Your letter has just been received, and thought you would like to have an early
answer. I am glad to have the room as I need it and will do the best I can to
accommodate you. The bedstead, springs, mattress, one feather pillow, & two hair
ones, basin & pitcher the three tumblers & one small pitcher I could make
use of. They are not what I should have bought out of the store
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they have been used by you for some time; I have never used the room or things, if
you do not ask too much for them I will take them—please write as soon as you
get this & let me know what you want for them as I am anxious to have all the
cleaning done before the &c return. Besides those things there are ten chairs
two old tables, rocking chair looking glass & wollen spread that I cannot use for any thing, but if you tell me what you want
for them I might dispose of them for you, so please let me know their value. I will
keep your other things in
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safty for you as you wish; and will first state here that I would not have
written to worry you about the money if I had not wanted it very particularly before
the &c absence I did not think it would inconvenience you so much—Please
write just as soon as you get this as I will be anxious to heare your answer
Correspondent:
Whitman stayed with Dr. George A.
White, a chiropodist, and his wife Isabella A. White from March 1, 1871, until
Whitman left Washington following his stroke in 1873. Whitman had paid $236
in rent through June 10, 1873. On November 28,
1873, Dr. White acknowledged for his wife receipt of $28 "on
account . . . for rent of room etc from May 1st/73." Whitman gave up one room at the Whites' on June 10, 1873:
"Kept the other at $2.50 a month" ("Payments to Dr. and Mrs. White,"
Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers, 1842–1937, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.; Notebooks and Unpublished
Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University
Press, 1984], 2:942). Isabella White
had written, evidently early in July, about the rent due for his room; Whitman's
reply is not extant. In this letter, she offered to purchase Whitman's
bedstead and certain other effects. Whitman had not settled his account
when White wrote again on October 6, 1874, and
offered him a credit of $10 for his furnishings against a balance of
$38. See also
Whitman's July 10, 1874, letter to Peter Doyle, in
which Whitman left instructions for the delivery of his boxes from the
Whites.