Geoffrey Havens-smith here, and top of the morning to you. It has come to my attention that many of you have been deluded into the belief that the times are changing. I’ve heard murmurs – whisperings about town, at the saloon and such – that things today are a mite different than they used to be. Well, I am here to assure you that no such abomination has taken place. The United States of America is the same as it has always been – 36 states all told, just like it was when my grandpappy was born. So I see no reason for you to even be considering the pernicious idea of changing how you operate your business.
Case in point, my fine reader: the piece you’re reading is part of a weekly series, published just down the street in one of Benjamin Franklin’s marvelous presses. Our relations with the British and French are on an even keel as always, if you can ignore that strange anomaly back around ’76. Your customers are the same petticoat-wearing ladies and rough-and-tumble cowboys that mine are, and they require the same accoutrements that men and women in every age have always required: bit, bridle, spurs, china, linens, lumber, and the occasional pair of spectacles or bolt of fine lace. We’re all watching the weather to see what kind of crop to expect come fall, and we’re all a concerned about smallpox.
So relax, fine friends. Things are as they’ve always been. No reason to worry yourself over anything, and certainly no reason to even consider changing how you’ve always gone about your business.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to head into town for some medicine, and by medicine I mean whiskey. Granny’s got the whooping cough something awful, and the pigs are showing signs of the flux. I should be back to the farm by nightfall, as long as my horse doesn’t throw a shoe. She’s apt to at times.
