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Joseph C. Baldwin to Walt Whitman, 11 September 1877

Dear Walt

I am well now But I Have just got out of a bed of sickness.1 I Have Had the Intermiten​ fever and pretty Bad.

Walt a friend in need is a friend indeed. I will ask you wanst​ more to Help me a little if you could lend me ten Dollars for a short time say six weeks or two months until I can sell som​ corn. I will Have about 2000 Buishels​ But it wont be ripe for six weeks or two months and then I will send it Back to you with may​ thanks after I get things fixt​ up then I think I will pay you a visit and we will enjoy ourslves​ as of old

write just as soon as you get this,

yours truly, Joseph C. Baldwin

Notes

  • 1. Joseph C. Baldwin was a young sharecropper living in Elliottstown, Illinois, who Whitman likely met in Camden in 1873. Baldwin is discussed in Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados, ed. Charley Shively (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987), 122–135. [back]
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