F.M. Bromley
Dec. 30, 1876

"Aggie"


"How great truth is and how little empires are" -

"Retribution may come from any voice: the hardest, cruelist, most imbruted urchin at the street corner can inflict it.
Surely help and pity are rarer things, - more needful for the righteous to bestow."

Interpreting all things [largely] like a mind ... possessed with high belief".

The worst drop of bitterness ... []ver be moving on to ... ... from without. the lowest depth of resignation is not to be
found in martyrdom. It is only to be found where we have covered our heads in silence and felt - I am not worthy to be
a martyr, the truth shall prosper but not by me"


The standard diary 1877 published for the trade


"The mills of the gods grind slowly - but they grind exceeding small"_


[A calendar for 1877]


[A list of population of principal nations of the world]
[A list of population of foreign cities]
[A list of principal cities of the United States and their population, based on the census of 1870]


[A page with rates of postage]


[A page of eclipses in 1877, the days that the seasons being, the morning and evening starts, and the festivals and fasts
of the year]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of January 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of February 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of March 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of April 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of May 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of June 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of July 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of August 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of September 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of October 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of November 1877.]


[The phases of the moon. A page with the rising and setting of the sun and moon in Boston and New York for the month
of December 1877.]


[A printed version of a Chicago almanac for 1877. Including the moon phases for January and February. It has the rising
and setting of the sun and moon every day for those months.]


[A printed version of a Chicago almanac for 1877. Including the moon phases for March and April. It has the rising and
setting of the sun and moon every day for those months.]


[A printed version of a Chicago almanac for 1877. Including the moon phases for May and June. It has the rising and
setting of the sun and moon every day for those months.]


[A printed version of a Chicago almanac for 1877. Including the moon phases for July and August. It has the rising and
setting of the sun and moon every day for those months.]


[A printed version of a Chicago almanac for 1877. Including the moon phases for September and October. It has the
rising and setting of the sun and moon every day for those months.]


"And then the sunshine of thy Father's home"_
[My] new one - "born to the purple"
1. January 1, 1877.

We have come to it again - this first of things - We stop a moment to look about _ long enough to see how sure our
footing is - and what of cheer or courage we have for those who are within reach - and then we hurry on - I've found out
how the courage of me - is the courage of the souls that live near it _ How that good-cheer is nothing short of an
atmosphere _ and even of a little patience the world has need! We are here at the top of our long hill - yet mother calls
it "the pinnacle: The worries that we began last year with are most of them here to start out with us again - We dont get
out of and beyond them very fast _ The currents of Folk have scarcely changed _ Grandma is a little stiller - in her chair
behind the stove - [G]. a little surer that the storms are in the lower strata - We shall get above them by and by - I have
reason to be more sure of a few things than I was a year ago. - "I tell you that One [knocked] while it was dark"


"I believe nothing lifts us so far forward as pain."

2. Tuesday, January 2, 1877.

The utter complete spell of silence is broken - and somebody has sent me a written communication - Huldah is noted for
breaking silences _ Its her voice grim and insuspicious that comes summarily into dark mornings - Her alarm is that it is
six and something and I am too nearly gone to contest the point _ usually _ Her letter crows some and cackles a lot _
They've been dressing up down there and playing they were people and I almost feel like going back to the V.C. The
spirits that wrap you up and delight to fill your soul with uncomfortablenesses have possessed the girl with the "
[oppydass]" to-day - none of us have known the way to break the spell - Dan comes up to supper whistling the shadow
Dance - There's a certain twinkle in the boy's eye - I think he's got a cricket in his pocket - The rest are doubtful - He has
fooled them too many times before - every few minutes he breaks out whistling - every few minutes we laugh - "Dan
give it to her" Then he whistles - by & by he says - "Ag, who do you know in Cincinnati?" - This ...

[two lines of writing in left margin]


"I am the Door, by me ye shall go in and out" _

3. Wednesday, January 3, 1877.

This is an unexpected pleasure surely. I'm on a hunt after missing cards to fill out History sets - and I'm a finding them!
"Who wants my History sets." _ did you say? _ A woman who flourished in the uninhabitable regions of Northern
Vermont - Julia Miller knows her - Also Ella Mills knocks at my gates for "pamphlets" please. I find 38 pages - write
up the rest - and [tool] them all off _ Its a nipping afternoon - my sister is dispatched for tea and sugar - and scolds - My
letter from ... makes me feel rich - well-to-do in the world - I won't say that there were any bluish tendencies for her to
counteract but anyway I view ... eight pages in the light of a "[]" - "nice itty voyage - nice itty voyage" - sing one "...
day" This loses in translation

I want my boy to bring a letter from Laura Skinner - bless her - Isn't is a coming?


"That is what we wait for - the adoption" _

4. Thursday, January 4, 1877.

It was highstrung weather - a wild old J[e]hn day_ "You don't catch Mary out such a day as this" Mother's way of
putting it. It might have been the mother _ it might have been her lord and master - whichever [way] it was - we on the
pinnacle didn't say "Aunt Mary"- to-day _ We did say - "How do do, []atie" - and "How do do, George"- Quite an
invigorating circumstance. It came into this uneventful current of ours _ the fire in the Base burner No. 12 - starts up -
very much quickened - and the curtains come up - There's easy chairs to it _ and ripples of talk. By a preconceived plan
they [leave] me _ dealing themselves out in the greatest moderation. As early as three I am out again in the dining room
- talking it over with Aggie and [muzzy] _ We say _ "[Dont] it seem funny to think of Annie Croft's being married. _
"Annie Marsh" _ Well that aint our...- Fishes aren't the only things that "[turn] over and over - and round and round."
[Evening] - Emma ... and a clatter clatter _ She says _ "how come ..." I [wish] I could -
[In left margin]
A further installation from []atie - ...


"clear fidget is the worst thing you can give up to -"

5. Friday, January 5, 1877.

Mother said it was the nicest day we had had for four weeks. So did the milkman. We thought Aunt Mary would be up
_ We laid out the day on that plan. Aggie was elaborate on her French twist _ Mother stirred up pancake batter _ (Aunt
Mary's liege lord don't allow her to stir any in her own principality) I put a tie on - and a belt _ Grandma sat in her
corner and wisely indulged in the remark that as for her part she didn't believe we would see Mary up here again this
winter. Now this was not consoling but we live in a world where the thing that is the disagreeable one and the
uncomforting - sometimes proves to be the one that happens _ The pretty new basque that goes with my cassimere dress
is done - Mother's day was half button holes. It wasn't very inspiriting to say the least. I made a transparency - Then I
hung it up - I didn't write diary nor study Latin _ I visited _ [Our] Folk didn't move us down street nor get Aggie a
school in Albany _ but then we have to plan campaigns _ before we cross ... to the ... ...


As we see hard [lives] and great anguishes here and behold them with a reverence.

6. Saturday, January 6, 1877.

When the baked potatoes were in their first glory mother called us up _ You will say _ "how nice" _ but goodnatured as
you may be you will say it without half knowing - how nice! I piped up _ "I'm a going to Albany with you Aggie" _
Aggie said "She cant can she ma?" "Of course not" _ That settled that _ Frances attempts a feeble perserverance in de
[Orative] "not an atom of sense" in the last well - any number of lines _ She brings up _ and "ties Flora" _ "Aggie's
gone"_ She looks out for her long before its time for her to come!

Dannie says as he [starts] to shoot off - "O I nearly forgot"_ and hands me - why it was one of the loveliest things out of
the []ths. Laura's letter _ Another of the cherished surprises out of life's []cket - whose full secrets we cannot know until
we get to the top _ What a new face everything wears for to-day -
After all its the hopelessness ... home matters that is the dragging down _ To be among things just as the are - is to
know how powerless you are to help them - I [wave] a hopeless [torch] - and -


"If we could get out of this world into the nearest edge of the heavenly places would the angels shut their doors I
wonder?

7. Sunday, January 7, 1877.

"How she ever managed to have the things happen when she was doing such monstrous days' works to smite them all
down" _ "..." wonders scarcely less than I _ who have rashly entered upon a diary for '77 - "Monstrous" Well _ I
comprehend - This business is like rent _ never paid up

There is every assurance that a thaw is begun _ We get a little rain _ then a little snow _ then we take them mixed _ Dan
remarks that the wind is in the northwest _ Mother speaks up _ she was "a good mind to move to Albany" Aggie's
drawings are fiercely that way _ It begins to look as if something would be done about it _ as we gather up all the little
"why" threads _ In the meantime there are "spaces between" _ I read Patience Stong's Outings _ picking at it here and
there _ in the pauses of talk _

Aggie is wonderfully "chipper" A mighty helping
Cricket's determined little [sent] raves madly on _


"Yea - even [long]eth"_

8. Monday, January 8, 1877.

It can blow here - blow "great guns" on any and the slightest provocation! The world was sloppy in the morning _ a
goodness gracious sort of things on the whole _ In the afternoon - nothing unusual only a shift of the wind and some
freezing _ but the night came raining and pitching in - and your hair could easy stand on end! And there we'd a party on
our hands _ The day was sort of [drefful] _ a rasping away on some of the soul strings _ I am sorry Aunt Mary came
now _ The place of green cont[]t the "[]ch grass" in to-day was the time I was writing to Susie _ Our rocking chair
insisted this evening on some general exercises of its own _ I've already promised it out several evenings ahead _ it has
such enlivening abilities. There was shouting to it - (our party-) _ a staying up late, and spirit!_


Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest thing

9. Tuesday, January 9, 1877.

You go to bed feeling that the world is rocking in ... fashion - You feel perfectly sure that it will be rocking in the
morning _ You sleep on past everything _ When you get up you find a long ... of sunshine has gone and a ... lovely
little lull over the world. You don't know whether you have an idea of marching, ... P[] _ or not _ On the whole your
ideas are mixed up That sick headache all night won't let you be strong to-day to dare - You'd rather have the pretty
blue comforter over you one day more _ "Tell her I'll go" ... worry" Mother [makes] some of my dress [barrels] more
conversations _ and brushes
a couple of dresses _ and when its after supper and nobody there but us - we fold up the things and dear me what
immense bundles. It will ... sublime management to get them to the ... parlor on the [first] []th !

We must be "chipper" Fannie It will be summer when we come again _ We go to come back richer _ "isnt it ?"


"There is no away"

10. Wednesday, January 10, 1877.

You are waiting for your story you say and the years are bringing it _ Have the chapters so far been so full of dark
surprises that you stand on the home side of the threshold and fear to cross? _ What have you not gone out to that was
beautiful or a joy to have?

And [muzzy] and I went down to Albany in the cars _ which you see was lovely for me _ Then we clambered up a
fierce array of steps _ and ... bundles ... for aches and ... - and stings at finger ... - That man that stands in the door at the
depot to marshal us out will never see these pages but I honor him - He had regard ... my look of beseeching - & let
mother go to the very car door with me - Her last words were something about seeing Dr. Web _ and letting her know -
and then I moved on to felicities or infelicities I'm in the dark as to which _ sitting up straight as if I had lived a beyond
the sorrows of my time and had nothing to dread! No. [I] smiles up at me - Polly and the girls come at me. - and - well
there's an example in Trig, with two solutions - six answers ... ...

(Line of text in left margin)
I spend silent ... with [Laura] Bless her


11. Thursday, January 11, 1877.

I think it was self renunciation of a lofty type for me to ask Huldah deliberately last night to spring the trap that should
make my eyes bounce open at 6-30 this dreadful morning - and then leaden-hearted and leaden-footed to crawl up - and
right about- for whatever there was of it! In the first place a match had to be struck which meant twas dark out doors
What if you do know that by & by the world will light up - and there'll be help in the hills _ It is nevertheless a strangely
real & bitter fact that you are standing with your feet cold - and your eyes swelled almost shut - buttoning a cotton
flannel waist - that pinches you - it was a very small alleviation when you found there were "[saratogas]" for breakfast _

Then you were no. 6 in Trig and you lifted up your voice and said "Not prepared" ... did ... ... ... ... to ... how ... the white
snow looked with its ... and ...! How you and Laura did ... ... that old example is the ... of - It makes me double all up
to think of it!


12 Friday, January 12, 1877.

Maria, our chamber-maid of yore is lost to us. The new one the girls say is able to be endured! One cheerful thing -
Arletta brought some cookies from home _ 324 _ She lays it down to us thus _ "No one must ask for a cookie unless she
is faint Then she positively refuses to let us get faint _ The moment the bell rings for meals she [whews] us all off to
take in provision _ The designing girl! I haven't seen a red ant yet! Our girls put .. a great deal of "I know all about it" _
to me and say its the man " what man!" You see I'm not up in college news _ "The bug man" _ This is all I can elicit _
but I venture to add here that he's some wild kind of pied piper - who exists as a terror to all the Formica* race!

At half past seven Letty sent us all out & told us to knock _ We did. Then she said - You must take hold of hands and
[go] [around] the table lock-step - & if you see a bundle with your name on it, grab!


*Formica is a genus of ants ubiquitous in the temperate region of the northern hemisphere.


"To be weak is to be miserable"

13. Saturday, January 13, 1877.

... approve of this - The new blue and white in your room ([grabbed] last night) is a pure sensation The [givers] are the
girls who room across in a Sophomore class meeting - You leave it with your usual uplifting of spirit _ You thank
heaven for [pluck] and don't feel bad but a few minutes. You're in Laura's room when the twelve strokes sound _ []ing
up the mysteries of Book II - chapter 34 _ trying to make sense! Mrs. Livermore* gives a talk in chapel on
"Superfluous Women". Blessed are we among girls to have heard it! _ It is like her to stand and push apart the briers
and bushes - and show us glimpses of the glorious upland winding ... _ The way that is the only royal way - ... be ... by
those who shall be kings and priests unto God _ when the time comes _ We need to have such as she push back the thick
grown shrubbery now and then. She begins - We who are about to die salute you!

(right margin) Laura's birthday ...

*Mary Ashton Rice Livermore (1820-1905) founder member of the American Woman Suffrage Association and
president of the organization between 1875-1878


"It is reserved for ... God and the angels to be lookers on" (Bacon)*

14. Sunday, January 14, 1877.

To-day comes too soon after yesterday for you _ You wanted the dear Sunday stillness to take up yesterday's legacy in
and ponder the things in your heart _ What you did get you could have waited for _ [and] put into some Sunday morning
when the President was explorative _ and talked on conscience _ We dont have things our way _ Prof. Backus talked to
us out of the deep places there are in him. There was heart and soul and feeling in his sermon and the hearts God had
touched [felt] their way to the cross with him _

A severe talk on the married state - all there - Laura too - comes to the [wo]ful summing up - "Its a [wu]zzly world"
Laura thinks the right [ones] get joined - not often to be sure _ but now & then - Huldah sets her foot down _ "None
whatever" We are [sure] the projection of the great circle of hopelessness crosses our celestial equator - both in and as
we turn reverently to Matthew in Greek - There's no hopelessness there - no dragging down sensations "Come to me" it
says - [Well] we are tired children & He knows!




*But men must know, that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. Francis
Bacon (1561 - 1626).


15. Monday, January 15, 1877.

It did have streaks of disaster in it _ You were handled a little rough to be sure _ but then _ how do you expect you are
going to sing "Increase my courage, Lord" if there isnt ever anything a happening _ to make courage and lots of it _ the
thing to have _

You were torn up by the roots when you got out of bed _ and you lay around loose on top - for all good you were to any
subjects necessary to be contemplated _ Its my stopping to be so wise for a little _ I suppose there's a cold at the bottom
of it _ but how or where _ this is unsnarlable

Its Laura that packs up 82 and brings it down stairs for my present comfort

I howl all the night through (this may properly belong in to mourners recital) howl as if the evil genius of the stormy
night which is in its fierceness upon us - had gotten hold of me -


16. Tuesday, January 16, 1877.

We arent going to have any mournfulness about this business You've got it in hand[] and we see you wriggling it
through - Trot right along _ You march up to Prof. Braislin* and stand there gladiator fashion _ What you're to impress
her with is that you embraced a [jug] last night and not Trig _ aches and not cosines _ She doesn't act as if you were
confessing incendiarism to her - and you sit down meekly as is your wont. You perservere through a half a chapter
thoughtweighted Thucydides _ with Laura _ and then her good angel comes suddenly down _ It enlivens the world by
keeping you up from tea _ causing you to sit at a famous little supper in 82 _ and letting the blessedness there is
hovering in loose places in this world _ make an open place before you

You go to bed at seven or so and ache the dreadful[] all night - but then _



(left margin - and Aggie's precious little ... [is dead] _)



*Priscilla H. Braislin, Vassar College mathematics professor, 1865-1887


17. Wednesday, January 17, 1877.
Notes from Dr. Wag[]'s talks _
"Too far east is west,
Too far west is east"

The Greek is the author of everything beautiful in the world _ now as in the days of Pericles. (Don't believe it). Rome
gave the cupola_ the upper Rhine, the dome, The spire is dominant in Eng. "Hic, haec, hoc" in the textbook; but
[gum]ption is a rare thing. Egyptian obelisk is a sunbeam in ... _ Greek Doric temple is a master-piece of human art -
solidified beauty, ... out come and not a put-on _ ornament constructed _ Talent is the agent of science - art the product
of genius - The Greek created, the Roman constructed - Greek temple has its decorations in its moldings, its [fea]tures _
moldings sections of curves - Gr. Segments of circles _ Roman What can be done with a tool - talent by brain & hand -
genius. Arched architecture Roman - Lintel - Greek palaces of glass & iron exact types of modern society - Benedictine
- the schoolmasters of the world


20. Saturday, January 20, 1877.

You thought you would treat yourself to a day on the bed _ as if there were something to be got out of it_ You could just
be there you know _ or you could take yourself into "Annals of a quiet neighborhood"* _ How lucky you were to get it
last night. The girls all came in at twenty minutes to 12 _ and you properly hoisted up and propped, read to them
[]arlyle's Hero Poet.+

After dinner Huldah came in and brought her sewing _ As for things to rejoice over _ the jug of hot water was one It
stood for _ and emphasized larger givings _ Then your shoulders couldnt be cold any more _ for why? Polly's
comforter _ Yes, yes, things have worked round _ given time enough _ you judge that now the massive pile that
confronts you will crumble _ You are tired to the very centre of you - of [toting] the acropolis around! ... in such a
sense - how uplifting!


*1867 novel by George MacDonald

+ May be from Thomas Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1840


21. Sunday, January 21, 1877.

The President preached to us on the unity of the church _ Text _ "One Lord, one faith, one baptism - one God and
Father of all"_ It was a better sermon for the intellect than for the heart. The dear, great-hearted tender-hearted man.
Why is it he don't take hold of us further down and stir the deep places? One word from Prof. Backus* _ with a ... in his
eye _ and the feeling in his voice _ and we are all melted down.

The sun is shining on us and though we are a good ways from spring and in the midst of a biting air _ the very
brightness will make us think of days long and bright - when promises of blessedness shall be again fulfilled! When I
said _ "You were [real] good, Laura, to come and stay with me so long" _ she told me very soberly that it was not good
of her to be good to herself" It may have seemed an hour a little dear to her who has so many here that ... bright[] in her
shadow _ To me indeed it was a great deal_ more than an hour a little dear. The [opening], [sweet] life with the hard
question _ Did you [ever] have a year when everything that you had [discarded] came all at once?


*Truman Jay Backus, Vassar College professor of Rhetoric and Literature, 1867-1893


Flowers _
(from "12",)


April 12.


22. Monday, January 22, 1877.

Well _ another worry has slid down and out of sight _ The history work did arrive at Chipman's Point whither it was
marshaled forth _ and the upshot - outcome - of it is three dollars and ten cents. This is an event! The 36th chapter is
hard. Yet _ a bliss for every plunge down the shaft we come up with a shining grain! This pays ...! We are all down at
the end of the table together _ I didn't tell you, did I? Life at meals is less a nemesis [a] theory _ ... even are something
- even in a world we soon go out of!

Coasting is still the rage _ 'Why what do you slide on?' the innocent say _ the people who don't "compreney-vous"!
"On what? why on what nature has provided to be sure" You perhaps don't know _ that this last came from Laura's
Polly _

Moonlight - moonlight and nothing to call me out in it!


[upside down at top of page] A letter from ... Lake -

23. Tuesday, January 23, 1877.

Let me see _ The home letter had to be attended to as I thought, on the spot. I went at it at the 6th period - but didn't
pull it through. It lays over: The transports of a half an hour out doors on Paddy Hillard's sled I could not forego _ The
half hour, the sled, the transports were held out to me - I took them - and grew happy _ thr[]e!

