"You will have a shop well stocked"

Ella as you feel know I am not a going to ask you to come back now but i shal some time when i can show to you that i am a man among men and have left of drinking you may go to partys and have a good time but be careful how you go for there is plenty of ways you can go that will knot make me feel bad and above all things doe knot get a bill for you will make your life miserable and mine to just as sure as you do for then i shal have no hopes of your ever coming back and if you ever doe come back i shal never turn aney body out doors i shal leave that for you to doe if you see fit to doe so for ella you could not make my life more miserable if you came back no mater what you done than it is now and that is gods truth Ella come over to our school entertainment wensday eveing and stay to dance if you want to and i will stay away for Ella i doe not want to dog your footsteps or make you fell bad but god knows that i want to go very bad but will knot if it will make you feel aney beter by my stayeing away for Ella it would make me feel like death to have you snub me there Cash Perrin is a going to have his this week but doe not know what knight it is.

Ella if you are agoing to get a bill from me if you can give this back to me and if you will knot may god bles you and then you may keep this then i will have some hopes and if you doe come back you will have shop well stocked and i know what i am a talking about

and if you had rather have one hundred and fifty dollars in cash you may have it but let me know in time by the last of June of this year if you want the cash for i know where i can get it i will doe all i can doe and i can doe beter if you want me to and have my land besides after the loan is paid say something that will make me fell beter if you can for you have put me back where I was last fall...




Thoughts:
This is a particularly sad one.  George loves Ella still and wants to do anything to make her want him again.  Barring that, it sounds as if he realizes that is very unlikely but he'd pay her off instead of getting a divorce.  I could totally be misreading it but what is this business of a Bill--which I believe to be a legal term for divorcing and him offering her money and land?  And the fact that this letter is in his possession could be read only two ways, Ella gave it back, as George requested, as declaration of her continued desire to end their union or he simply never sent it.  I don't have a final page--there is no closing.  It may have been one of those letters you write to pour out your heart but you never send. I don't think Ella cared about the stock of her shop, she just cared about who she kept shop with her.