making him up a good parcel of your work, and, depend on it, it is good seed, and will take root at the West. He says that they have no money, but plenty of corn, and beef, and pork. Corn pays for growing at ten cents a bushel, and will not bring that in cash; and ten bushels will not pay for a calico gown, or a flannel petticoat.
"With his large family of children, don't you think these _odds and ends_ will come as a blessing? Besides, he is an old-fashioned Massachusetts Whig; loves the old Bay State as well as ever the Jews loved their State, and is, through his college exercising an influence in ---- that no body of men in that State can do; and will, in the end, bring them into regular line, as to education and elevation of character. Send me some of your flannels to give to Madam ---- for her family of one or two hundred children in the Children's Friend Society.
"---- will give them over to these poor little destitute, unclad creatures. They are taken and saved by this interesting society.
"A rainy day like this is the very time for me to work among my household goods. Many a poor minister and his family, and many a needy student at school or college, fare the better for your spinning and weaving.