There was a world of enjoyment _ lying open to us in that masterpiece of Pericles! Not open in any sense without
Liddell and Scott and a good deal of C[] and Hadley _ but there to be worked for - just as most everything else is _ if its
worth having _ We were in magnificent ... for it _ and the night came up our sky _ never with a sweeter blue - or
lovelier gray borders - or pink touches and suggestions _ ... all these .... lately I the blue - I can't get the Trig
example - I sat and stared at it two periods and about made up my mind that it is Frances versus example!


24. Wednesday, January 24, 1877.

To be sure you didn't have your Trig example _ but as Laura says _ "That's nothing"_

You proceed along the halls up to class - wishing you had it _ though you are awfully dumb on the subject. Some
example for Friday says the sharp-eyed professor in drab. You may get it!

There are ... in the other ends of the world, pieces of stories _ prayers for light upon the path _ Rhoda has ... me again _
and her perplexities knock at my gates and say "May we come in?" _ No - little ... - I cannot straighten you out _ I
haven't hold of the end of the thread you see - that's in better hands than mine! Another little supper in Laura's room
with her _ You peep into "Sights and Insights" while Laura lays the cloth and brings out the cunning little china cups _
she buzzes about and you call it "being out to tea" _ and forget that you are a sophomore with aspirations _ and trigs _ a
minute to forget in.


The religion of Christ is the religion of the Divine Love.

25. Thursday, January 25, 1877.

For steady help from outside give me a day of sunshine _ It is impossible to feel that you are fighting single handed and
alone _ as long as there is sunlight that will not forsake you - Well _ we have begun and ended the day of prayer _
There's a good sound in the name.
Why all our days are not called this _ is no fault of God's - Prof. Upson of Albany - a short man with a keen eye - and a
beard growing gray _ Those awful words _ they [run] about with me - they stamp the day with an oldtime fearfulness -
"And those Capernians who are exalted to heaven shall be brought down to hell" _ "Culture without Christ" _ How quiet
we are living knowing believing these awful things - How still we keep_

The exhilaration of my hand sled ride is still fresh upon me _ A touch of the pleasantness that lives out doors of things -

There are lots of things you wanted to do _ that are left over _ left over for when - We will see - meantime we are glad _
glad for life just as it is this minute!_


26. Friday, January 26, 1877.

As a parlor we are in disgrace_ Miss Hiscock saw a light from the outside at an hour altogether unseasonable! Letty
not disrobed answered her knock_ Polly was just holding up a lamp-lighter to light it from the gas in the parlor_ Letty
says- "She didn't light it _ I don't know why I didn't ask Miss Hiscock in _ I don't know why" _ Miss H. was determined
on a ... - and gae it.

Laura - periods 1 and 2 busy with Trig _ It grows uncompromisingly dreadful ... the ... of her and she says _ "Himmel"
"What is Himmel?" "Himmel," says Miss Laura - is Heavens _ a very bad swear whatever There's anotice a new one in
masculine handwriting - posted in the water-closet _ to the effect that persons using the water-closet shal hold the knob
up half a minute. Letty comes in, sits down and counts up - half-a minute twice a day - a minute a day _ half an hour a
month _ 4 1/2 hours in a year _ pretty hard in ... really ... Huldah we get the proposition that each of us do it all up at
once - a proposition well worth thinking about _ Laura bids me farewell for an indefinite period. anticipatory of water
tanks _ and a Freshman essay - Miss Hay[] has a cold - dreadful of to kind ... has a hall-meeting there!


Until He says - "Come up higher, let us sit at the foot of the board"

27. Saturday, January 27, 1877.

Undermining forces are at work again _ and you are not in any sense enjoying the satisfaction of our up-grade

You've heard about such days before - You and Trig journey to room D _ and hold communion with each other _ Two
[weeks] ... of such _ Our reading circle has got rid of considerable of its much needed enthusiasm in the march of time.
We took Swift's "Tale of a Tub" very hard _ and now that we are making off - and going into Carlyle for a brief space -
it takes the ... of a most dilapidated [wardrobe] to get us together - and even then we insist on supplementing the author
with a few asides _ These things ought not [so] to be. It comes to me by a circuitous route that Laura is no longer
dangerous - it is ready to be copied! I finish "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood"

This week though it ends with a full ... has had its hard places - but which one would I have had left out, if I could. It
has been given ... the quiet little story to help me on in mine!


28. Sunday, January 28, 1877.

It was good to you - so good to feel that whatever there might be before or behind - to-day you were in the pause _ It
was a day to be remembered out doors _ Snow and sunlight make lovely combinations _ and such sunlight! Can it be
we are yet two months from April? The President gave us plenty to think of in his sermon "Without faith it is
impossible to please God!" I ran in after dinner a few minutes to see Miss Reynolds in 13. She has a great many sick
days _ but what I started to tell you was this: - "If I could go home, she said, "and stay a year or two years I could get
entirely over this sickness _ get perfectly well. but I can't! I mustn't _ I must work or get ready for work" Here's
another to add to my calendar of - shall I say saints? I was in 82 _ considerable _ It happened through the []worthy[]
getting it done - Miss Lord's letter ...

Laura says _ "My heart goes out to Fanny Bromley_"


29. Monday, January 29, 1877.

A Monday morning without the Monday morning dreadfulness _ not so much fun in getting up as there will be when the
sun comes early - and sends loving goodmornings - but _ well brought up _ and good to promise . So we ... and walk up
to breakfast pliably!

I threatened to put Laura Skinner in my "memore" so I'll have to _ I hoped to see that she got a little sleep - not having
taken any lately - so I put her to bed - did it well too _ Presently she appeared at the door with her cloak and hat on _ It
was a hopeless case _ and I could be in dismay _ There was nothing else to do _ I went determinedly at Trig review _
80 pages _ I felt around for Spartan blood _ [Well_] results aren't firm - I got together some grit - and it answered every
purpose! - Night - a quiet soul resting sky - the sun going down in no flashes of glory - no ... of kings - but in soft shades
- and [hints] of peace -

Parlor ... don't talk much to each other - we are all having a hard ... over something for to-morrow -


30. Tuesday, January 30, 1877.

"There are passages in my history" remarks [Earl] at dinner "when I feel like taking you Fanny Bromley by the heels
and throwing you over into the lake" We will not say what called this forth _ but you were mild in your reply. You
meekly suggested a ... be tied around your neck and you be allowed to drown This might have come from your
preeminence in fizzling this morning! It pays so to fizzle when you've studied Trig and nothing else for three days _
nights included! You take [refuge] in the shadow of a few thoughts greater than the thing that cast you down! Laura _
and then there comes up a great big "bless her" - from the soul to me! _ Pericles grows enchanting - with her to read it
with _ We stick on the 89th _ Laura says she's a sleepy cat so she takes to the bed and tells me about the "row" - in Phil
[n]ight _ gets through - say - half of it _

Another lovely little "..." up in her room _ "I am you bet"


31 Wednesday, January 31, 1877.

The way January leaves us is through the deeps _ There's some sun and some fog _ I guess twas ten minutes before
dinner when the girls came in and sat down in my room for a "between time" _ All but Huldah - she never has any
between times. Laura proposed a burial of herself in Trig _ Probably accomplished as nothing has been heard of her _ I
did too _ Twas kind of comfortable - the hot bath and getting into my brown dress for tea _ Earl is wrought up on a
"philogical[sic] research" to wit - the difference between subjective and objective - She comes to the door "to ..."
(Greek ...) in a felt skirt & striped stockings - wants to know if the slop-pail the most prominent object visible is
subjective or objective _ Our logic is not [mighty] at life P[] - about:


32
32. Thursday, February 1, 1877.

Well - how's things? If you've got anything comfortable to boost us up with _ how very wrong of you to withhold it
optimism! I have ..." _ Farmer Bassett's Romance* with Trig digs tagging on behind and calling out of the deep.
Before that story was a pure delight _ Out door exercise accomplished to-day by means of the cart _ trundled up and
down the gym-path _ Its a sloppy day _ It took you the whole previous afternoon to make out your wash list and to see
the Dr. The latter object unattainable! How do you feel by this time? We live in a world of illusion. There's one
reality about it at present that never fails to impress you - Prof. Braislin's martial spirit in going at things - We quake but
we live!

* Story in Saxe Holm's Stories by Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, 1874


33.
33. Friday, February 2, 1877
The snow-storm you want doesn't come yet _ There's a smoky look in the sky like the April mornings _ If anybody
wants to look and particularly don't want to see sloppiness and gri[]y snow - she will have to look off _ to the tops of the
hills - You feel as if you must look to-day _ as if the way lay out _ and yonder:

It has not been an overwhelming day _ It has been freedom in one sense - leaving out for one day that pain that has not
left you for weeks _ That has made all you did so hard _ You almost know for a little [breath] what the better day will
be! Prof. Hinkel does not find himself very fond of you _ He picks _ but there you don't mind long _ Laura and I read
the whole of chap 89 and talk in between. We feel properly ...

Alphas hall meeting was ... some - Polly and I enter into it with spirit -
By the way - when operettas are good you have quite a fancy for them -


34. Saturday, February 3, 1877.

You don't propose to look upon this Saturday in any light of pure utility_ This is not a cheerful standpoint. The
Sophomores are wise - For President Miss Teel* 25 _ Miss Blake* 9. Quite as it should be you remark. You have not
yet outgrown the cares & responsibilities of Trig. There's a week more of it _ You sit by your big window with the
blinds all thrown open _ and Huldah comes in _ and with your eye [imagined] at the end of an axis _ the infinity end _
you begin _ What matters Trigonmetry to the strong? The aptness of this loses in getting to Huldah in the rocking chair.
You again don your wrapper for a dreaded interview with Dr. Web which was purely mental wrestling - no Dr. no
interview!
Senior essays _ Do you suppose that E. D. could drop her E. [Deduces] _ Dont think it! "The ...of those who live with
quiet people"


* Jessie B. Teel, Sallie T. BlaKe


"I go this way, but once!"

35. Sunday, February 4, 1877.

Titus II - 4.* Severely practical _ An exposition of the dangers of mirthfulness _ in short a sermon from the President
on "giggling" "The animal that is a perpetual [grinerer] is not a man" Other passages with tendencies similar _
Proverbial gigglers in ... to church _ mostly _ "its a lovely day Fannie _ wish you could go out" _ Have not attained unto
any such paradaisical borders _ yet nights I dream of walking. It is as if the one blessing that the day desires must not
be wholly lost to me.

"Edith is going to read some of Edward Everett Hale's Christmas Stories - dont you want to come up?" _ Inclination
needed proofs _ supplied by the maiden who wanted to know _ "a very young Freshman" _ Four verses of Greek mixed
up with a good deal of people that [roam] in and out!_ I have finished Ida's letter _


*That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, King James Bible,
Titus 2:4


"Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise - God help me" ! *

36. Monday, February 5, 1877.

There are spots of bare ground in sight - a thaw has started -
No ride - no cart - or to be logical - no cart - no ride!
Moreover it was an entreating apres-midi! A review of Herodotus is about to be entered upon. I like this way of
[t]aking it _ viz_ me on the bed _ pillowed _ Laura with dic. and most of it _ mind _ [given] me exact meanings - and
explain the optatives with or without " the purely receptive _ Then we had crackers and beef tea and jam up in her
room!

Evening _ Corridor meeting and then absorption _ I'm taken to studying in my room nights _ with the door shut. Laura
came down and read Herodotus to me until Freshman prayer-meeting. Myself in an uncomfortableness to-day _ If I
only could feel better -


* attributed to Martin Luther, 1521


"I will not leave you comfortless" *

37. Tuesday, February 6, 1877.

You surely haven't lacked for sunlight _ It has been about you every where _ " A beautiful vast window is yours _
where the morning" can come in :

There's nothing very inspiriting in the home letter _ but my heart don't go down _ It can stay up when its helped _ God
cares even for our sparrowy troubles _

Laura called my attention the first thing this morning to the tense of the Greek verb in the verse "I will come to you" *
It is present in the original "I come to you". It was sent to me - this _ I needed before the day was over _ to know it _
not that anything hurt that had not been here to hurt, but it did me good to have the troubles ... together and let me cry a
little while. It was good to have Laura's shoulder to cry on - The dear child.

It seems as if I could endure hardness as a good soldier - for a long time now.


* John 14:18, KJV


"We thank thee for the hymns that we can sing together"

38. Wednesday, February 7, 1877.

"The swelling thereof" You needn't think about it quite so much only I spose you can't quite help it _ when you feel so
pussed up _ inside _ ... pussy-willow _ its a grief that will make itself known.

Trig examination for to-morrow _ Huldah knowingly _ "what do you spose she'll ask" I give it up _ The student's
association send in petitions _ "Give us _ O give us Friday" _ The shortest speech we ever heard the President make
was on this occasion _ " I have received a request from the student's association which is granted _ There are so many
tired girls lately tired out cries _ How good it seems _ to think of a little let up!

Went to "twenty minute" meeting with Laura and Lizzie Cohn _ Had supper on a dear little light stand in L[] Wheeler's
room - Laura ministering into me right my ally


39. Thursday, February 8, 1877.

[Drawing of two female figures - one says "O! I'm going to take Miss Bromley to ride!" the other says "What does all
this mean Miss Abbott?"] *

[Lettie] is one of the unquenchable lights in our constellation _ It is easy to deduce this from the above _ Her feather in
the engraving presented sticks up none too straight _ There is force in this! - "Trig" is over and gone - another thing!
The examination did not bear as strong a resemblance to the "Assyrian that came down"+ as we had darkly pictured _

There was a slight disparity between the number of minutes and the number of questions, however - which added to the
uncomfortable spots in its last moments!

How we've laughed to-day _

But we only sit still to-night and grow very tender To think that this was coming !_



* Mary Merriman Abbott, class of 1878

+ From "The Destruction of Sennacherib" a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1815 in his Hebrew Melodies,
based on an event described in 2 Kings 18-19


40, Friday, February 9, 1877.

I was sitting at the table out in the parlor trying to write a little note to Laura - it seemed as if I must write it as if I never
could tell her. but Polly had met her in the hall and presently she came in. "What is this - Frances - what does it mean?"
_ I took her into room"d" _ in the very sight of our darling Greek books _ and in the sacredness that has come there _
since she came so much _

The girls said "Let's put by everything and just have a good time till Fannie goes _" So Parlor 12 ceases to be a work-
day world _ and all its borders become holiday land. The ark is brought up and it opens its yawning gulf but we aint
going to pack yet - After the girls get loaded down with [dresses] to make for the "heathen" and ... succeeds in finding
"Saxe Holm's Stories _ and Laura comes down to sit with us and crotchets a pair of little black slippers - we know we
are in the L[] Orchard!


41. Saturday, February 10, 1877.

We began by taking into considering the necessities of the ark: _ Laura says _ "I am going to pack it aint I?" _ "much as
the girls in [No.]12 will let you" _ say I _ with some degree of certainty in my own mind. In about how much that will
be - But all any of us need is a little coaxing - Away we go into the depths of drawers and boxes until room d howls _
This will not answer _ we'll do the rest on Monday! - I enter into a conference long and necessary with Prof. B_ in that
office of his ... up in the "fourth north"! "It isn't all over for me _ Vassar isnt _ and I may get better" _ This is the best I
can do - I cannot see a slip ahead - I can only stand and wait _ to see - Meanwhile the next thing is to go down to the 1st
South and read Saxe Holm* with the girls! _ I find room "d" lit up with flowers _ from parlor 12 bless them! - and after
tea came in to find a lovely Calla and some English violets from Laura. these things go to my heart

[two lines of writing along right margin] in the morning_


* Saxe Holm's Stories by Helen Hunt Jackson, 1874


42 Sunday, February 11, 1877.

The first thing was the breath of the flowers! _ Then the dawning sense that this was the last day _ that the little Greek
books lying in the window meant nothing any more - I got up with my trouble and went out where the girls were -
Everything has been very sweet all day _ the girls have taken care that nothing should be left out _ that could help me
bear _ My comfort has been thought of and thought of _ until I am strangely confused at being so cared for _ Polly sat
with me through chapel - Miss Long was good to let her _ I almost forgive her for the last [squelch] she gave me in view
of this! _ I took the little Greek Testament up to Laura's room but we didn't open it to-day _ We talked about things we
never got near enough to each other to say before -

To see the day die over the top of Sunset Hill - and know that it is the last time for week & weeks. To know ... just how
this feels -

[Left margin] I asked Laura leave her Greek books in the window .. -


43. Monday, February 12, 1877.

It was Laura that brought the little white box down and packed the flowers _ That - I was to carry in my hand : It looked
as if the camp chair had got to be helped home in the same way: _The sight of the little Greek books in the window just
as we left them last Thursday is more than I can bear - When I am ... I can't look at that window: The last things to get
into the trunk, folks to see. Miss Hiscock to leave my dismission card with _ How good I've these things to do _ Almost
the last thing Laura takes me for a minute in her room and puts around my neck narrow black ... from which hangs a
pretty cross _

Its all over ... It's only a little while and I see them waving to me from the platform _ My train moving slowly out _

One of the very hard times Fannie - the very hard _ It's He [too] that knows it! "O Lord! only to be made like thee in thy
great love!"

Home where they are also who care _ who care most - Aggie was at the cars


44. Tuesday, February 13, 1877.

There were two dear little notes in among the flowers _ Laura's hovered over two English violets that she had left kisses
on Letty's had in it that sweet poem of Saxe Holm's

"It cannot be but He must know
About the thing I long for so" _ *

My flowers all look sweet and fresh this morning. The calla looks as if it had it in it to live forever _ Last night it was
hard and ... _ and we all felt the dread and fear. This morning in the newness it seems a little better _ Mother says "Well
I won't give this up yet _ I'll believe there is hope until Dr. Vanderveer says there isn't. It sounds coming from another
like a call to courage _ for is it not her heart that has ached the sorest? _ Well _ "We know who has come into the world
and borne the pain that was in it"




* first two lines of "Draxy's Hymn" in the story Draxy Miller's Dowry in Saxe Holm's Stories by Helen Hunt Jackson,
1874


45. Wednesday, February 14, 1877.

Last night I woke up in the night and heard mother praying. It went to my heart and it left there all night the [sorr]est
kind of an ache _ How can I go and know that she wants me like this. If I were anywhere - anywhere in this wide earth
and she wanted me I would come - but how can I - if it is that river that I cross But it is God that she's talking to Her
course is safe, with Him -

When I get up - I take all my flowers out of the vases - and give them a lovely bath _ and the freshest water _ Then they
smile for me all day. Aggie has her work to comfort her - I begin to understand something of what a great thing it is to
have work to do.

It is nice to have a little time to rest in before I go to see the doctor _ I drop back in the life here at the cottage - just as
when I left it only with a worry larger grown _ I had hoped in vain that it would be smaller


46. Thursday, February 15, 1877.

Before taking me down mother thought it would be well to precede me with some arrangements _ so she has gone down
and we have to do without her to-day. This last does not mean anything very enlivening - but we "pinched along" which
just expresses it ! "faint yet pursuing" to have this said of you because you washed a handful of dishes! _ Think of
coming to this! _ Grandma sits in her corner behind the stove and asks questions! _ I suppose she, too, is worried and
wants to bear a part of our trouble! _ Mother comes back to say that Dr. Van is out of the city and I cannot see him until
Monday! - It seems an age _ before Monday _ and we are all so anxious! _


47. Friday, February 16, 1877.

... _ I keep very-very still_ These are not days for diary keeping _ I would not like to write what I am living - It all
looks so solemn to me _ not like anything I can tell _ When I think of these days _ I shall remember it all _ It is not such
days as these that we forget! _ Grandma's chair is under the little mantel by the stove _ Here her years creep by _ as
softly as the snow falls in the drifted places _ Behind her is the little sofa _ where I lie all day _ Mother's slippers pat-pat
on the kitchen floor. It is not the work she is thinking of _ but blessed a thing it is that there are dinners and suppers to
get _ bread to be kneaded _ ... to bake _ work of any kind is such a respite! "Talk of something that's greater than living
_ of a love that is higher than mine!"


