Thursday, 21st—This is a warm, pleasant day and I bade farewell to my home folks and friends and started back to the army, my thirty-day furlough being almost up. I went on horseback, brother John going along as far as Allen’s Grove, to Uncle John Moore’s to remain over night, while John returned home, taking back the horse which I rode. Though the spring has been very late, the farmers here have all their small grain in and it is starting fine. The country around Allen’s Grove is very nice farming land; it is rolling, with plenty of timber and close to a good market; it is becoming very thickly settled. Scott county, Iowa.