Walt Can you let me have ten or Fifteen Dollars have been having pretty hard luck of late and find myself
Broke My board is due Monday & have about 2 Dollars to do it with Now will you kindly let me have
what you can, You can
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give to bearer & he will bring to me Will return you both amounts after 1st of year,
How is your health hope as well as your Spirits generally used to be I was over to see you
some days since but you was unable to see We would like to see you very much
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but you understand the Circumstances well I will say So long
Do what you can as I am in a bad way
The Bearer is Geo Anderson1 one of Our Messengers Boys here
BillCorrespondent:
William H. Duckett
(1869–1902?) was Whitman's young Camden friend, who drove the poet's horse
and buggy, lived for a while in Whitman's house, and accompanied Whitman on
numerous trips. Duckett later established a career in the telegraphy industry;
he lived and worked in Ohio and North Carolina before passing away in his native
Philadelphia as a result of alcoholism in about 1902. For more information on
Duckett, see Stephanie M. Blalock and Brandon James O'Neil, "'I am more
interested than you know, Bill,': The Life and Times of William Henry
Duckett, Jr.," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
39.2-3 (2022), 89–117.