48. Saturday, February 17, 1877.

I told you the calla had it in it to live _ and it has. Come and see it this morning _ The pinks and the English violets -
these too are with me yet _ The roses and the ... had to go _ flowers have such a dear, quiet way of helping us _ Our talk
drifts all one way _ We cannot say little surface things and be glad _ We are given sweet gleams of winter sunshine _
Well people go by happy in the freshness _ the crispness of the clear frosty air! Saturday night _ in the harbor _ I _ my
boat rocks gently _ as the night comes up _ There are cities full of busy people buying and selling - but I seem out of it
all _ with something of the feeling of one who is forever to be out of it- : "Under His wings thou art come to trust"


49. Sunday, February 18, 1877.

"Our help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth - He will not suffer thy foot to be moved - He that keepeth
thee will not slumber. Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep _ The Lord is thy keeper - The
Lord shall be thy shield on thy right hand" *

Take these Bible words _ they are such blessed ones! _ bring them here into my life of to-day _ here into the pain that is
slowly working into peace _ A hard place to bring them _ The hardest, hardest place O _ ... _ that I have ever known -
but it comes like a shining _ somebody is "keeping" me! _ To feel this just once as I feel it to-day _ I do rejoice to be
accounted worthy to suffer!"

My last Sunday in the brown cottage - for now - I cannay tell when I shall come back _





* Psalm 121:2-5, KJV


50. Monday, February 19, 1877.

All day long when I can get myself about it I am found picking up the things that are to go to Albany with me and
laying them one side - placing the rest back in my trunk - as they are to lay while I am gone I feel as if I was following
somebody over a thorny path between tall hedge-rows - and yet I know that "it is not a stranger that I follow" - What I
am doing to-day - in making ready seems almost sacramental to me - I cannot think. I am bewildered and perplexed! _
The other work at home goes on just the same - It has gone on so thru the glad days and through the sorely-grieving
ones _ almost three years _ just like this _ I like to see it so _ To have it to think of when I am not here _ "they are doing
so and so to-night" _ I'd like to spend the days that are close by here with mother _ but the other way is best _ we think!


51. Tuesday, February 20, 1877.

If we were in a picture we would not be taking the train with joy and happy people with "to-morrow shall be as this day
and more abundant" in their focus and ways _ It would be among figures moving silently with awe and wonder in their
hearts It is not so out of pictures People ... ... sad ... and we never know _ I shall remember to my dying day the way
that ... looked _ the ... where I sat and waited for Dr. Van _ and where it was all said and from which we ... out at last _
the little mother and I - What a pitiful little face Nellie held up to me as we sat in Aunt Mary's talking _ She seemed to
understand - I watched muzzy's gray shawl and black dress and little [bonnet] with the [veil on] _ out of sight _

I think after that I had the heartache _ That night it seemed as if there could be nothing grander than to have like the
Lord Jesus the power to heal one such [as me] as mine _




* Isaiah 56:12 Come ye, [say they], I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall
be as this day, [and] much more abundant King James Bible


52. Wednesday, February 21, 1877.

Aunt Mary lets me lie until the whole breadfast is ready to be taken up _ then she comes in very softly and asks me how
I feel and would I like to get up _ Aunt Mary is such a dear soul to come to with a trouble! I feel as if all connection
between the busy world and me - were broken - It is purely a case of "lain by" _ We are not made to relish such things -
and yet - when we come to take the questions down into the very hearts of us _ who would forego - the opportunity to
"endure hardness as good soldiers?" _ I sit by the window and rock some _ lie on the couch and take cut up naps _ some
- talk to Aunt Mary some _ not a taxing existance _ A little after dark Dr. Van comes - He is encouraged sufficiently to
say that he will undertake my care -


53. Thursday, February 22, 1877.

As I said before, my existence is not taxing at present _ nobody expects anything of me - apparently - except to be up to
eat breakfast while the steak is hot _ Poor little mother! I can see her every minute _ I know just how she is worrying
up there in the little dining room! If God will only let me stay while she wants me! Aunt Mary and I talk a little [in]
broken places about ... night long ago _ Of a great pain and a great peace _

"O - God to clasp those fingers close -
And yet to feel so lonely _
To see a light upon the brow
Which is the daylight only _
Be pitiful dear God" _ *


* From the poem The Cry of the Human by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


54, Friday, February 23, 1877.

I do not like "Hannah Thurston" by Bayard Taylor * - I had a dim suspicion that I would - but nothing would tempt me
to read it again _ I thought I should read a verse or two of the Greek of Matthew every day _ but I miss a pair of brown
eyes that do not read it with me any more - Something is the matter with it - with the face of things - every where but in
the heart of things - It is always glad - th[] How sorry Aunt Mary feels - and how hard she tries - to do everything for
me just right _ Helen Bly manifests her sympathy in tail-waggings _ any-way Helen _ don't care how _ ... .... I ... it!
Mrs. Sullivan too - has ... of it for me but I can't understand her as well as I can [Nell] - We don't find out some things
except from the darkest corners

*Hannah Thurston: a story of American life by Bayard Taylor, 1863


55. Saturday, February 24, 1877.

Two things will happen to-day _ I said this to Fannie and ... as soon as the comprehension of time and sense came back
_ said it again while I was dressing! _ The doctor will decide whether there's anything left of me to doctor _ and whether
he's the one who will make an attempt _ - [at] working in that little

Another thing - mother will be down - and will see about my place to get well in! Here or somewhere. _ We took our
breakfast as quietly as the folks in France did on the morning of St. Bartholomew's massacre! - This is the way we do _
in a world where we walk from one dark room into the next! All we can do is to listen to the voice that calls from where
the light is _ "Be of good cheer _ I have been there and I have overcome!" _ The first thing that did happen was Mary
Dodd: _ We [did] ... a minute or two with pater familias and the [knee] -acting attendance There we gave it up! Mother
waits [over] all night so as to hear what Dr.Van says _ It is no dark message that he brings - He thinks I can be helped: _
Dear little mother - how [your] heart goes up! _ Mr. Hughes says "no" I cannot stay here - with Aunt Mary


56. Sunday, February 25, 1877.

It is a very much twisted up morning _ to my mind - Pater-familias and the "son to him" _ held a grim, smoking
carnival- (grim to me) which lasted until church time. (There does come a relief for most any woe in this world, if you
wait long enough) _ I had my Greek Testament _ and I could sail splendidly away from most every weariness to where
"nothing shall hurt or destroy" * _ Yes - Yes! -

It is a good time when the dishes are all put away and Aunt Mary sits down to comb out her hair _ and I sit and rock by
the window

We talk a little about the going away to-morrow _ and say how sorry we are _ that there is no other way _ we say how
glad we are for what the doctor said last night _ for the coming of the [new] sweet hope of a better time _

Well _

(Two lines along right margin)

Mother completed her arrangements and went home on the horsecar[] bless her!




* Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain


57. Monday, February 26, 1877.

Well - this is the way it has all come out! _ I am landed at 42 South Ferry St.!
My pretty carpet of t[]ted browns came this afternoon and the other things _
They didn't take me over until the room was all ready and the fire built!
While Margaret's front romm duly bargained for was being put into a state of winsomeness and grace - I sat by Aunt
Mary's window rocking - and telling her that I wanted to stay with her - Bless her dear heart. She would keep me if she
could! One like her to love you is a great thing even in a world we soon go out of! _ She comforts me by telling me
how often she'll [run] over _ and tries to ... that its the best thing by logic and argument!

I am borne in due time to my continuing city on Ed's big truck which happened as a purely accidental circumstance! A
hack would have been better - but then!

I consecrate the first evening to writing to Huldah _ and no. 12


58. Tuesday, February 27, 1877.

A very cruel way of waking me up mornings has been adopted _ The setting down hard of a coal-scuttle _ and the
dumping of a rattling grate _ these to come into the middle of some"sweet Eden shore" dream! _ Well ! the world as it
will be from the "first floor front" _ this - the morning after the first night _ looks some as if it could inspire _ and help a
little _ Just think of it _ the days may come when I can walk up and down - the street - where now I can only sit and
watch the people who have been blessed of heaven with power to walk! - The snow lies on either side of the street piled
up in great ridges _ we have not yet sailed out of the winter of things! _ Gracie trots in and out _ We've not [proceeded]
very far yet - in a mutual understanding ! _ but we paddle towards it ! _ Aunt Mary drops in at morning and at night


59. Wednesday, February 28, 1877.

This is a new way of living _ Its got its uses - no doubt - I think it a very good plan to try all kinds. Starting out it looks
as if I should be kept warm - this is well - as if I should get something to eat _ which is also desirable _ as if I should get
talked to a lot _ which is not an attractive foreground! _ It isnt a place where there's any living done - a kind of drag for
daily bread - which is thrown around on plates when obtained _ with out a comprehension the slightest that there is even
a thing as high art _ even in serving _ Any number of [pre]... of persons who have died (most of them in this rom I
believe) look down upon me "from the world - Outside theres a piece of sky for me to see as large as one of [Maurices]
targets. the old Dutch church with the large street lamp in front - lighted early - sparrows in abundance too and people
going back and forth _


60. Thursday, March 1, 1877.

He marched in _ blowing but not much! _ Plenty of sunshine _ and no noise about it! -

Mr. Hughes _ a man venerable and growly _ comes forward with advance dispatches of clean clothes _ also a letter!
Don't I wish he'd go so I can have the sweet little talk with Laura? _ It is a lovely letter and my heart is lifted! -

Come in from supper. All dark _ man standing there _ I scratch a match and labor with the large globe to be fitted into
four brass pegs _ not easily done _ Lo _ my good doctor _ he it is _ He takes a few surveys of my [crust] and interior
and says - "Take courage" _

Do I? I fairly soar _ Touch the vaulted blue and tarry awhile!


61. Friday, March 2, 1877.

Reflections.

Sparrows are quite a help _ Are not two of them sold for a farthing? And yet _ that is a wonderful "and yet"* . It occurs
to me that Laura and Parlor 12 will not find in my communications that variety which they could wish! _ Look at my
diary for instance! This is a dry and thirsty land!** We have [entered] Fannie and me upon a new kind of life _ How a
chance to taste the world out of many dishes! It is very slow journeying back to health _ We still lift up our eyes unto
hills - "the hills"!*** It takes me a good part of the day to write a letter!


* Matthew 10:29

** Psalm 63:1

*** Psalm 121:1


63. Sunday, March 4, 1877.

Vowed diary should'nt be given up _ Tis to be kept in dribbles _ Chapters no longer _ but heads of chapters! _ Well _
try it madam! _

Aggie and I on a long snooze _ called back to things of time and sense by a [rush] of coal on a new fire _ Presently we
get up _ Spells of rain take up - Also "clear off" spells _ The 3d Dutch does not lack worshippers _ We watch ['em] !
1:30 _ Aggie is off _ Leaves Frances some "down" _ A good deal too much down _ This taking her out of [clover] and
sitting her down on bare ground she takes hard ! _ Vassar versus S. Ferry 42 -

Evening brighter Aunt Mary _ and a still house -
Finished Earl's letter _ a note too to Martin Hayes .. -


62. Saturday, March 3, 1877.

Excuse this tipping over of things _ The child is in a tipsy-turvy world! _

It kind of blew _ an Albany turn to things _ indicative of the whew about business way Albany people get into _

My sister blew in some-wheres in the flood tides of the morning _ this was a helping on occasion! Shall I mention
another? The chat with Parlor 12 _

Aggie has business to attend to _ not unusual _ some things to take back doubtless that she bought before _ A pure
guess _ but it is probably so _ a fortune teller to see "for fun" _ In the meantime I dispose of myself in a nap _ to be
followed by a talking time with Parlor 12 _

Evening _ Aunt Mary came over _ and Aggie was there and me _ all to ourselves ...! _


Monday, March 5, 1877.

The "cares of this world" are increased _ The new responsibilities consist of pillow shams to be kept straight _

I find I have a great talent for sleeping _ If I keep on, my diary will grow so absorbingly interesting that I shall not only
dote on it in future years but leave it to posterity! What a thrill would come over me to turn to this page _ disposed of as
follows_ IX. Woke up sleepy _ X. Laid down XII. Still asleep _ II. As quiet as an infant still _ IV. Opens her eyes _
five minutes part IV _ Goes to sleep again _ VI. Rallies _ VII. Retires _ hopes she'll have a good night's sleep! _
Probably does !

Aunt Mary comes over after tea _ Is too sick to stay. Dear soul _ she is too good to me! _


Tuesday, March 6, 1877.

My bath of last evening was not in vain _ It washed off some innate drowsiness _ There's nothing surer _ Indeed I have
kept up a purely civilized air to-day _ Have varied my existence by setting my energies at work on a puzzle _ energies
still at it! _

3. P.M. A knock! The writer reclining _ Knocker enters Ah! Dr. Van This is a thing greatly to be rejoiced in, this
managing to get here before dark - I hope I am properly thankful. He acts bolstered up on props not likely to let him fall
- This sets me to hoping too: _ Two letters _ Arletta's one _ brim full, running over with the things that I want to be
doing _ that it is so hard not to be doing! -

Satie's _ Well - hers tells about some thrills she's had _ Has a picture of her in it - No thrills apparent -
Evening - Aunt Mary and Mrs. George H[]y.


66. Wednesday, March 7, 1877.

I set myself up _ to say that as for this dozing business - it won't do! _ So much in earnest am I in this matter that if
there's no other way to keep the upper lids up and the down lids down, machinery shall be resorted to _

A postal from Lettie suggesting that I write Parlor 12 _ a daily installment! Think not! _

Pussy willows as sure as you live! _ and there as plain as can be is the writing of my Laura girl _ The darlings _ there's a
love-thought for me in every one of the soft white bosoms _ Isn't it good such things can live - can be sent? _

Uncle Eph's daughter exists in [title] only _ Why do you suppose it is I can't write? I just sit over the paper hours at a
time biting the end of my pen holder _ The story is in my head _ but it won't write! _


67. Thursday, March 8, 1877.

And there's my blessed mother come to see me _ She can't wait till she gets her things off before she says _ "I've got
good news for you" _ This is such a darling way she has _ She would come all the long tiresome way from the top of the
long hill to Fannie and me just for this _ to make me even a little bit glad! Bless her heart _

Mr. Johnson has with the "presiding genius of Room J" _ and the p.g. says he hopes I'll get well soon and come
back _ for when I complete the course he intends to give me a position in his department. How do you suppose Fannie
and me feel by this time? O _ it is so splendid _ I pray harder than ever for health! _ And the dear Lord who has sent
the good news - will he not send the health? do you want to hear any more about this day - No - you don't _ It is full
already _ I didn't want Muzzy to put on her hat and go _


Miss Frances Bromley,
42, South Fetty St.
Albany
N. Y.


68. Friday, March 9, 1877.

A sending down "of showers, of showers to water the earth"* It might have been the rain - and then again it mightn't _
any way I was dumpish and nothing came to pass to lift me out! Aunt Mary came over or rather dropped in with her
yeast-pail _ but she only looked in on us _ and then got up to go _ The postman darted by heartlessly _ and still the rain
splashed against the windows!

Life isn't long enough for us to have much to do with such books as Roe's "Cloud on the Heart"** _ I was driven to it
to-day _ As bad as it is, it is an improvement on "Barriers Burned Away"*** _ He makes his characters talk, and such
insipid talks!

No Dr. Van here this day _ no ma'am! _


* Psalm 73:6
** The Cloud on the Heart by Azel Stenens Roe, 1869
*** Barriers Burned Away by Edward Payson Roe, 1872


69. Saturday, March 10, 1877-

To-day the sun blesses us _ Its a good day _ To be sure the river is "a raising" and our ankles may be in puddles in the
"first floor front" any minute _ but that's nothing_

A putting in attempt to start "Dr Eph's Daughter" "Dr Eph's Daughter does not get started - I wasn't born to write stories
_ evidently!

I had my mouth all fixed for a letter mine A. ... _ "Not a drum was heard" _ Did it again at 3 _ the man in gray trimmed
with brass buttons said "Bromley"

He was the medium between me and Parlor 12 _ which speaks up again! _ "When I get my letter read I am going to
dress up" _ you said _ A minute after and in walk Aunt Esther, Aunt Mary and Hester _ If I'd only done it you said! _
Began a return mail to Parlor 12 _ I get quite elated over my chat with Lettie, Polly, Hulday and Ella _ ... elated


70. Sunday, March 11, 1877.

Good morning, Fannie _ A "good" morning it really is _ leading out into a precious day _ No one to talk to us or bother
us much _ and all the sunshine we wanted! Fannie and me! _ We heard the church bells _ sang a little softly to
ourselves _ read Mrs. Browning's Sonnets and Poetic Studies _ and rocked ourselves _ It was all still and sweet and
solemn _ The [trust] that God sends He sent to me while I was praying _ the sorrow and sin and trouble of the world _
came over me a little as it did to Jesus _ I prayed too for life _ if He who knew the best _ always the best _ could see fit
to give it

The verse that came as the answer filled my heart with peace - "Whether we live or die we are the Lord's." *


* Romans 14:8


71. Monday, March 12, 1877-

No high-water yet _ A bracing item!_

Dr. Van _ before noon - wants to see mother - whereupon I fret a little
Watch for letter-man - might just as well not. Give him up _
Just begin to feel consoled a little when Gracie comes in _ with "Here's a letter Fannie" _ from Laura as sure as you
live! Also a first installment of Greek prose _

Evening - my boy and girl - Boy with a boil! _ Girl in a state of transport _ "Maggie Mitchell" in Becky Mix* _ to-
night

Aunt Mary _ a minute "I wonder what the doctor wants of your mother"!


* comedy written by Clifton W. Tayleur


72. Tuesday, March 13, 1877.

We think always in the childhood of our life and far as in the other years that almost the hardest thing to bear - the thing
we wonder how we can bear _ is the time when we are told _ "You can never be well again" _

And yet it came to me to-day in the midst of other things _ and the day was like other days _ and we talked and were
cheery _ and it dropped out of our talk _ to be thought of in the still bedtime to-night when we should be alone with God

This is what the Dr. wanted to tell mother _ and now we know _ the dear, little mother _ dear Aunt Mary and I _ The
worst and the possible! "The very present help"* _ It is the Lord _ let him do as seemeth him good _

Dear little mother - well - we have had a nice talk_ We wouldn't have got it all said if you hadn't gone on the 4_45 so I
let you go _ smiling at you as you [pass] the window


* Psalm 46:1


73. Wednesday, March 14, 1877.

I suppose I can tell how I sat here and sat here - and nobody came and nothing happened _ Began on this exciting life as
early as seven-thirty ! How favored I am that I am so well fitted up with things to stir up so as to make things happen _
Thanks to mother for managing it Life at 42 South Ferry "first floor front" isn't altogether a "howling" wilderness while
I have scrap-books to make - I make [em]!

Aunt Mary and Nellie drop in - just before eight _ Come to see how Fannie and me feel to-day _ Also to talk about
going to "..." to-morrow _ night and storm and darkness _


74. Thursday, March 15, 1877.

All available space is called into use in my present crusade _ to be a deposit or rather a place of deposit for scrap-book
"d[]" _ This is why mother is glad to have the affair accomplished while I am in a state of banishment _ I manage to
keep an awful looking room without prospective improvement even when pasting begins!

Well this is all we've got to tell Fannie and me _ Conversations with the p.g. (presiding genius) also (perpetual gabber)
have in them no high flavor. They exist to me as a sort of last feather to break the camel's back _ in which case I am the
camel! (but not Lill)


75. Friday, March 16, 1877.

Come and rest Fannie Come up into long days leading through vine lands and out into the open country _ You need not
have any worries in your heart for this is the court of the King

The spring touches me coming closer _ we shall enter presently upon newness of life _

In the morning you say "I will work at scrap-book awhile" _ at noon you say " I will take a little sleep on the sofa _ and
by and by the night falls - across the pillars of the old Dutch church - then it wraps up all things - and you have nothing
to say _ but _ "when it gets a little later I will go to bed"! We get into queer places _ in the course of the long journey -
only "do ... go ... with us _ O, Father !

(Side margin)
Aggie came down but, has ... back _


76. Saturday, March 17, 1877.

We think we're pretty glad to get out _ fanny and me! Not that it has'nt its miseries _ we all know through what
tribulation locomotion is possible! but the being out _ the forgetting _ the being a part of something like other people _
that's it! When that young chap brought a satchel & left it here _ I was quite dazed! _ What ... was it meant _ was'nt
here nor there _ It did come over me to say after a few whiffs _ "Maybe its Satie" _ Aunt Mary had just got up to go _
"Maybe it is" _ she remarked! Our "maybes" ... it for presently she was on hand also my sister _ also "Em Abbot" 42
was stirred to its profoundest depths! _ Maggie Mitchell in the Pearl of Savoy! _ We quite like it Fanny & me! A bright
spot after a month at 42.

Where do you spose we are all going to sleep? _
(Two lines along side margin)
The day of the ... of Aunt Mary's ........


77. Sunday, March 18, 1877.

If we had cherished any high hopes ever so fond _ of lying to rest out this morning _ they were dispelled like cherries on
trees when small boys live near _ It seemed as if I hadn't slept at all _ when Margaret came whizzing in - setting the coal
scuttle down on the oil cloth _ with a great bang _ and letting out the very uncomfortable information that we were to be
up to eat _ before Mr. I. was called.

I looked up and three heads lay in the big bed in a row! How were they more inclined than I to eat before Mr. I. was
around! _

Aggie and her friend got off and Satie and I were left to find whatever we could in the day

There was nothing very helpful or bracing up about me _ I was not an inducement to anybody - (. )

We rolled along in a kind of talk - and went to bed early _


79. Tuesday, March 20, 1877.

This having some one here is a new thing for me - It may be a good thing if I don't go into the rashness of talking too
much _ Satie after many directions as to where it is and what she shall do when she gets there _ goes up to spend the
morning at the ... - It comes about that mother drops in upon me - and we have a visit highly fine. Somehow things
[look] brighter _ more like being endured when she has dropped in upon me for an afternoon _ The things that I don't do
afflict me even in this do nothing state that I'm passing through

Its very well for me that I do have gnawings and uneasinesses when I keep people who are good to me waiting for
answers to their letters = though why my dribblings are desirable is ... I know _


78. Monday, March 19, 1877.

It was middlin early that I was awake - I turned over and asked Satie if she "sposed" that we'd got to get up and eat this
morning before Mr. Ingraham did: - We lay sometime - and found out that this cruelty was not to be practiced on us! -

Satie goes out in the height of the morning to look around a little and to see what our end of Albany is like

She comes back to ... to "mother" and read "The Circuit Rider" _ I try to make myself think that I am molding and
fashioning a communication to somebody _ but I ain't _ There's nary [write] in me! _ Mrs. I _ gives us her inspiring
presence _ explains the peculiar state of her on the arrival of our guests on Sat. by enforcing it upon us that she was
"agitated"! She casts to right to left ... ... in my ... ... in ... not Saturday! I am not meek


80. Wednesday, March 21, 1877.

It was full of the kind of little things that come like annointings into these days - Laura's letter _ and it came just as we
were sitting down to supper _ How could I help growing tender in my every thought outward upon things _ After it I sat
down to a comfort talk with Julie _ On the sofa it was - with the night coming up outside _ We can hear the bells calling
while we hold each other by the hand - in our quiet speech there in the dark -

It has in doings and such like been a day much like the rest _ a little pasting _ a little reading _ broken by sundry nibbles
at the oranges _ My light stand makes a suggestive picture there by the stove _ I'm supposed to be writing letters _ but I
don't _ I'm not utterly and thoroughly useless for there are the scrap-books you know _


81. Thursday, March 22, 1877.

To-day our talk is always ... - You know how it is _ thoughts march up and posess us _ and our talk drifts with them _ It
is a long, long time since I have thought of ... _ like this _ Aunt Mary comes in with a kind of a whew about her and
thinks she must hurry _ but _ do you suppose I let her? - Margaret gives my life a great many variations _ and almost
every time she ... in Grace trots behind. I hardly object to this though _ It is quite an alleviating circumstance _ I have
quite a [commisary] department _ which I [boss] _ thanks to Satie and Aunt Mary _ Mrs. Sullivan once or twice has
brought me oranges - I wonder if I've thought to mention it _ I would not like to forget _ Dr. Van has come again &
gone _

I crawl about sort of wearily and dream of the days of .. _ and bounding step _


82. Friday, March 23, 1877.

I bring forces to bear _ upon that light-stand there by the fire _ It is really interesting to see ... off of the ruins of
Carthage _ Its so easy not to do the things you'd ought to ! _

The episodes are yet the same - There are the same things to watch: _ the sparrows picking up their dinners & God
caring - the coming of the pleasant German who rings the bell _ across _ Gracey in her little tiffs with her sister _ the
very mysterious man who "likes fat" _ Well - my letter is put in the [green] letter-box in the corner _ how I am ready for
a talk - my Satie - girl - Shall we look forward to-night- or back a little? _


83. Saturday, March 24, 1877.

What a day it was for March! Taking us up in its arms - at ... - as tenderly and carresingly to-day as if it were not
sometimes harsh with us - and fierce! When Aunt Mary comes over with her best bonnet on - I say - "Yes _ I am all
ready _ I'll have my hat on in a minute" _ she laughs and says "much good it will do you to have you hat on in a minute"
just like that! _ Why couldn't the power of walking have descended on me then and there! ... you needn't be in such a
hurry Fannie - it will come slowly. Think what a return it will be come how it may! _ You can well afford to pass
through anything It came up to this! _ But Aunt Mary isn't saying all this to you _ she's way out of sight by this time _
showing Satie the [lions] of the city and such things! awful good of her!

In the meantime I and the light stand are drawn up near the window so writing can be done!


84. Sunday, March 25, 1877.

I am glad you are just such a Sunday as you are - Give me pieces please out of your best - your very best _ I suppose its
not yet _ that we really know what the best is when it comes _ if it is a joy _ a love-message _ a thought of comfort we
are sure _ so sure we are being given the best - but if an added pain - what then? Sometimes the very best is a day that
"like a desert country lieth silent-bare - No - I suppose its not yet that we really know.

Dear Aunt Mary comes over to take Satie up to hear Dr. Bridgman! _ I am proud of her in her dress up clothes _ she
begins to have such a dear old lady look_

Satie says the service was very sweet _ So was ... at home on the sofa _ not quite as well to-day _ perhaps _ but lifted up
a little _ helped by one who too is sick these days _ yet [sending] .. _ for others _ like [Fannie & me]


85. Monday, March 26, 1877.

How it comes in columns _ "Budding morn and dewy eve" and splashed on _ and there's enough left to splash the next
one! _ this rain has its mind made up _ But we won't quarrel with it.

Last night in the night things were pretty bad at 42 _ Laurie and me got up and left the things of time and sense behind
us in a temporary swoon _ How ever we were recalled and were taken beautiful care of _ the rest of the night. To-day
we move not about much _ but we're here _ all of us _ and on the up-grade! Aunt Mary comes over with some of her ...
broth - and is awful sorry: _ While Satie is up to ... buying up muslin _ in the rain - Margaret sits in the "first floor front"
and ... ... [through] all her old love stories []thing for me! _ also in the [rain]!-


86. Tuesday, March 27, 1877.

Not a very comforting day to start out on _ The blue above has a hard time getting out into sight _
Gives it up! _
Satie gives it as her opionion that she'd better go - "If I wait - it may rain to-morrow" _ Yes - it may - I have no
arguments to fetch forward to prove that to-morrow will not be as to-day - or more so! - So with bundle embarking and
... as a sustaining prop coming up to reinfore she is off _ and Fannie & me standing in the door watch her - almost out of
sight. Then we come back and lie down and miss something! -

Satie has made for all time a place in the affections of the p.g. by presenting her with a sachet! _ "I never had no such
thing before" _ what must her childhood have been - d[] of sachets and perfumery?


87. Wednesday, March 28, 1877.

This rain business is hanging on! There's not a bright patch of sky in the whole heavens _ nor likely to be The sky like
a sad child sobs and sobs _ then tears fall again!

Begin as my old life again - and the first campaign was planned against Parlor 12 _ It is a cheery talk we have - looking
not out upon the driving rain - and the early grey nightfall - but in where the fire is and the lighted places _

It is very still _ too still I am afraid _ It is impossible sometimes to keep all the specters out _ when I am left to my own
calms - hour after hour! _

I wonder why _ is it sealed and set against me that I shall have no power of telling the stories that I so ache to tell - ache
- with every thought of mother.


88. Thursday, March 29, 1877.

This mostly
Albany, Thursday,
Dearly Beloved and Longed-for _

A am here in Albany laid up - here on the sixth week of it! Why don't you talk to me a little? Send me something - a
word - a signal, anything - anything but this utter silence I cannot bear. Are you sick, too, and cannot talk much? Is
there no way for our ships to speak each other? Is there no longer any fashion of speech between us that shall change
my longing for you into rest? Yes - I am here - but better. You can wait for the rest

I did not come to you - and I did not tell you any why - For the sake of all that there has been between us do not say
even to youself _ "If she had only done differently" _ I cannot bear even the thought of this in you. I have not [by] and
the pale of your trust - your perfect trust - in this - love - and you are so strong to do it for me.

Pretty soon we will talk again,
Your girl!

Well Aunt Mary and Margaret have got back from "..."! Here we sit talking. Enter Aunt Mary's patriarch! - A
momentary issue - Exitent ...!

... worry up, home - Muzzy, Fannie cares!


89. Friday, March 30, 1877.

Yesterday I kept properly dressed up _ and waited all day for the doctor _ My room excellent in its way _ all unsightly
objects _ carefully poked under the sofa _ or wash stand _ In fact every-thing according to my house keeping
conscience _ in good shape _ the outside of my platter - clean! But no doctor came _ Two such days right along
together _ too much for me _ To-day I got my scrap-book out which means on the face of it an execrable looking room
and in the worst moment of its career in walked Dr. Van. Well!

Afternoon _ I do a rash thing _ walk over to my Aunt Mary's to dine! _ It is worth while _ and I do not [pant] _ even
now! We have a fine chatty time to ourselves until long after six after which supper _ after which I am escorted home
by the patriarch _ He enters _

Scene - Mrs. Ingraham in earnest _ also Mr. H

I think a whole story out after I get to bed.


90. Saturday, March 31, 1877.

I knew somebody was coming down from home to-day _ which was the signal at once to my amounting to nothing
before hand _ and taking a good while to amount to anything at the other end of it! _ I'm "superfluous women" these
days _ sure enough! - I thought it would be Aggie this time but 'twas mother - Aggie's sick - poor little chicken. Well _
I [camphored] mother and [corseted] her and Dr. Vanned her _ and gave her the usual list of my ills _ and whether it
brightened up the world for her or not I know not _ I'm wofully [sic] afraid it didn't! Dear heart _ it has been having all
it could bear so long! _

A beautiful surprise _ a box of flowers from Mr. Spicer, brought over by ... Rice! _ I'm so glad they came before mother
went home so she could see them _ These could brighten her _ another ring _ a lovely [Easter] Calla from Satie _


"Give us for Thee long pining" _

91. Sunday, April 1, 1877. (Acts II-24)

There was so much "beauty of lilies" about the whole day _ the dear Easter day _ It did not well up strong and full in
deeps of sunshine _ It lived in little touches _ it suggested -

I thought the day was meant for me and I got ready for it _ My eyes got where they could look up to the [blessed] help
hills better _ and my heart _ it saw the Lord _ How rich I am with this day to keep the flowers _ the organ music _ the
chants _ Dr. Bridgman's sermon: _ All mine in perpetual possession! The dear communion season - the broken body _
His - the shed blood _ To do it once more in remembrance _ sweet remembrance of Him! Then I came home and sat
beside my Easter flowers _ Those days when Enoch walked with God* - how supremely []estful and glad they must
have been. We _ with faint breaths of such living are so happy _ If we only did but remember always that this is not our
rest _

*Genesis 5


92. Monday, April2, 1877.

Something happened the first thing _ a voice from Room C _ It gave me so much to think of that it sort of drove
Thaddy [Trueman] off the track - Poor Thaddy _ I'm afraid you will feel like untying the string around your neck before
Thaddy gets through being "Bobby O'Toole" You do not go at him as if you knew how _ Pardon the suggestion in me
...! A long still afternoon - You, left to your thoughts and your pasting and your tears _ a great deal of pasting _ some
very serious, deep-down thoughts _ a few tears _ It ended in being sure that not even a bird falleth without your Father*
_ My patience can scarcely be called heroic when it aches and is restless like this!
And having done all to stand! _ No Aunt Mary _ no camphor!
[left margin]

And Mr. Hughes ...plans _ unsufficiently propped! Down they go!


*Matthew 10:29 KJV Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without
your Father.


96 - Friday, April 6, 1877. -

Read Harper's for December and January some to-day. Glad I had ... to read - There's always at least one comforting
circumstance in a day.

Two graveyard inscriptions ... me - On the tombstone of a man and wife in one of the N.E. burial-grounds is written
"Their warfare is accomplished" _ (Jer.6-12)* _ On the gate is written "Here lie the dead and here the living lie".

One long blank day _ four walls and a sofa! But rest is sweet _ and underneath _ you know, are the everlasting arms!
How could I bear to see the sun of such days come - if I didn't know the "arms" were there. The April touches are
around us _ rare and sweet the promises of after fullness _ and harvest time! _ The day _ you crept into a house, Fannie
_ long ago _ God is indeed merciful _ To some of life's [sickest] - and [best] he says even to me - "Take"



Isaiah 40:2 Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her, that her warfare is accomplished ...
Jeremiah 6:12 And their houses shall be turned over to others, fields and wives together: For I will stretch out My hand
against the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord.


97. Saturday, April 7, 1877.

I began about the first thing- bending over to pick up my first stocking _ to sort of settle it with myself how I was going
to behave to-day in the event of getting no letter from Lake Erie! _ A rather unexhilarating question! It came out that
before I and the eggs faced each other that Margaret came in with two postals! _ Rather queer thinks I to myself _ Does
she too ... in postals! _ One thing is settles_ She will be here Wednesday _ Now my thoughts hamper scamper in another
route _ via _ Delaran! _ Well - its much more comfortable to settle back in something _ So we do _ Fannie and me!

Its must be nearly four when Aggie comes _ and such a sleepy girl she is _ up all night to a party! However these little
circumstances do not largely affect me keeping on chatting _ even after we get to bed - Even after she keeps saying _
"I'm going to sleep now" _


98. Sunday, April 8, 1877.

This is an eminently bright world _ Good _ my child _ I approve of your beginning that way! _ No intertuptions please!
_ Also an April with some accomodation about her _ It really is no credit to be hopeful and light-hearted on such a day
as this - with all the world to help! _ I commenced a letter to Earl - felt like it _ wherefore and therefore _ I can finish it
in a few minutes _ all there's left to say! Everybody that passes thinks what a good day it is! They look in at the "first
floor front" and it means something happy to them _ even if they saw a sick girl at the sindow a girl that hasn't walked
since the Aoril of a year ago. Aunt Mary chokes up when she tries to talk _ Charlie leaves house to-night leaves to stay
_


99. Monday, April 9, 1877.

Couldn't make scrap-book _ no - cause I'm out of paper _ couldn't write much _ no feeling like it in me _ so _ I lay
becalmed! _

Saw the world mostly from 42's back stoop _ This to get shone on _ When you come to look at it _ in a time of greater
inward illumination _ you discover that it was really the best the world offered you to-day! And you took it _ we hope
thankfully _

When people come to wearing wrappers all day - and taking outside life from an inside "first floor front" _ there's a
great tendency to moralize. You may have discovered this _ Do you know what I want? I want to see the sky again
from Annie Phelps' front door! _


100. Tuesday, April 10, 1877.

I wonder if there's any such thing as keeping on with this weather - For my part it is a perfect eye-rest and heart-rest _ If
there's anything that seems as if it came straight from the hand of God _ it is a day of sunshine! For He maketh the sun
to rise on the evil and on the good!* Be ye, therefore, the children of your father in heaven!" _ How lovely those two -
fit together!

And mother came - and with her Aggie's sack and hat - and all this printing paper!

It was nice of muzzy to think to bring it _ nice of her to say - "Go to the Delavan with
Laura - afford it _ dinner and all"_!

I had to go to bed awful sorry though and fret _ too. I kept the dear little woman so long she missed her train and had to
come way back _ ...Brady's tea_store and Battershall's meat_market! She found Hecter & Mary Delamater at Aunt
Mary's & brought them over here - but she's a poor, tired little mother & I am so sorry


*Matthew 5:45


101. Wednesday, April 11, 1877.

Yes I am back again_ and way up_ feel as if the one bright day in my banishment had begun _ to live on ... .

A whole day away from 42. That alone would be worth having _ We'll take ours, world and people, at the Delavan if
you please! _ Quite as good as saying - "Two seats on Mount Olympus _ if you please _ two seats for the day" _ Quite
as good! I wrote April 11 _ in the little red morraco note-book _ on the bill of fare _ Both of us wrote it in the "... of
gold" _ Both of us said "it will be nice to keep"

It would hardly have been complete though without the great-gentle sunsmiles _ the being taken into the warm, fresh
heart of spring! Well _ we talked _ There was lots that we couldn't begin to get in! _ Its two months since she dropped
in on me to say things! and here we are just ready to jump on the train and be off but the little last words get said and
Fanny and me are back to 42. reading a letter from Polly


102. Thursday, April 12, 1877.

And here they are _ brave hepaticas in their pink and purple! the sweet wood-breaths all about them _ I take them in
reverently and bring freshness back to their mute faces _ with the cool water which they ... for _ Bless you my darlings
_ ... is not the first bright place in 42 lit up by Vassar's touches. Polly's letter that I told you about is full of the Mother
Goose party _ 42 is glad to get hold of every word _ Its a fairy story to come to Fannie and me _ in this place! I hurried
a postal off up to mother to tell her how nice yesterday was! I feel so good to-day _ yesterday lasts _ Earle's postal tells
me they're so, so, so so glad I'm better _ Bless 'em all _ They've helped!

A hard day for Laura _ Twas to-day a year ago that the great trouble came to her! The great peace to her father.


103. Friday, April 13, 1877.

Heidelberg by G.P.R. James _ that is _ pieces of it _ It takes me into pleasant places in the dear, old Rhineland _ : this,
too, in a spring of things _ a day alive and gladsome! Pretty soon we shall open to Gil Blas!*

The scrap-book business is on my hands _ and through its fields and hedge-rows walks the day _ A long day _ with little
[]some spots _ All day the wagons clatter over the stones _ quick steps sound on the pavement _ it is a world where
people work _ and stir up things _ but I'm not there - I have no part in the busy places _ And yet I am at the bidding of
the Highest

There's no mistake _ the last command is the present _ "Stand there in the dark and suffer for me" _




* Gil Blas, a novel by Alain-Rene Lesage


104. Saturday, April 14, 1877.

My tunes are played without variations these days _ and if I want a new tune _ I must sing it myself! _ So ... the orders
_ and I, a private soldier, in the lists have nothing to do with ought but the word of command!
Something to alter the face of the day _ I said something to come into it that isn't like the rest _
Then Aggie came _ but not to alter the face of the day _ not to bring the something _ for her shoes hurt her feet _ and
when this happens what are the woes of others to our woes?

Besides she had a ticket for the Almighty Dollar!

Well - something will come some other day _ "Let patience", I entreat thee, "have her perfect work!"*
James 1:4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.


105. Sunday, April 15, 1877.

You don't suppose I am glad any, do you! On this gladdest of mornings too _ Think of it _ me - who walked a whole
square without pain! It comes over me this morning _ the tender significance of that answer Jesus sent to John _ "The
deaf hear, the lame walk, the poor have the gospel preached to them!"*_ While Mr. Hughes was at chuch Aunt Mary
came over and sat with me _ We had plenty to enjoy out of the day _ We couldn't get out much where the world lay _
but there was no need when the world could come to us _ all in its best clothes too!

Then Mattie Rice came over which was also a piece of other people's good times brought a little nearer _ She informs
me that Miss C. Harrison of Vassar College has discovered a comet in the constellation Pegasus! So says Miss Mattie
so says the ... Press _ I give the evening to Polly in that & some other subjects! _




Matthew 11:5 and Luke 7:22


106. Monday, April 16, 1877.

I feel quite perched up _ and my heart _ it fairly sings _ To be sure there is no reason why it should not sing on through
night and storm and darkness _ just as well _ Perhaps it did _

One thing we know _ you could never have had the joy of this moment in its completeness without all the pain that ...
for you in the year! To walk again _ without the pain _ O-Lord of the night _ You have given me my prayer! _ Laura's
letter was in an envelope that might wrap up a young hippopotamus! "Business and love"_ she said! P.O. order comes
back _ "To be filled out in ink_" So says our Mr. Dean! _

Afternoon Our postman here again! _ This time its Ella's doings _ a letter excellent in porportions _ gossipy too _ which
keeps 42 from being altogether lonesome!


107. Tuesday, April 17, 1877.

"Girlie may I put my arms around you and talk a minute - just a minute - may I tell you that I do not forget how hard
these April days are to you _ these sad, sad days _ the anniversaries of your sorrow? _ All the harder and I know so
well, because you are so brave and patient & still, the shadow does not lift from your heart even while you come with
help to me _ You, too, have a part in that [song] you send to my trouble _ my darkness _ and so you say "air" [song] -
Yes - you, too, need this keeping quietly to God _ this heart to heart fellowship with the Peace Eternal _ I am glad we
both know dear something how priceless the gift is when God comes to us in "a supreme & awful sorrow " _ The God
who has helped you to bear a whole year comfort you my darling: There are heights as well as depths to pain"

It took me a long time to say even a little to Laura to-day _ Such things work O - so slow since I came to 42.
Very still the day has been _ too still for me!
Bright though _ and Fannie & me able to go out and look for bright places! _ Went up to see Dr. Van - [Gone out of
town]!


108. Wednesday, April 18, 1877.

And here is Polly Abbot in Chiarooscuro! Think of that - mum! I was right in the midst of one of the short stories in
Harper's monthly when this happened _ It might have been "allegretto" _ Can't be sure _ anyway I was feeling gentle
and amiable _ and you can guess I was awful glad when the Merrywoman got here! Then I heard a cane _ and twas Mr.
Hughes come over to ask me ... to supper _ steak, you see, and nobody to eat it _ [this] is the way he put it! The old
gentleman felt good _ he had just seen Dr. French - who was homeward bound! Just think! all this to happen in one
day! A [forgetting] in the life of a girl at 42!


109. Thursday, April 19, 1877.

A long poky day _ Conspiring elements in the heavens above us _ [mud] and a cold in my head below! Whatever
desires might have crept into my soul to get outdoor air and outdoor blessedness had to be smothered _ as I was
repeatedly told that it was "damp"! With all my welcoming a day when it was possible to be heroic _ there came, too,
the consciousness that a day can drag even to a heroic spirit - even heroes can be glad when it is time to take refuge
under comforters! Yes'm _ My how it rained _ I tried to talk to Susie _ It wasn't an inspiring moment ! I take Gracie on
my lap and have a nice little play with her _ Twas about as nice as anything that came or went with the day! A rainy
world _ My! how it keeps on! and Susie's letter not done!


110. Friday, April 20, 1877.

"Nine weeks of this" so ... the record up there in the calm and rest where angels stand and I down here in the restlessness
take these nine weeks "of hard waiting and try to lift up toward that calm and rest a brave and happy face" _ this with a
piece of mignonette and three pages more will be sent to 1158 East Jersey St. Elizabeth when done! It don't get
scratched down very fast _ not very _ I don't feel like communing with saints this way! _ Aunt Mary's plan and mine _
like many another ... of our brains fell to naught _ so up to Cohoes [toils] a postal saying Aunt Mary won't be there to-
day. this my dear friends can only show them our good intentions since arriving at the V and G. not before 6:30 they
will already be well-... that she is not forthcoming ! Never mind! This rain has the zeal of a war-horse!


111. Saturday, April 21, 1877.

It must have been ten o'clock before I got that letter done _ My satisfaction was lofty when I got it folded and in and off!
_ Still it kept in raining _ I found it difficult to be either useful or agreeable here on the tag-end of the protracted storm!
_ especially when it began to look as if Aggie wasn't coming! _ "I shall be real disappointed" said Aunt Mary _ Twasnt
only two o'clock then and half-past two ... lady appeared! Later still and the clouds parted _ There was summer and
sunshine somewhere _ and we got glimpses. [more] is coming to-morrow! _

Huldah's [turn] this week - and her letter has upsettings in it! _ Talking already of next year and [rooms]! _ Shall I be
reckoned out or in _ do you spose! _ Tisn't time for me to think of next year yet _


112. Sunday, April 22, 1877.

If there's any help and comfort to be derived from a Tuscan straw trimmed with black velvet and cream with a Nile
green rose _ and a cranberry blossom _ then help and comfort are in my hand! _ Yes, in! Mind now! its a real
consoling thing to know that you are in a world yet where such things are necessary _ I've lived sans hats _ sans such
things so long _ I am wild to think I can crawl up out of my fogs _ into a country where little common things please _
and people dare to lay plans for to-morrow!

Twas lots of fun to be at Aunt Mary's and have Aggie there _ Quite reviving! _ to have lulls and pauses in talk _
Couldn't have that at home! _

Way down here at the last breath of the day a little gospel of St. Matthew!


113. Monday, April 23, 1877.

"The energetic brotherhood of mankind have taken it into their determined little heads that I am in need of blueing soap,
salve, liniment, ice, ..., straw & suspenders! that I have umbrellas to mend, pipes to be soldered, dog-taxes to pay ashes
to be carried hence _ that I want to take boarders and a S.S. class _ The irrepressible soap, salve, straw &c men knock at
my window and dangle their several commodities up & down in the air - recounting their virtues with all the gibberish
of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians & the dwellers in Cappadocia * I have no success whatever in
convincing the plumbers that I have only one pipe, a windpipe & that I am not in pressing need of their services _ and to
the ashman I cry in vain that my dust and ashes are not ready to be borne away" It is not to be recorded that this day
had so much as one inspiring moment _ except out doors _ There it was a fete day. My letter to the Bond E. sort of
dragged! _ Walked down to 221 and made a call.


Acts 2:9, King James Bible


114. Tuesday, April 24, 1877.

Not a great many "ins and outs" _ We take the world [from] a corner Fanny and me! _ Nothing from PO _ in any form
_ nothing whatever! _ Next to "how are you feeling to-day" _ comes the other question which sticks _ "Has your check
come?" _ No _ world _ no _ nothing's come! Well _ its easy to see that as for special favors _ the day has been sparing
_ but the great universal blessings which are for us all _ the sunshine for instance and the eternal rest of the sky _ I
helped myself out of the abundance _ and life was sweet! _ Among these great and universal things I feel like placing
Aunt Mary's cup of tea! _ I tramped around to an extent unheard of for a dilapidated girl _ and so _ my feet ache - ... too
- but I am too thankful too glad _ to feel any ache to-night!


115. Wednesday, April 25, 1877.

Whereupon a great aching fell upon all my bones and I was not much seen about! I was glad the world had such a
brightness about it even if I wasn't out in it _ there was the atmosphere of it _ and that I couldn't very well get out of _ I
wish mother would stick her head in on me a minute _ I haven't seen her have I, since the 10th? This diary business
worries me Am forever behind! I ... at it some! Bring into being a letter to Aunt Mary's man which after proper
attention and management gets on its rejoicing way! You'd think to see us it was a protocol to the Sublime Porte! Aunt
Mary's been here all the afternoon and her head's ached! When I'd get off on some [string] about Prof. Backus or
mother's prospective boarders or Dan's views she'd look up when I stopped a minute with - "They are going to wear
hoops again this summer" or something quite as far off from the subject in hand.

[upside-down between lines 7 and 8]
Vassar catalogue _ also "[]" for Founder's Day


116. Thursday, april, 1877.

I wish everything good wouldn't all come upon me at once! Laura's letter - that was enough alone - for one day _ a
gentle gift it was _ and watched for! Then Earle Abbott cast [her] shadow for me which pleased me immensely. and on
top of it all Ad Spicer came _ I was out by the back-door in the sunshine writing to Huldah _ and feeling that I was
entering into the afternoon joy - getting a goodly portion of this day's fullness! When I went over to Aunt Mary's with
the check found Mr. H. there _ he came home last night quite unlooked for _ and with more trouble in his head! I'm
getting on in Gil Blass _ have an idea it would [prove] more enlivening if every separate person introduced wouldn't feel
called upon to relate his history from the beginning! Ad left me a lovely bunch of flowers: My solitary places are
made glad


117. Friday, April 27, 1877.

Yes we kept still Fannie and me! _Trotted out about the first thing and put Huldah's letter and Rhoda's postal into the
mail-box _ and then came back to a nine o'clock breakfast _ a little lazy this morning _ How's that?_

Do you spose mother'll be down to-day? "Hardly" _ This is what we said when it got to be afternoon and no mother
anywhere around: Well _

Morning - dig away in back diary pages _ Dinner liver! _ Afternoon _ Gil Blas _ in small doses on the sofa - also Earle's
postal! Later - I am on Gracie's blue gingham apron. Supper Dried apple sauce and eggs _ at the close of which there I
hear the cane and Nellie and am honored with a "Come over & have some supper Franie" from the cane! "I'd like to go
very much but I've just got up from the table" says 42 I hate obsequiousness!

Founder's Day - ...!


118. Saturday, April 28, 1877.

There's everything to make us think its going to rain _ it still holds off_ but will trickle down I guess in the night of
things! We betake ourselves Fannie & me at an early hour on a tramp! Don't feel highly like it _ and end up kind of
wiggly_ but never mind! Saw the Dr. State St. Steve - and a man who advertises for a job printer Each separate
individual undertaking [verged] on a fizzle - all but the Savings Bank.

A long nap _ with my mouth open _ On top of this in walks Mrs. Dodd! We talk!

Supper with Aunt Mary on yesterday's ...! A great many performances from Nellie _ We need to laugh all we can!


119. Sunday, April 29, 1877.

A Sunday of promises and [gleams] ! _ Of green fields and bursting buds - and spring [banners] to some _ and they
needed it all and were glad _ Mine live further on in the summer - and only touch me in the happiness of other people -
or in the Mays that live in my heart! _ Mary and ...went up to the cemetery to plant lovely, white daisies on the new
little grave _ Margaret and ... have flowers for their mother's grave _ so all day long it is still _ and I am alone. I take
little walks up and down in front of the house _ and long rests between _ It is long on into the afternoon when the folks
get back _ I look at Margaret as if she had been on altar stairs near the angels and try to find some of the [spring
weather] about her but there's only a few that can bring such things to you. I, too, shall go to the altar stairs. You dear
... living so large and [loving]!


120. Monday, April 30, 1877.

There I was, walking up S. Ferry St. _ almost to Pearl _ I had just had my breakfast and it was my first taste of the
morning _ (not the breakfast) _ Aunt Mary sees me and comes up to meet me _ urging Miss Nellie to slight courtesies
toward me which she is quite as likely as not to forget _ as soon as possible _ so I get down to ..., if it can be done, some
marked attention _ & who comes along on the spot but Dan? _ This meant good _ in my quick interpretation _ but the
boy looked sorry so sorry _ It came out presently what was up _ "I have come down to look for work in the offices -
Mr. B[] discharged me Saturday night" The foundations on which society are built creaked for me _ It was to our
family what the appearance at Windsor of the Sultan's forces might be to Mrs. Queen Victoria Guelph or the failure of
Jay Cooke and Co. to Wall St.! A crash _ until in ... our bones _ and man the big guns _ I talk as bravely as I can to the
boy and give him money to buy cloth for his spring .....

[right margin] mother left the cottage last ...


121. Tuesday, May 1, 1877.

The "first floor front" looks not enticing _ as my opening eyes take in the situation of things _ We are carpetless and in
chaos! _ I proceed on an enterprise of rashness _ if you should stand most anywhere on [Green] St you would see me go
by _ I am fairly frightened when I arrive at 70 1/2 Hudson Av. to find that I walked it! _ not so "scart" however but I try
it again going back! _ The Dr. says when I take up this bottle he'd warrant I can walk two miles and a half _ Think of it!

Aunt Mary, Nellie and I take it into our immediate heads to celebrate May Day - twelve cents worth! _ So we ... along
up to West Albany in the lovely May air - and call it happiness. Coming back the wind blew _ but nothing could spirit
away the good time we ... ... ...


122, Wednesday, May 2, 1877.

The "first floor front" is pretty much over for me _ We are getting ready to go_ we _ who don't belong here _ There was
more of "the roll of the stirring drum" about it _ than had come into any beforehand plans of mine _ an outside ordering
_

I compose myself for a minute or two at Laura's Greek prose _ the only quiet minute I guess there was in the whole of it
_ I go over to Aunt Mary's for a little visit - and Aggie comes down - looking like a queen just about to go into exile _
Its dark up home _ I suppose she has come down to the play because it was too hard _ because she must get away for a
minute! but there is help _ I know! ah, how well I know! _

Down here _ Fannie and me to the last of it _ the last of Aunt Mary's running in - of the lamp chair by the window - of
the shadows afternoons on the pillars of the old Dutch church!


123. Thursday, May 3, 1877.

This was the day that I came up home and found them all in trouble! I couldn't say "never mind" - for it was like a wall
around _ a sky shutting down for a hard night perhaps_ How do we know how and when the help will come? _ Ah! how
well we know there is help even for blind seeking.

I think I shall always remember how bright the morning was and how Aunt Mary dressed and went up to the cars with
me and Mr. Hughes stood there laughing as he punched my ticket _ while I laughed too and sang out - "Punch punch,
punch with care _ Punch in the presence of the passenger" _ I thought I was going home and going to straighten
everything out forthwith _ Yes - yes she thought as she rode alone _ "Circumstances" I make circumstances This is
what Napolean said: "Circumstances as I make circumstances!" _ This is about what Frances was saying going up in
the train - But the one went sorrowfully into exile - and the other [sits] down in the [fog] _ trying for [feelers]! -


124. Friday, May 4, 1877.

And am yet _ I only succeed in getting a good ways in _ in a fog that has proportions! _ I follow mother around and we
talk! _ Then I lie down on the sofa and we talk _ and as I sort of intimated to you up there - the more we talk _ the more
fiercely close the fog seems to close up about us -

The only thing that looks at all like springing a [valor / value] is our dropping a line to Mrs. Stuart - apropos of me plan
of me looking to a refuge in Albany for now _ I find its a pleasant change from the knocking of my head against the
stone wall of our miscalculations - to turn to Susie's letter which was here when I arrived yesterday _ It says - "Why
don't you write for magazines or something?" _ People with half your talent &c &c &c _ Well! _

Its a good day up among the constellations _ the great things _ Its only down here among the little things that we make
mistakes and grieve


125. Saturday, May 5, 1877.

Yes _ this is a pretty house _ we want to stay in it _ the thing we only see darkly how we can do, yet _ It has such a
sunny dining room and such pretty rooms up stairs _ There are great sweeps of the hill country _ ... we look out and the
view to begin the days with! _ Yes _ its all dear - and pretty and just what we want . I get almost wicked in my passion
for money lately. money for mother - you see - so she can stay! - If there was any way for me _ any way at all! _

"Now, Dan see ..." "Yes mother I will" from a time of possibleness it gets by this time into a time of hopeless emphasis
- the last holding out of hands for a possible plank! _ Mrs. Stuart's answer here - but we ...! _ We have no open
pathways yet _ []ding out _


126. Sunday, May 6, 1877.

I don't wonder that John stopped in the midst of the gold _ the pearl _ the precious stones _ the richness and fullness of
all things to tell about that river! Is not any gentle flowing-rolling of waters to the sea a river of life? It was this I
wanted to-day _ Down past the houses _ across the track _ in the dust and the tired ways of travel _ to the bridge _ a
hard kind of walk for my ails but so good for my eyes. ... it once more to see the water - to take in for a ...half minute
what it meant _ then back to the other things - Ah - take it all in Fannie _ how far how very far the wearisome 'what
shall we eat and what whall we drink" and the rest - are from being the real things. After all these things do the Gentiles
seek _ and yet _ Father knoweth - but ... the real things are glad things and laid up!


127. Monday, May 7, 1877.

As yet _ nothing _

... seem[s] [truly] very great and important ... that we see no way of paying our rent in this new house since boarders are
not forthcoming - that Dan has no work, and no clothes, that Aggie is on the verge of ... long vacation, and helpless
Grandma is to be cared for : very dark and unfathomable ... that we have no place of move to and that nothing opens to
call me anywhere _ and that Fannie is "stricken, smitten God and afflicted"* _ I sit before these things and look at them

Yes _ they do look large _ now but the [sense] of it comes over me a little _ how very small they will seem by and by _
when the glory shall be revealed _

It is well sometimes to ... over these things a little of the light that comes from the real things _ then we know how
foolish a thing it is to let our hearts get down over that which must be little enough to us soon

It is so much better to be strong and brave and to say "Your father knoweth that ye have need of these things" **


* Isaiah 53:4

**Matthew 6:32 and Luke 12:30


128. Tuesday, May 8, 1877.

Up in the Tree!

What would you see if I took you up
My little aerie-stair?
You would see the sky like a clear blue cup
Turned upside down in the air.

What would you do up my aerie-stair
In my little nest on the tree?
My child with cries would trouble the air
To get what she could but see

What would you get in the top of the tree
For all your crying and grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you see
You could only gather a leaf

But when you had lost your greedy grief
Content to see from afar,
You would find in your hand a withering leaf,
In your heart a shining star.

George McDonald.

A hard day _ but not all hard _ sitting here reaching out mostly _ glad of little pieces of brightness_ and remembering
that the eternal God is our refuge

We grasped no more at floating straws _ driven into our last corner we surrendered to fate _ and Mrs. Fairbank! The
green reaches way off over the blue river _ kept just so far all we were heavy of heart! I know for I looked _ But behind
those hills there are others and they care! I wonder as I sit here all alone waiting what mother will have good to tell us
when her horse-car comes _ Here I wait _

[In right margin]
A lovely box of flowers from the college _ No name no sign _ no anything to tell who it was that blessed me but ...
could [tell me]


129. Wednesday, May 9, 1877.

Things seem to be being answered for us if we don't read the signs backward. At any rate there are rush-lights! and we
think we see a little ways. Mother came back so cheery last night and we all sat up and talked till very late "That place
for Dan _ is just the thing" _ "Maybe he'll get eight dollars a week" _ "I guess that's why all the doors are shut here
because its meant we should go to Albany" _ so we keep on fairly [crazing] poor muzzy _ who has had all the brunt of it
and who must be very tired _ but we woke up this morning _ and are glad to keep on thinking the last [thot's] of the
night before! To me it seems so good to put my finger on something and say " this must be what God meant" for
we've been so blind as to our whither []hither . We start Dan off to Albany early but he comes back at [noon] without
being set to work. This is like cold water on our enthusiasm , but we don't quite ... I go to the [bottom] of the ... and...up
[one] thing [&] another ... ...


130. Thursday, May 10, 1877.

"There are dreams that never die" _ They must have gone into the safe places within us _ It came out strong and helpful
when we came to winter and to desert ground _ I cling to stories & the old thought I've had and old visions of summer
places _ to-day as if for a forgetting of the days burden! _ a spiritualizing of the strain and the ... Mother - away
again all day _ Grandma and I _ so sadly alike and so sadly unlike _ I wonder does she go back for respite into a sunlit
past - or ... into a glorified future. That is the being[] thing in old age - the being safely past _ the rest of days and days
when no wor[] comes or goes _

Mother said "Maybe I wont come back to-night _ I shall stay until I get a house" So by and by we all go up stairs to bed
thinking what a queer house without mother. "... [that] horsecar stopped" said I in a half dream - and I went down and
[let] her in _


131. Friday, May 11, 1877.

"We've got to do something This comes in to wind up all my little deliberations _ our taking of counsel together _ Yes
_ we say _ always a little sadly, looking at the green hills and the queen's palaces _ "We've got to do something" _
People that have homes and palaces _ and ends that meet, go by _ and we watch them with a strange interest _ Then we
turn around and say "we've got to do something" _ I find a tender meaning these [w]earing days in these words of the
dear Jesus _ "I go to prepare a place _ for you* _ I look at mother tired - worried - driven - [pressed]! I look forward
and see her life lifted into the "place" _ the Life and the Glory _ and a great warm wave comes over me _ The poor little
... life of ours _ It shall live again in fullness of joy.

Aggie climbs the hill after dinner _ also thinking _ Then she comes home early and goes to Albany _ to look for a house
Comes back in a [quandary] _ day after day goes & we are still in ...
[top corner] I begin a letter to Laura called her ... first


*John 14:2 (KJV)


132. Saturday, May 12, 1877.

This time mother said the council of our suspenses should adjourn _ With Aggie and mother both as rallying forces _ it
looked quite probable _

Grandma sits behind the stove in her corner - and I limp around a little, washing dishes or something _

There's a big piece of the day in the middle and each side when there's no dishes to be washed or something! So I sit up
stairs and write a little _ or down stairs and watch the hills across the river where May sits like a queen! _ The 4-45
train from Albany brings them _ I meet them at the little side door.

The first thing from mother "We've no good news for you" _ "Never mind", I think _ we'll find the best there is in it and
if its more to bear than to rejoice in _ it is because we all expected to be good soldiers and are called to the front!
Supper waits while we go over the debatable ground.


133. Sunday, May 13, 1877.

The uncertainty of human affairs, especially ours, comes to us with each returning dawn.

We say to ourselves as we stand "with our loins girded about" _ and our satchels packed, "where do you suppose we
will be next Sunday?" _ Notwithstanding we take a quiet breakfast and then I go to find a place thats green and new in
the spring places _ and Aggie goes to write her diary up _ Down by the river there is an old apple tree and the water
gurgles by it and its still and sweet there _ so says the poor faint heart that I [take/took] down there _ Four little
dandelions, the only ones that I shall pick or know about this spring - I take them in my hands reverently _ and come
home. Aggie said "Would you go to Troy and back for the fresh air and the sake of getting out?" _ "O, dear yes" _ and
so we do_ and are lifted up into the heart of the hills


134. Monday, May 14, 1877.

Family still consulting _ and looking as if a plague was raging and had begun on our street _ We breathe desert air and
keep erect on weary camels _ but it is such a grand chance to "purely endure" that we send for our reinforcements and
try to march through the evening's country like conquerors! Mother keeps saying "We've got to do something" _ but we
sort of hate the first step _ We do [fairly] get at it at last _ though sonmebody's else answer has to be waited for _ Mr.
Davis we'll take your house so and so _ let us know first mail" _ Answer comes back at night _ "Yes _ madam" _ Then
the china and glass begin to go into the clothes basket _ and the things up stairs to take a ... _

We retreat inch by inch _ Evening _ Mother in [close] pro and con with her favorite cartman _ Out of such a day I tried
to []alk a little with to our Earle _


135. Tuesday, May 15, 1877.

Still the sun keeps on shining it _ is good not to be forsaken in our hard places _ glad am I that it is the summer's and not
the winter's light that is upon us! It begins to look now as if we should get off to-morrow. Mother says with the air of
Bismarck "I've got all my tinware packed" _ Our cupboards begin to look like Old Mother Hubbard's _ Every morning
Grandma says "Are you going to move to-day? [because] if you aint I'll go and make my bed" _ I guess the dear old
soul finally believes that "we have here no continuing city" _ Mother goes to seek one to come* _ takes the 3:30 _
When Aggie comes home she thinks she'll go and not "make her bed" exactly but get her trunk ready _ she can't make
herself feel like it so she don't _ We sit by the front windows and have a dear little time - clear on until the dark _


*Hebrews 13:14 (KJV) For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come


136. Wednesday, May 16, 1877.

The day when we moved again _ Our household goods are hurriedly snatched up and some banged _ It was some as the
Israelites made their way out of Egypt _ "The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-trough
being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders _ neither had they prepared for themselves any victuals" *_ Nor did
they get any until dark and twilight when we sat on top of trunks and boxes and ate some crackers and cookies helped
along by some of Aunt Mary's sublime tea! _ Grandma and I had a famous time getting down. We came by horse-cars
all the way . Dear old lady how pleased whe was! "Israel is a vine taken out of Egypt and planted in Palestine"** _ So
are we _ plucked up it seems by the roots _ The worst of moving, Israel, is the upset feeling it gives you _ I've got it _
When we get rested the place where we is set down and anchored will look good to us _ Mother says "Look at that two
[shad] had for fourteen cents!"



* Exodus 12:34

** Psalm 80


137. Thursday, May 17, 1877.

Well I had a night of it _ for one reason and another _ Twasn't enough to ache in every bone _ but my shoulder had to
set to and put in and if you know anything about that shoulder business you know that the ... that seethes and boils there
is such a ... tough that the one that can get hardened to this would do to be a Quaker in the Mass. Bay Colony in 16
hundred and something! _ You'll be surprised to hear that I arose in due season _ You'd hardly expect me to _ It was
nothing after getting up to stay up _ Somebody had to go to the bank _ also to Marshall and Wendell's* _ As I could
neither whitewash nor paper nor put to rights _ I turned my face toward the bank _ and thus was a blessing in my day
and generation!

Our wilderness howls [less] [some] _ Mrs. Sullivan is one of the propelling forces _ also Dan -

The weather is extremely [odd] weather for May _ She does not caress us simply - she embraces us _ and her breath is
like [steam]!


* Albany piano manufacturer


138. Friday, May 18, 1877.

How to look well enough to go to the doctor's was a question big enough to vex my first hour and a half _ After
prolonged efforts on the effect of a black underskirt and cambric [sack] and overskirt - also an old Castleton hat - I put
on an abused look and abandoned it all for my black cassimere - my one sole standby _ When mother & Dan put in -
"Why don't you wear your other hat?" Twas too crushing - a last feather &c - for poor camel _ Then I came up stairs
gave a last look at the partridge-berry wreath - & took up the burdens of life [again] [viz] - that Tuscan steeple _ and
even put on my one precious pair of three-buttoned gloves!

Dr. Van looked happy as usual. I made an effort [to] detail that low-down miserable stir below _ to him _ "Try a
Belladonna Plaster" _ Yes _ I think to myself coming home _ 'The next angel sounded and there was a new woe! I
wore a Belladonna Plaster [once] _ There aint a bitterness nor a sorrow in one that I haven't fallen upon! Piano's here
and ...


139. Saturday, May 19, 1877.

It was a grievous burden but in the night I carried it as one heavy-laden* and now it lays at the gate of the King. Borne
it was long ago by Him who was smitten - stricken of God and afflicted.** I needn't ever have taken it one step but
sometimes when a trouble comes suddenly _ I forget about Come unto me"* _ Dannie might not suit the man after all
and here we are and thus and so is everything _ but the King's messenger [rode] fast. Before us is no longer darkness
and for the Sabbath to dawn - we can be of those of whom it is written "Light is sprung up"*** What a long queer place
we've been going through -

Its almost nine in the evening when Aggie gets here. Dear little heart _ Its good we are together again

I thrive in spite of everything. My strength is coming back wonderfully _ and I walk even as of old - It seems as if other
trouble were as nothing - nothing at all with this [untold richness] of blessing

[Upside down at the top of the page] The day is begun to study Greek together Laura and I


* Matthew 11:28

** Isaiah 53:4

*** Matthew 4:16


140. Sunday, May 20, 1877.

We have come to one of the unhappy mornings, friends when we couldn't have any breakfast until wheat could be
planted, watered sprouted, developed, cut, winnowed, ground, leavened _ mixed and baked _ Such things do
mysteriously sink our household in gloom now and then. I arose but not with the sun _ and read "My Summer in a
Garden"* _ through before I heard any sounds from below! There's nothing that so lowers the mercury in mother's
mental thermometer as saying something about getting into the "bottom box" The necessity was upon my sister and
diving and plunging in its depths _ my mother's afternoon went quite askew! We none of us dare hope the process is not
to be repeated _ for _ well _ wait and see! Where was I all this time? Come up stairs and look _ on mother's couch _
She has "Scarlet Letter" in her hand _ and you don't hear much from her Aggie thinks her interests and that of the race
can be advanced by her taking the Troy boat which she does _ while we say "Vale - vale"



*by Charles Dudley Warner, 1870


141. Monday, May 21, 1877.

I suppose that really the farmers need to be rained on - You can hardly stick your finger on to a day in the calendar when
they don't so _ it is of course very desirable for them that this dropping begins _ and there is such a tremendous stirring
up overhead - I usually feel quite like taking rainstorms with an unperturbable spirit but this one has such a hang-on air!
_ After turning over a great many things in my mind I set stakes and begin a vigorous pull _ at De Oratore
I give me five weeks to get the stuff ready _ I am not fond of argumentatious Latin _
Mother's interests collect around the bed in Dan's room - as also do the bugs(?) _ that is the "oak" is to be set-up _ it is
hardly expected we would say planted when the oak takes definite form and shape and is ... round by pulleys _ I'm on
the spot to help So like me _ "Where duty calls or danger* _ &c _

Our boy's first day at 31 Green - On the end of it a hall oilcloth to be [tacked] . He has no fondness for such sports! ---


* From "Stand Up! - Stand Up for Jesus" hymn by George Duffield


142. Tuesday, May 22, 1877.

Mother thinks waking me of a morning not so easy an undertaking as she at first supposed _ She bangs on the floor with
agility _ The weapon being nothing more nor less than the broom handle _ but she finds herself a general in a lost cause
_ I came marching down something after eight - disclose the pathetic fact that not a bang was heard!

I go at De Oratore reverently _ Its one of the bothersome facts of my existence which has worked itself into a necessity
with me - One of the compelling forces of mother's existence to-day led me where glory lay and curtain fixtures! My
part of the opera bouffe _ is to sit by just below and reach things up _ A way of spending the afternoon so as not to get
too elated!

"Move again in September" _ No, ma'am" says my mother vigorously!


143. Wednesday, May 23, 1877.

I managed to get that letter off to Earle which has been such a worrisome thing to construct not because of an over
fastidiousness on her part - or any lamentable deficiencies on mine but because of the burdens by the way _ the hard
days _

A little bit of brightness huddled with a little bit more into the morning _ but the afternoon was a great gray cloud
everywhere _ Aggie comes home done up in a big shawl

We think its awful nice to have her come - though she reiterates with emphasis -" I got to get up at 6 in the mornin"!

Among the treasures of her bundle sleeps in peace my college letter _ Tells about all Vassar tiptoeing to the Highlands
the 26th _ also of getting rooms for next year _ wonders what kind of a dreadfulness Fannie's gone into _ and can't say a
word!

Well _ I don't think about it as I'd like to _ for maybe I won't need any room there next year. I take quiet sips of Tom
Brown's Schooldays* instead


*novel by Thomas Hughes, 1857


144. Thursday, May 24, 1877.

But we haven't sailed into sunshine yet _ The turbulent and thickly-set in the heavenly spaces _ Who shall rise and say
that this is May time?

We keep saying _ "A little more sunshine to-morrow" _

Poor muzzy's head aches _ Aggie has to take stock in the 7-15 train _ and starts off ...its raining great guns _ Two
uncomforting pieces out of a morning _ I go on a commission for steak _ (10 cents worth) and drop in on Aunt Mary _
Find Helen [Bly] suffering untold troubles from biliousness; this goes to Aunt Mary's heart and soul _ By and by when
the bad little head gives mother "a minute's peace" I go around to various stores meekly inquiring _ "Have you smoked
salmon?" Nobody has. One dapper youth _ just launched out in the sea of groceryism follows me out ejaculating "any
thing else - tea - coffee - butter _ butter for 15 cents a pound! I close the affair by going to Jamaica & buying a
mackerel _


145. Friday, May 25, 1877.

Yes'm I say meekly when I look at the date _ and bring to mind that it stands for just so much rain and grayness on the
face of our world _ Rain and grayness a whole week through _

When our back yard _ well there's no drop of consolation to be drained from this [punch] _ but I was only going to say,
again meekly, that when our back-yard looks dismaller than it is wont _ De Oratore _ Then my corn begins to yowl! _
Two fruitful sources of cheery thought. Found Aunt Mary ironing (which I [never] fail doing) She showed me one
piece of her work in its culmination _ a skirt with say forty-five tucks ! _ O shades of back-aches! _ As for me I've
nothing to show for my work. Not a thing _ My ... of heroes is a good deal _ about Crassus and Sulpicius & [Sulla] and
Antonius _ no end of which is as [un]instructing/[un]interesting as even Livius Maronius could desire _

A postal from Letty _ also the arrival of my notebook from Laura --- I ... a postal [of] thanks - the only thing I'm rich in


146. Saturday, May 26, 1877.

It looked pleasant enough to begin with - you'd have thought it meant some thing _ but it didnt _ Our planet turned over
and whopped us into pourings down - and under flurrying, scurrying clouds _ just as if we hadn't staid there for a week!
I got up as big as you please _ (only figuratively) and walked to meet a coal man and get meat for dinner - also to see
Aunt Mary and read the morning paper. This is all there was of it - I went back to bed [groan]ing _ and sort of hung
round there mostly! Mother said she felt just like work _ and [went] into it like the noblest Roman of them all! Last
accounts are explicit - she was nailing down the stair carpet . My languishing way was plaintive _ Aggie gets here
along in the P.M. _ Says a man in Troy advertises for a tutor for two children - I [let] down a small [boat] _ Vassar
Miscellany comes - So does a postal!


147. Sunday, May 27, 1877.

There's the Sunday feeling in the air _ the stop and the resting _ This I can [bear] _ "A day in thy courts" _ better" _ says
the singer King _ "than a thousand"* _ But thy courts are in the great open spaces _ or in my little four walls _ not alone
in the places where great walls are and altars! So I can be in His courts though I can't walk much _ "At the feet of His
Christ" _ I can be there. There's that dull low incomprehensible pain all day _ Why there is such a thing [as] getting
back to it - is a dark riddle _ but its there.

I look up pieces for Aggie some - Find a few. We talk about going up to Vermont some - also Satie's wedding _ Aggie's
tired thin little face worries us. Mother keeps talking about it _ Dan appears in his new pants _ "What shall we eat _
what shall we drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed"** _ are questions of increasing interest to my brother



*Psalm 84:10

** Matthew 6:31


148. Monday, May 28, 1877.

In spite of uncomfortable places in my solar system _ it was a good day _ It has to be kept in mind by me _ that I'm not
as good as new _ not quite yet _ Without this pain who knows what rashness I might not be guilty of?

I read the thirtieth chapter of De Oratore - then comes the thirty-first _ I get hopelessly stuck on the first sentence _ and
am there yet! _ "But Crassus said _ "I think" "But Crassus said "I think" _ and then the [wagon] came down!

[Some] like Aggie's way of entertaining us yesterday - "He said - yourpin's unfastened and I said Thank you _ then he
said your pin's unfastened and then I said Thank you" _ After all I'm afraid I understand English better thean I do Latin !
_ [I] perched in my study chair out on the back porch? _ trying to get it through my brain what it was Crassus thought -
Up comes Mother with a postal from Letty _ and "A Princess of Thule"* from Laura bless em both
[along the side] I do manage to get a letter begun to Satie


* 1873 novel by William Black


149. Tuesday, May 29, 1877.

"How much will you give to go and see the greatest, living white whale" _ "Not a cent," said my mother "I have not
cents but common sense" sing I - going up stairs - "And darn little of that," sings another from below _ this on the heels
of my walk to the letter box to start off Satie's letter _ there was nothing in its nature delightful to come up to the back
parlor window and take a lone dig in the theory of oratory _ she didn't care two cents what Crassus thought! _ "See that
you bring me a letter from Troy" was her parting injunction and she placed space between them and went up to take her
metaphorical ... _ Twas one o'clock and she hadn't got quite half-way down the page - the letter was duly brought up
from below - [There's] [less] danger of my going to Troy tutoring _ Mother says "He don't want you cause you don't
know what [tum, sum, com] means strung along in [one sentence] True enough - How can I go to Troy to teach Latin
when I don't know what it was that Crassus thought?


Decoration Day _

150. Wednesday, May 30, 1877.

In which ironing goes on down stairs all day _ not [fretty] ironing - though _ there's a sort of good cheer air where the
folks are to-day _ I am duly informed that the water out of "that icebox" don't run out of the hole mother foreordained _
Also that she's going to tip it on one corner - so the water will go immediately where she intends _ nature will gravitate
water to suit her _ How glad we are it is settled! _ It was my wonderful power of invention that first brought it up in the
family that it would be a good day for Dan to have his new hat _ He institutes proceedings _ but mother vows she never
saw such a miserable little equivalent _ "The most becoming hat I ever had" remarks Sir D _ Do you want to hear how I
am in the bleak mountains bleating in Latin _ no _ not bleating in Latin for that I could never do, but bleating in English
the most pitiful [ever] Latin that I cannot put into bleating or sense! -


151. Thursday, May 31, 1877.

I began it by going for lime: a great many orders from mother _ cautious to see it _ to be sure it was a lump and not a
powder. Great was her satisfaction when I came back with it! - I wasn't "such a ... smart to-day _ but got on
metaphorical rocks and poked around like Vermont sheep - for the sense of Chapter thirty-three. You may not be
thinking about it but I was ... tired _ Mother is going at the kitchen to-night _ ... in a perfect ... having begun to scale the
... walls _

Mr. [Has]brough and I discuss the feasibility of buying a lawn mower and a rubber hose.

Dan sings. Our pleasure is not so complete in this as it would be if Dan knew some of the words- [Thus] "And broke the
old man's hm hm hm leaving us to supply _

He goes up to mother the last thing in tragic attitude with "My heart is full of misery and woe"


152. Friday, June 1, 1877.

Dear June - how good you sound! I'm taking in this world's comforting assurances early these mornings _ not because I
believe in early bird and early worm nonsense but because its nice! I believe also in the comforting assurances! _ To
run, for me, to-day, is to be weary and to walk is to faint _ but I do _ I can't give up and keep still _ Mother's
whitewashing has come to a timely end_ The kitchen has a decidedly new smell _ indeed, its worth glorying in! _

Aggie comes home _ and "by a baby [buntin] - mother's gone a [huntin]" - She casts glances back to that strawberry
shortcake she was obliged to leave to catch the ... and wishes mother would come! We are entertained in the meantime
by Dan - in his great "Mary had a little lamb" act!


153. Saturday, June 2, 1877.

Those light-brown kid gloves with three buttons are again trotted out _ That one precious pair _ and what do you
suppose come of it? _ nothing _nothing whatever- It is very hot _ the air seems to shut us down and hold us _ and
nobody is hungry _ Muzzy works among us in and out - Aggie pokes around a little _ I poke a little - and Grandma sits
still and dozes _ Mr. Hughes brings Nellie around - and the poor little miss is sad of heart _ She entreats us with all
pitifulness to take that muzzle off _ Grandma takes in the length and breadth of the affliction and says _ "I'd like to but I
dasn't" _ _

Again Mr. Hughes - this time with a piece of Aunt Mary's beef-steak pie.

Dan comes home - no clothes This calls on him for his [sternest] powers of endurance! Come here - Princess of Thule
You quite please me


154. Sunday, June 3, 1877.

"Good morning! - and are you very well!" Very well whatever. Miss Sheila _ very well _ and its a dear morning.

The church-bells have such an inviting ring _ but Fannie and me - can't go - not exactly _ I suppose it was just as well
that I didn't read Princess of Thule to day _ A little from the Latin of Thomas a Kempis was better _ but the sea-air
[around] my Sheila almost drives me to her _ and around Thomas a Kempis even in the grand old Latin is the convent
breath _ and the life so utterly unlike the freedom of our lives and Sheilas _ It is well for me that I read of the best and
highest - of self-renunciation the most sublime _ I need to _ I who live but do not realize _ I dreamed of heaven for
mother a little while - her earth-life drags so _ It seemed so unspeakably blessed to think of her being taken and cared
for _ this has never been _

After all _ there were upsettings _ Talking up what we shall do in the fall _ isn't [some]thing the day I find _ It is better
not to We - which is me - do hate to call ourselves disagreeable -


155. Monday, June 4, 1877.

Grandma's all swelled up on her cheek. she says she's sorry enough for "that's her best eye!"_

It was beau temps - Very! A question _ Duty versus inclination! _ or to be a little plainer De Oratore versus Princess of
Thule! You aren't [insane] to that point that you imagine that I took the best hours right out of this ravishing day to dig
out that Crassus speech when he himself says that it is not worthy my wisdom and [ears] even if he comprehended the
subject most perfectly which he don't? So I bestow my wisdom and [ears] on Sheila bless her - and bless the bright day
that it was - and the sun coming in! -

There's room enough left to tell how I made a safe and this time effective journey to the doctor _ There [button] [l]ight
brown kids and so forth! The dear man _ whom, I know, I venerate sat up straight and looked at me [scattering] as is his
wont the faculties I've been all these years gathering _ and ... no entertaining [remarks] whatever

But near ... I saw the ... & all out - in her first season ...


156. Tuesday, June 5, 1877.

"Do you need to be told "where the flowers came "from? I thought they would "carry my kisses better than that_" [No]
my [Love] - it isnt anybody that knows better nor me _ I'm an unrelenting priest _ fond of bringing little girls like you to
the confessional! - I'm glad the little letter is here - I know that it has been wind to my sails _ and I'm off and off with a
better heart! _

I, even, get started on a letter to No.12 _ and astonish myself by finishing it -

Satie's letter says _ "come after the 27th -" It talks about going off to stay _ written as quietly and read as quietly as if it
were not the end of her girl life in the girl-home _ "The point a life has got to beyond which it must pierce the dark" _
So it is with the things that happen to us - We somehow just live on!


157. Wednesday, June 6, 1877.

I wonder if I shall make you know what it was like - To begin within the lower regions the sceptre had departed _ Poor
mother _ until on into the very afternoon in an inquisition headache! _ It might have been some easier if there'd been an
open space or two overhead _ but no _ out of a thick wall of sky the rain came paddling down not like a June rain _
lightly and like music _ but in a dolorous pitch and a homesick way! _ It sort of beat at you _ Then that pain I have such
a horror of _ sat down within me, and [Anne] Phelps' letter came and Dan had no work in the afternoon _ and our
solitary places were not anywhere made glad! _

But there's something within that's greater than any [of it] And are we not like the little children led in a way that we
know not,

The [advance] De Oratore is finished Shout!


158. Thursday, June 7, 1877.

This is a most mournful rain _ I think of pitiful sorry things _ as of birds waiting in the tree-tops for the caressing sun to
come back - or the people [unshod] - and hurt - and tired - to whom the constant dropping - dropping - is like one more
hand to hold them down! _ The day drags for me with a dull-dark pain _ and I am afraid I've not been a noble six-
hundred!* _ Home is so hard _ O, June, June - with your flowers and your bringing of good - is it to be like this that we
cross your pasture lands? _ Give me my troubles still - I want to be accounted worthy to suffer _ to [learn] _ but can't
something come to mother - Putting out the lights the last thing to-night in ... trouble seems like the way we are being
led but whatever you do - Fannie

(right margin) don't forget that in all th[] afflictions he was afflicted in his love and in his [pity] he endured [them]







*From "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


159. Friday, June 8, 1877.

The doctor has to be seen the first thing - so I go up to lay before him this that is such a worry to me _ This morning _
the coming back of the bloat ! _ Don't say you worry, Fannie "Learn of him" Let him say to you by and by "Great is thy
faith"

Aunt Mary _ the dear heart , is []eal sick _ and mother has been over there with her a long time to-day _ Hence for me
who stays down-stairs to sit with Grandma _ a still day _ with De Oratore off and on! [A] cherry postal from the
college helps _ and []attie comes in with the baby - The latter is not in the least humored by any of my attentions - she'll
have none of me! _ How bright it is everywhere! - so unlike yesterday - So does the sunshine follow rain - day the night
- and after the tempest - a great calm! -


160. Saturday, June 9, 1877.

"Is that all?" said mother to the mailman when he handed over three "Daily Newsances" from Qhoes [sic]. I _ inside
would like to know where that postal is I expect from Gertie's sister! It would afford me some very considerable
sastisfaction [sic] to be enlightened as to the name of my old friend - let alone existing circumstances as ... and begun! _

Latin begins to grow easier _ some A large fact when I feel like this! _ My resolutions on the subject of keeping still -
are immense.

Our boy is off - on the half-past five ... _ The parting injunction "Now Dan, be sure and see Mr. Bran" _ I'm afraid my
letter to Mrs. P. for Sis _ is not duly appreciated _ It begins "It is a pleasand [sic] day _ The sunshine up in the sky" _
Now isn't that a [nice] way to begin?


161. Sunday, June 10, 1877.

We notice a certain persistence in continuing to button that smallest [waist] even the very button where it hurts! _ It is as
if the poor child (I can hardly help calling her a poor child had some vague idea that the bloat could be squeezed back! -
There's a pitifulness in it. Grandma's bed is a very good bed - a very good bed whatever I am the genius who presides
over this _ to-day bed when I'm not dozing or chatting - my eyes roam along the pages of "The Gates Ajar"* _ "If it
were not so" _ do you take in the thoughtful tenderness of that? A mother, stilling her frightened child in the dark,
might speak just so - 'if it were not so I would have told you"**

Aggie went back at half past one

[right margin] Dan's not back yet _ We sat up late to watch for him



*1868 novel by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

** John 14:2


162. Monday, June 11, 1877.

If George A. Birch had got the nomination there's no sort of doubt but that he would have been elected! Couldn't help it
_ As a dogma attached to this the severe consequences would have been that Mr. Hughes would have been "court-
officer" _ This is one of the forbidding fates against which Mr. H. knock his cane _ This is a piece of a very [frowning]
world which he is facing _ Which is another one of those things that it is so much easier to sing than to do! _

Dan comes back from Cohoes somewhere in the direction of noon _ Is up and coming on a project - of size .. _ going
into business with Will Keelan _ Mother pulls away the imaginary proofs he had set up _ and starts him off to 31 Green.
A sucessful start _ both ways _ for he's in our hands presently for the afternoon = "Laid off" is getting to be a technical
term at our house that I have learned to translate rapidly! Mother bless her brave spirit _ goes out to see what she can
do! _ I wish I hadn't got to write this letter to Mrs. Fairbank - on this afternoon of glory [too]

[right margin] Poor Ella - she is having her trouble now - and I feel so so so sorry -----


163. Tuesday, June 12, 1877.

Grandma's occasional little ways of being saucy _ are of such an unexpected nature _ Her characteristic meekness _
gives these bubbles a funny splatter! Thus _ "What are you chewing, mother?" "I am chewing a piece of raisin if you
want to know"! _ Mercy! _ if the explosion had come from a Russian advance guard _ but no from the gentlest little old
Quaker lady in the world!

As for me I lay around as for mother she goes out foraging - as for Dan there's no work - and he's taken to fretting
largely! Interpersed with by the arrival of Will! _ It was a day to go out and take comfort in A world of the purest
comfort lay out where the trees were & the sky - I had glimpses of that which might be.

The morning winds were winds of blessing - "Si[] here" they said _ "a letter from Susie" Ah! ah! _ what better?
Mother comes back cheered up She's on the track of something Our door out seems ready to [swing]!


164. Wednesday, June 13, 1877.

An uninteresting day! Think of having to say this - here in the heart of June. It seems as if I just sat down here _ and
the things came and went around me _ who had no wings! _ I'm afraid its the hills and the green places that I think
about _

Mother washes_ and Dan goes a fishing! There might be some comfort in this last _ if the cat hadn't got into the ice-box
and eaten up all the fish! I call this melancholy _

"If George A. Birch" begins Aunt Mary - and then we [hear] it again _ A sort of "Queen's Chair" performance _

by this time _ "The Chinese" [our] Dan remarks "live on 25 cents a day. Now if we [were] Chinese _ we might almost
get along on his salary" _ here he checks himself _ "But not this week"


165. Thursday, June 14, 1877.

I didn't wake up with a mind keenly alive to the joys of the journey this morning _ It would have been better - its always
better to keep with us the sense of the comfort we may never lose _ We know that the heart of things is glad _ always _
Mother says "now don't you come down until I knock" _ I found when I responded to the call further on that the cat had
saved one fish for her breakfast and had forgotten to [call] for it _ That piece fell to me - How did I know [but] it was
trout _ easy enough to play it was - and ... at Schroon Lake _ eating it!

Mother says I have "a bloated imagination" _ She is ready for any blueness on my part _ [with] "Yes _ the lump just
below the ribs is one-eighth bloat and seven eighths imagination" _ The blueness [gives] me a dreary morning and
spends itself - A postal from Miss Goodwin _ Says yes _ if I can get a permit from the office [Ah]! more red tape! _ I
[dash forthwith] [on] a [strain] to [Its] Susie's [birthday] bless her! ["Pussy"]


166. Friday, June 15, 1877.

It was I that saw the first iceman and made his proximity known _ He bore aloft the concordant name of Schifferdecker!
_ Enter mother from the ouside bearing a good sized piece of ice _ hardly large enough in her view of the case to be
worth five cents "I won't take of that darned old Dutchman again." _ But he don't hear: "Here's another piece of ice
madam" shout he from the wagon: _ "I mean" said mother _ "I mean I will take of that Dutchman again!" _

It was a breathless way of living _ hot and stifling _ was everybody _ down to the "ad extremum" of the day!

The principal parts of Latin verbs - are [s]ought [gasp]ingly! _ A very unenlivenig business even on the front door step!
_

Dan comes to a boil on the subject of Sheila _ Is [vastly] interested - as is also your humble servant! _ "[Dress] up and
be cool" _ says mother _ so into my light blue I swing _ and am yet !
No Aida - to-night! [Marmion]


167. Saturday, June 16, 1877.

We had to think a good deal about breathing _ and air _ and such things for we awoke into a close morning _ and longed
for spicy breezes _ which might "blow soft _ blow hard!"

Mother began to "clear up" early - so I took my ink-bottle _ and pen and pen-wiper? and the nice, new paper Dan gave
me and my line of march was westward and my station was at the north window _ near the waxcross _ Here went the
morning _ in telling the girls about the clover we planted the cat that stole our rock-bass _ and why I liked to read
Marmion* yesterday! It is my present intention as I remarked to have our next conversation on the 1st South firewall
parlor! Yes'm - Mary Dodd stopped in on her way to the train _ I blessed mother for the cleaning up immediately
preceding! _ A novel way of getting down stairs - in Aida's arrival _ Considerable good-cheer.


*Epic poem by Walter Scott published in 1808


168. Sunday, June 17, 1877.

It opened cool _ a breeze blowing in at the windows pure and strong! _ I had almost said - life-giving!

A light which was of the sun - and beautiful _ lay everywhere - touching even common and homely things to a rare
suggestion of glory _

I like to think of this ... to-day _ of rest pictures and help _ and tints and hues anywhere _ All day I lift up to God a
burden of pain and His strength within me to bear seems taken _ Even the daylight goes _ and down on Grandma's bed I
lie as the dark comes on _ The two darks _ and I only cry out _ "I never was in such a dark as this" _

"No gleaning on the wide wheat-plains -
Where others drive their loaded wains?"* Thou, then hast been our dwelling place in all generations!**



* from De Profundis, a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

** Psalm 90:1 King James Bible


169. Monday, June 18, 1877.

7:50 _ at Hudson No. 70 1/2! _

8:50 still there mournfully sitting _ Quite a collection of individuals _ A sorry many _ not so sad perhaps as the
multitude that lie in dark-[end] rooms this morning _ and can't come here! Well. I [move] on - its forever before my
turn comes Then he says to me - "I don't see as you can do anything better than to keep right on with the same
medicine" _ just like that _ to me!

Out on the front steps in the coolness _ the thirteen pages of De Oratore - get gone through with - The people who pass
think me on the [verge] of losing my mind -

Earle sends [up] "Tell us we can - meet you Saturday" Ah - my dear - I'll go you one better! How gratifying to
mention right here that Dan has work to-day -

On this subject I announce to mother that I am tired of balancing over an abyss on a hair
I dine in Helen Bissell's []tion _ and my missive gets off!
All day [br]ight _ as June knows [how] and at night the loveliest moonlight!


170. Tuesday, June 19, 1877.

The heart of the house is not there to-day _ so the hours go by to drill beats! _ She's gone "way OSS"_ into one of those
hard sick spells _ that keep her away from us _ and give us to know something of what it would be like if there were no
little mother _ I am so sorry _ for the pain.

Grandma in the meantime has nothing more to desire on earth _ she can wash the dishes

As for "Fannie and me" we get on the front steps and watch for an iceman! _ We're not worth much to-day _ and _ when
we can we keep quite still! The early thunder shower cooled the air and we have lived under Italy's skies with Azores'
breezes _

My letter got there yesterday and lo: here's the answer swift and sure _ Polly _ you are a turnip! (which look ... turnip )
I write to [Connie] Laura and Emily _


171. Wednesday, June 20, 1877.

Which was not much of anything that yesterday was _ except cool! _ My towering genius is at work over the absorbing
Liber Primus de Or.!_The few moments in the day when my mother tongue is my medium of expression are soul-
reviving!

How nice it was sitting out there in the sun _ I could almost feel that I was going to be well again _ as if the time would
come when I could move the camp-chair out by the door without losing my breath -

"The certain remarkable and almost unparalleled genius" of me stands stock still! _ you'd think (existence) I might
(debet) to be able -(print) by this time (jamdudum)* to write a letter - but jamdudum I wasn't _ and jamdudum I aint yet!
_ Never mind Annie _ I'll try again next day _ Dan and I talk going into business _ setting up in Duncan's - Well


*jamdudum = iam dudum - for a long time


172. Thursday, June 21, 1877.

Well - which is intended to denote a pause! _ A proper intention _ Pause also proper - Some records are very valuable
viz _ the following _ It is duly decided what and how much wardrobe starts with me on the Vibbard* in the morning _
The letter to Annie Phelps is duly done. Still farther _ The valise which was Luther's is here _ I hope I am properly
thankful to Luther's [greek word]**! _ To mention a comfort not so large - my watch is being trotted around by Mr.
Potter _ and unattainable _

I lie in Grandma's bed _ and chatter _ Mother at the other window rocks _ The dark comes up _ "Mother do you
suppose?" _ and so away into [unsnarlable] things! _


* C. Vibbard, passenger steamboat on the Hudson River between New York City and Albany

**father


173. Friday, June 22, 1877.

Well - Bozzy I must say this is well to happen! I feel very much propped up _ and a week seems a long while _ To tell
you about the river ride I can't [slamming] yes that was it coming up in the car with Prof. Backus _ He might possibly
have wished there was less in that valise! _ You ought to have seen me walk in Parlor 12 _ ... You might to have heard
the doors swing open and watched the girls walk [out] [and] then the Martin spoke _ "Let me be the cannon to 82" _ She
made a very effective "son of a gun" for it didn't seem any time at all before Lorle was down. The upshot of it all was
that I forgot examination and had to be sent for _ Miss Goodwin ventured some mild advice _ I am afraid I didn't
impress her with any preponderance of brains!


174. Saturday, June 23, 1877.

To see the light coming early through the inside blinds _ how nice it seemed again! - How very good to wake up and
hear Lettie chatting _ and know that Huldah was in the other room dressing and Polly _ energetic spirit _ poking into the
ribs of some stern duty _ Ella _ "the unity destroyer" as she insists on calling herself _ kissing us all good bye - at half-
past five! _ seems nearer some way than she need to - only she did [fret] us _ It was well _ we needed to learn to be
patiently inclined toward some one - We had things far too much our own way _

There's lots to say _ but then things must be packed _ Parlor 12 as far as we are concerned is coming to dissolution
presently _ We talk about it some _ yet it seems old already to talk of "Parlor 80" _ and "next year" _ I see Lorle in little
lovely minutes _ and the sun comes in and the sky over Sunset Hill is clearest blue! _

Polly's first [dorm] party and Polly's in a [whew]!

[Along right margin] I saw Dr. Web and taked a long time up stairs in her room _ She says - "Wait a year" _


175. Sunday, June 24, 1877.

There's a kind of quiet enjoyment all its own in the "no hurry" _ of a Sunday Vassar breakfast _ We eat no more under
Hiscock and Whitney auspices! _ there may be some all[evi]atings in this but aged Sophomores would hardly be
expected to say so _ Much that was the brightness of last winter's Sunday lives again to-day _ for one day _

I take the sweet giving reverently but down below, my heart is aching _ I am braver when I am not here _ The President
had dear last things to say to the class going out _ "No man liveth unto himself" _ was the keynote -

I did not go up to dinner. Laura hurried down _ and hunted me up _ She found me in room a ... the Earle's bed _ She
brought ... me out of her treasures - and the world for me wheeled toward the sunside"

It is a wonderful gift to know how to be tender _ to others! Surely in my Lorle's heart is the "true riches"


176. Monday, June 25, 1877.

Mostly on the fourth south! _ A big chair wheeled out by the very big box which Lorle is to pack _ holds me _ She
makes little comments and I nod approval _ or comes out with a purely Skinner* speech and I laugh! _ It is a
comfortable standpoint "whatever" to take life from _ It pauses by Miss Moore coming along _ seeing me carrying me
to her room _ but I came back _ Polly's soul [takes] is itself bliss _ George is coming _ Huldah's too _ with "Electa" Dye
for props _ The Earle looks for her missionary _ new from India!

They all exert themselves variously _ mostly though on the [gym] path as night [draws] on apace! _ George is to board
out _ The missionary is a college guest _ by virtue of her office! _ but Electa - dare I tell it: - is to be [smu]ggled!

The concert was very nice _ [There was] life in it _ and sweet the interpretations _ It was a voice to me out of the weeks
just gone _ and it brought me meanings of things _


[right margin] Lorle kneeling on the floor in front of [us] - her head upon her hand _


*Laura A. Skinner, Vassar student


177. Tuesday, June 26, 1877.

Jeanie Drake and Lee have gone _ So has Grace Darling _ [Kate] ... has come to live with my Laura _ I like the way
Kate Darling has _ It is such a bright, dear atmosphere that is in and about 82 _

Miss White comes to us in Parlor 12 to live - to us a pleasant feature of Com. week. "The sun has always shone on '77"
_ So ... the record "It always will" _ we feign would add - Her Class-Day fair and bright _ warm and winsome! _ Thrills
of expectation seizing hold of even our staidest Huldah! _ We were together on the south side of the gallery _ Laura
with us_ We didn't get fairly to laughing until the [Dana]" began _ Then it was the easiest thing in the world" = It was
rare fun to watch from Dr's office window the scene below _ As pretty a picture as I ever remember _

We are still talking it over when Laura comes down to stay with me _ The Earle's missionary
[left margin] is a subject of some solicitude to the matronly Earle!


178. Wednesday, June 27, 1877.

"The last time we shall hear "Stevie" play" _ says Laura leaning forward in our gallery seat _ It was the [mirror/minor]
that ran through the whole day _ It was nothing but doing little last things _ "I am going out with Miss Spalding" _ says
the Earle "Some of the Seniors are going over to Sunset Hill for their last little walk" _

So it was _ all day _ Something could happen to me too! _ At Polly's most beseeching entreaty I go up in the parlor to
be introduced to George _ While up there, '66 looks at me in the face of Josie Shaw! _ "I'm half a Sophomore" says
Laura, while the girls are wh[]ling round for their diplomas _ At this stage of college life it doesn't take long to get one!
_ for a long, long time I shall see Laura going down the board walk to the lodge _ for a long, long time I shall remember
how the lake looked as I sat and watched the shadows grow longer - over the trees across!


179. Thursday, June 28, 1877.

Our "one" and "two" with George and the missionary take flight on the Mary Powell _ Am "in season" more: _ at half-
past eight I am steaming away from the sight of even of the Poughkeepsie hills - on the Eagle ! _ Miss Rexford _ for an
hour or so _ doing it with me! _ Then I am left for a whole, long day to the joys I knew of old _ It is such a heart-resting
journey up the river - on a day like this! _ I have Lauras "Bits of Talk"* with me _ and yesterday's flowers _ and the
companionship of happy thoughts _ I could be content with one such day in a summer _ I get out of the poetry to begin
immediately in realities _ bartering with a [trusty] looking individual to get my valise home

"How do you do _ little mother? I've come to you out of a lovely dream!" _


* Two books by Helen Hunt Jackson: Bits of talk about home matters, 1873 and Bits of talk, in verse and prose, for
young folks, 1876


180. Friday, June 29, 1877.

Here are cheery letters from Vermont _ waiting for me _ "Come" _ they say _ and when I am rocking in the big chair by
the window I think about it _ Mother thinks the good time of the week way has got into my face _ It is a thoroughly glad
feeling that comes over me to-day with every thought of it _ Here at home where the worries are _ where the daily
living must be striven for _ I was going to say fretted for ! _ I am glad I can take Aggie out of it for a little If we could
think of the [weight] of glory sometimes _ and not the afflictions! _ but we are so apt to []uddle down in the dark
places! _
Dear Aunt Mary drops in on us _ bless her heart _
"To dream and dream of yonder amber light_
That will not leave the myrrh bush in the height!"*


* from "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred Lord Tennyson


181. Saturday, June 30, 1877.

It was funny _ getting off _ We waited for Dan to come with the "dosing" and "he never"! Mother is behind nobody
when it comes to engineering! Fannie bundles bottles and mother were dumped down together on the deck of the
Whitney in time! this shows what a captain had our expedition! _ At the Troy landing my sister stood _ We eat cream
at Sinsabaugh's and change hats _ also talk Vermont a little _ Just as the T. and B. wheels off _ Dan steps up to make his
best D.B. bow and wave me off: _ Good boy! Wh[ere] our train stops a little girl in plaid stands waiting. Behind her
my boy Frank with a buggy! _ The doors all open _ [the] flowers in front _ the sun coming in_ makes [S]atie's house
seem a pleasant place to drift to _ this fair afternoon in June's departing flying hours! _ and then there are those hills
across! _


182. Sunday, July 1, 1877.

Peace and no thunder was a thing unknown _ The day was divided up into little spells _ easy, comfortable minutes _
then a few [dreads] of the very uncomfortable kind_ then awe, consternation- grimness when the two biggest showers
came together overhead, and hail-stones knocked at the windows. In the wonder and awe our thoughts have no
centering place _ They shift and drift and lift with the clouds that file in solemn marches up where the storms are. By
and by to watch the night in the wonderful places where the clouds form and meet the sloping hills in the south - a night
well worth it _ Frances _
"our last communion before Mr. Robbins goes for his vacation" _ but that wasn't what she began to say _ I caught a
little [sadly] at the thought that lay below _ One's first one's own church is always so much the nearest _ and its a long
way the child is going. By the dining-room window - till the last line of light fades out _


183. Monday, July 2, 1877.

In which we get out of the thunder and feel as if we were a day ahead of it _ which is a very good [state] whatever! A
shawl first and then Frances in the Shaker chair out where there is sky and a world. the sight of hills once more -
Frances - do you take it in? Pretty busy everybody here _ Work goes off on []tters . I hear cheery voices from up-stairs
where the dresses are being born and begun. I like Hermine's way. talk a little with the minister on Greek. He - well he
sort of breaks off quick and begins something else every time _ His sentences are like Poor Richard's maxims! _


184. Tuesday, July 3, 1877.

Mrs. Forby _ is domiciled in the front room up stairs _ and much appealed to _ They call her "Lemmie" _ Her needle
and thread measures are vigorous _ Hers is an active administration_ for she is quite alive to the magnitude of the
occasion! So is Mr. Robbins at the head of the table down stairs! _ Well! _ I quite enjoy being up stairs where the work
[is] _ though what I do mostly is to sew on sheets! _ I think that I am thus of great benefit to them! _ There's no danger
of my being underestimated when I am judge and jury! _ The really great event "I spose" is George's coming. He must
have felt raised up on alighting to find himself met by Stella and several Aunts! _ Authority up stairs says the night her
prospective "husband arrived she flew like a bird to the clothes press! Satie does not proceed to follow her _ How the
birdies sing _ how bright the flowers are in the house George has come to take her from!


185. Wednesday, July 4, 1877.

the Glorious fourth was helped along by arching blue - and a sun in earnest_ To eat cherries and shoot the cannon off
were the high ends and aims of a portion of us _ there was dignity left _ a few had no banging in their souls! _ We _ of
the up-stairs sanctorium keep mightily to the proprieties _ Mrs. F. sews and quotes her Aunt _ Frances is quite bent on
being demure _ She thinks of a once fat pocket-book _ and there does come up a sigh or two but they scarce avail - A
guinea would be better _ I've got to begin a hardening process in my conscience - if I've got to ask Sis for money to
make wedding presents with _ More []sing - and still more! _ I hope they are having a nice time down home to-day _ I'd
like to see Nellie perform _ Her little dog ... quakes _ at gun-caps _ as the [souls] of larger people do over bigger noises
_ in this strange world -


186. Thursday, July 5, 1877.

I was sitting out on the back steps stoning cherries when Lorle's letter came!

It was sweet with pansy-breaths and mignonette _

the next thing was to dress for tea _ and go out and eat it _ Meals here are mixed up with a good deal of minister _ The
Rev. George R.R. He is given to little jokes _ also to short college stories - It is prayer-meeting night _ and some of us
go not thither _ George _ who does this evening walk in the counsel of the godly _ comes home "glad he went" ---

Satie is tired and things fret her _ little outside things that ought'nt to _ "never mind" speaks up Mrs. F. "You won't be of
any account after you're married" _ George and Susana are at work over onions - cut up in vinegar _ Bermudas _
ma'am!


187. Friday, July 6, 1877.

Lamartine and the Girondists as far as I am concerned are not much of a success_ Spasmodic French [even] out on the
piazza in a Shaker chair _ is not good for me _

Satie's fuchsias _ her pride and her joy _ give themselves gladly to her [uses] _ They are a marvel - in their pink and
purple

I write quite at length and on many topics to my sister _ Could she _ would she _ get the wedding present? It will have
to be a book _ I wanted something else - something rare and sweet _ and costly _ and yet we live a life of typical and
interpre[tative] things _ Let the love and the heartfelt blessing _ live in richness _ Give to these immortality _ These are
spirit and these are life! _

You would have to be very rich Fannie _ if it is from such treasure you would take for her _


188. Saturday, July 7, 1877.

In which there is great use of wings _ Billets innumerable speed to Dallins St _ Number Two _ It involves silk to match
gloves to buy [ru]ching likewise also ribbon _ Well _ we are getting on - we work fast and we think fast these days _ In
the meantime Satie is here and there and everywhere in the midst of it all - and gets scarcely any quiet free minutes! _
These we all need _ at the threshold of the new and strange.

I hear the six o'clock train as it comes whistling in _ the train that has come up through yellow light _ and made its way
from Troy to the hills in sight of my round hill _

It is gently that the week dies _


189. Sunday, July 8, 1877.

Something's wrong in the room next to mine - Grandma is stewing _ It makes me laugh when she pitches in to Emma _
Her shafts strike metal armor there _ I had written two pages to Lorle _ and was just beginning on the third when
George wanted to know _ "Would I go up stairs and fix up Satie?" _ found the door locked and the child in tears _ Well
_ we shifted toward sunnier corners _ and let the world lift up to us its cheeriest face _ the little home held out its oldest
treats to charm us _ It gave to us a dear afternoon _ We could sing and talk _ and be lifted anew into His holy place _ It
is God that has us in hand _

I would like a piece of my own little home to-day _ I hope indeed they see His light that is shining on them _ sure to be
shining _ such a day as this


190. Monday, July 9, 1877.

Quite early you could have seen us _ Satie and me _ out among the morning dews and morning flowers _ snipping off _
now here _ now there _ any thing that looked as if it would grow _ These properly packed _ are to go with many
directions _ into the hands of "Jim" to be borne to my mother _ eminently a success as far as we are concerned Minnie
and I preside alone in the up-stairs places to-day _ Mrs. F. makes other solitary places glad _

Showers come up _ in off spells _ impromptu fashion _ During the P.M. we keep our eyes on the flying clouds - and our
ears open for flying trains.

Equilibrium seems quite restored when the "last train up" _ whistles _ Minnie and Satie in their "blues" _ run out to look
_ Yes _ they are all on hand _ "Jim" - and George and my girl _ It does sometimes clear off just in time!


191. Tuesday, July 10, 1877-

A dark day for Frances _ All through the sunny hours of the fair July day there was for her only pain. It is in the little
bedroom down stairs that you will find her. Satie's world is all astir in the other rooms _ The pleasant hum of it comes
to me in the pauses of the pain-

After the morning mail comes Satie runs in to show me her pretty wedding present from Ida _ Then "Aunt Carrie"
arrives _ with Uncle Nathan _ bringing the pretty silver spoonholder _

Meanwhile the hemlock wreaths and festoons are being wound sending the evergreen breaths through the house _ Kitty
Peters comes over to help and Aggie helps and by dark I am able to put my fingers in the pie _ O.O. what a busy house
_ till into midnight _ Well _ Satie _ my dear _ we have this one more night to [say] the rest in _


192. Wednesday, July 11, 1877.

Such a morning as it was! Such lights away and away and away on the hills _ a day to pledge love in _ How glad we
were for the little girl that is putting her hand into another's _ God grant he may be strong to hold it _

I was down to Mrs. Peters' early _ all of us at work on the great marriage bell which [proved] when the time came such
a perfect surprise _ Beautiful flowers were everywhere about the house _

Good wishes _ and God bless yous were round about her whom most of us had known so long _ and him _ who had
come to promise us to love and cherish her "for always" _

Good-bye _ my Satie girl _ We are glad that you have been so faithful in the little house as to leave a large vacant place
_ God bless you - girlie! _


193. Thursday, July 12, 1877.

So we settle back to be still _ and to find comfort in the places as they are to be _ thinking much and many things _ It is
so very, very still _

As for Aggie she's up stairs mostly _ writing is on her hands _ My station is below _ at the little bedroom window! _ So
we write and write _ so does the morning go _ the tall grasses over the brook where Lorle is _ ... me softly in their
singing _ and I almost [see] the flowers gathering round the heart of her gladiola

Sweet things these that form the pieces of our lives! _ All of them go to prayer-meeting _ but the tired-out mother _ and
this girl _

It is a cosy little talk we have at home _ our thoughts following the little new wife _


194. Friday, July 13, 1877.

Sick again! _ Why Francie it seems to be it is in a very bad way you are getting! _ And then how it rained! _ It just
came down upon us _ shutting us out from the happier light that might have come thro' the little bedroom window and
been a sure and steady help _ Well - I lay and I thought a little of the sweetness of being called on to "purely endure" _
Aggie said _ "Go home - and see what Dr. Van thinks _ and come back to-morrow" _ She did think just a little that she
would _ but it seemed best not to

The flower pyramid is lovely yet _ If we could only keep it just like this now til George and Satie come _
Nothing comes or goes across the face of things that sets the day apart by itself


195. Saturday, July 14, 1877.

In which we betake ourselves into strange places _ To see me walking over to the depot so grand you would think I had
dropped upon those dreamed of borders where "I shall run and not be weary"* _ but it is far away yet _ that those
borders are _ On my way thro' this Massachusetts country I see the spires of Williams College rising up out of the valley
_ like a picture! George was at North Adams depot to meet us _ Satie just crossing over the bridge _

What a ride that was up the mountain to Aunt Carrie's _ How we did enjoy it! _ As if this were not enough for one day _
we must add to it the wonderful beauty of the other side _ and see the sun set in drifts of color over the []est mountain
masses that I ever saw _ What a giving unto us it was _

Aunt Carrie's company keep late hours to-night _
I am glad Aggie is having such a nice time -


*Isaiah 40:31 King James Bible


196. Sunday, July 15, 1877.

Another day of gladdest sunshine after so many perfect ones _ This mountain air is soul-inspiring _ Aunt Carrie and
Uncle Nathan have an old, old house - and as far as you can see ezch way there is no other. The rooms are little with
low ceilings _ and funny stairways _ and queer little touches of their own - Think of Beatrice with her sad eyes _
looking out upon the staid [stiff] country parlor _ all these very still years - We go to the quaintest old church you ever
read about _ and hear a wild, [tearing] kind of a man _ Not a very pointed text _ did he start from _ "Take ye away the
stone"* Uncle Nathan takes me home round by the "central shaft" of the Tunnel - I get out and explore! _ I drive away
from Aunt Carrie's glad in my heart that I have seen the inside of her home _ We get in North Adams as the bells are
singing for church



* John 11:39


197. Monday, July 16, 1877.

"Flora and Dannie" have a pretty, cosy way of living _ Everything about them seems so young-like _ and new _ Their
windows seem to look everywhere - Frank gives Aggie and I quite a little drive around North Adams _ over by all the
factories _ and the pretty streets _ and Mary Cady's home _ and then to some Natural Bridge _ just out of the town.
After dinner I take sundry naps _ and play with baby _ and talk to George- The rest of the folks have their pictures
taken! Aggie quite merry over it-
We are off on the six o'clock train _ and the golden light is over all things as we move along _ Those chestnuts _ those
chestnuts! what a picture they made standing up against the hills - We are home _ first thing _ "from the
announcements come?" _ And George and Frances begin _


198. Tuesday, July 17, 1877.

And we are still at it _ addressing envelopes and tying up wedding-cake _ We are getting so accustomed to weddings
Aggie and I _ that to go back to every-day realities _ and have festities null and void will seem like a new phase of
existence instead, my friends, of a very old one! _ We're a funny world anyway _ the best you can say of us ! _ We
"take stock" in a goodly portion of "doins" that have just started for the people at home _ Bless them! _ I have a dear
letter from Susie to read - It comes like the dews of Sharon! _ We have packing to do _ and little lookings about over
the places we shall see not soon again_ My dear little sister girl and Bruder Frank and I have a little matter of business
on hand - purely ours _

It is time for the "good nights" once more and we finally get in very still [nooks]!


199. Wednesday, July 18, 1877.

It is very early "whatever" that we are ready for our start _ and one of the dearest mornings in the world that we have to
shine us off and away _ We kiss them all around _ give Satie the last, little hug _ and sh[oot] off in the sun glory out of
sight _ at Eagle Bridge we take the "accommodation" [a] train much misnamed! We are twitched along ungraciously _
and after being shoved into the [jaws] of a train that would move _ ... pretty near _ we get off in disgust at Poultney _

We think the 18th of July is verily against us when we find no Emily _ [or] "Vicky" there - and we do find the horns of
a dilemma _ also a cross depot-man! Never mind! Emily is on her way and in a minute we see her _ and ride off with
her quite happy _

Such a pretty bedroom as awaits us _


200. Thursday, July 19, 1877.

And it set up to rain - and the rain up set the haying - quite _ It was just such a morning as would do nicely for us - with
our letters to write - Besides there was in it a benign fate _ We could have a horse . The boy had to go to the station _
This too was in our favor _ for we did want our trunk _ We think Mrs. Williams has such a dear motherly way _ She
gives us such an easy feeling - the horse we could have, as I told you before _ and as the rain was kind enough to stop _
we made our way up to Ella Ward's _ We made a most pleasant call _ lunched with them _ waved most graceful adieus
_ and then broke down _ It was the hills_ then we had to do it all over again _ except the lunch _
It was Sinclair's management that got us off at last


201. Friday, July 20, 1877.

"Emerce" _ (is that the way to spell it?) is inclined to be benevolent _ Any way it was his horse that wasn't needed in the
meadow _ and as we did go off away with it _ you may draw your own conclusions! On and on _ up and up _ on that
road that used to delight me so _ that is after this day a new memory to me _ as I see it in the freshness of this new
summer ! _ We were well received by Mr. and Mrs. Cook _ and almost the first thing were presented to the new baby _
A very fine baby whatever _ We were there to [ten] - and came home in the sunset _ taking the road along the lake to
Hydeville -

It was one of the treats of this world to me - a very sea of Galilee _ where I strain my eyes for a sight of His ship

[upside down at the top of the page]
This day's trip was an immense pleasure to Aggie


|| 202, Saturday, July 21, 1877.

I am reading "Shirley" _ I was so glad to come across it _ here at Emily's _

The visit planned for to-day is with Fannie Lewis and her sisters in the village _ Lizzie was to take us down _ and Emily
to come by and by _ the principal attractions were croquet _ Edith's music _ and the long pleasant piazza _ We had a
most sensible tea _ of _ well _ it would be much below propriety strict _ to tell what _ and proper I must be _ whatever
gets left out! _ We had just got up from the table when Ella Ward and Frankie Lake came _ It made quite a buzz on the
"long piazza" for awhile _ We had time for a nice little visit _ as it began to grow dark Aggie, Emily & Lizzie started for
home - and Fannie & I went to call on Addie Taft _

[right margin] Eliza [Laub] - likewise was at Fannie's


203. Sunday, July 22, 1877.

In its own beautiful way the rest-day came to us _

Remember it _ to keep it holy _ was the sweet verse everywhere _ in the still, soft air _ in the solemn arching sky _ in
the hush of the [winds] _ the pauses of busy men and women! _

And I _ to wake and find myself in Poultney _ with only six miles between me and the places I think of so much _ But I
shall not see them this summer! _ We listen in the mornning to Rev. Mr. Savage _ of the Methodist faith _ Are highly
pleased _ In the evening we attend Mr. Pierce's service _ He has a ...pleasant way of saying things - but seems earnest _
We tried to get up to Middletown to see Ella Mills but the boy we raised couldn't catch a horse _ This counts us out! _
After evening church we take our glass of milk and visit in the cosiest of ways


204. Monday, July 23, 1877.

The last we see of Emily she is stationed in the rear of a milk-cart _ bouncing over the road supposed to lead to
Granville _ We watch the little round straw hat and the bright face under it _ as it gets away out of sight. We have it to
thank for some very bright pieces of life! - Aggie thinks that afternoons out are rather wearing _ but decides finally to
stand one more! _ She is glad she went when she sees Mrs. Armstrong's pretty baby girl _ Addie and her sister make it
very pleasant for us _ It is a right-pretty home. The flower garden has great charms for us _ Every wind that blows to us
is filled with mignonette and pansy breaths _ It is quite dark when "Vicky" comes for us - but we have pleasant
moonlight to go home by


205. Tuesday, July 24, 1877.

We get the bed-room straightened out _ such a pretty bedroom as it is _ and Aggie and I fold things up and lay them in
our trunk and talk over our visit _ and think how nice its been so far_ It was so kind of "Vicky"_ she took us way over
to Fair Haven _ got our trunk disposed of for us _ and after landing us safe at "Auntie's" she stayed to visit with us a
while _ I call it a very lovely way she has of being friendly _ and Mrs. Lloyd! she is another one of those women whom
it does me good to see! Aggie was delighted to have a chance to make even this little stop with her _ Emma and Katie
were over to see us a little while this evening _ It is not going to be so that we can visit there _ this time _ Imagine us
lying down in one of the pleasantest rooms we ever saw _ with dear Mrs. Lloyd asking at the last minute what one more
thing she can do


206. Wednesday, July 25, 1877.

We are up and on our way to the depot at an astonishing hour _ Mrs. Lloyd staying with us until the last minute _ and
telling us in her fascinating way to be sure and come - when Winnie is home _ It is a glowing day that we have for our
journey - We couldn't ask anything more _ We have time enough to give Whitehall quite an inspection _ and are not
over and above elated _ Stretched out at our ease in the hotel parlor _ Aggie and I talk up railroad riots _ My sister is
some disturbed _ but I apply balms! _ The "bus" out is a welcome sight _ We buy a paper _ and go with speed to the
"night car" _ when found! at Ti Landing we have quite an experience! it being as my sister insists "out in the middle of
the lake!" _ But _ there's worse places! _ A man is raised up to get us over _ and once there we all laugh to think we
missed Mrs. Ward in such a funny way _ Well _ it seems good to see Julia _ We all go to prayer-meeting at the school-
house


207. Thursday, July 26, 1877.

It is so much pleasanter here at Julia's than I dreamed of its being _ The room that we are to have looks out on the lake _
Aggie still insists that we came near being at the end of our days yesterday _ but her usual equanimity has returned this
morning and she consents to look at the lake _ Julia wants to know after breadfast if we would like to take a drive _ We
are [harrassed] by no doubts in the matter _ and are soon seen stepping along toward Chipman's Point _ Aggie thinks it
a dreadful name _ A letter there for Frances M. Bromley _ from Burlington sends me home more some other girl than
me!

You see me for the rest of the day with quite a determined air _ "You going?" says my sister _ "Yes" _ promptly _ you
hear me say _ Aggie _ by the little stand writing _ I _ down stairs - talking to Julia while she is here and there _ and
around


208. Friday, July 27, 1877.

Any one would think after all these weeks of learning things that nothing could come _ to set me tossing and grieving
for my way _ my way _ How much hard pain it would save me _ and Jesus too if my every thought could be brought
"into the obedience of Christ"* _ but here I wake just begging for the touch of his healing hand upon me _ because I
have one more earthly place that I can hardly give up.

His own "good" time _ Fannie _ How sure it will be to be a good time when it comes!

I write a ... note to Mr. Alger _ and a letter to Dr. Van _ Aggie is still busy with her letters when I drive off with Grace _
who comes to take me to her house for the afternoon _ When I get home I find Aggie and Julia quite enthusiastic over
Chinese billiards! _ It is such a hot, uncomfortable night _ and mosquitoes rage in storms!

[right margin] We have given up "Lake George" for this time.




* 2 Corinthians 10:5


209. Saturday, July 28, 1877.

This little sister of mine has had a fretty night _ With the asthma and the mosquitoes - and the steam vapor baths _ the
chapters read quite appalling _ We rise from them to enter into the merits of a hot day _ Julia's morning was cake and
things _ ours was easy and comfortable like! _ We thought Annie Addie and Winnie would be over _ forestalled by
written entreaties but we see nothing of them _ and we give it up! _ A carriage with a dignified lady at the rein walks in
in stateliness _ "It is Annie" we say _ we are in Julia's room by the window _ We file solemnly down and are presented
to Mrs. Dr. Ward of Northfield _ The next thing was to get our bonnets _ for Julia made it apparent to our "torn up"
minds that we were going for a sail We were quite ready _ and we dipped our oars in the lake waters _ and dipped and
dipped them again _ It was quite worth while

[left margin] Aggie and Julia's mother carry on at a great rate!


210. Sunday, July 29, 1877.

Our "written entreaties" so eloquently touched upon yesterday proved the unconscious intruments of a casualty _ so we
hear this morning _ Put into the shape we heard it _ "Addie and Winnie were run away with yesterday" a miserable
[invention] all through _ concocted in the [brain] of some thistles _ to sprain Addie's ankle frighten Winnie and spoil for
us that pleasant visit _ which "might have been" _

A dreamy Sunday morning _ and through the church windows I can hear the soft summer sounds in the air _ and see the
waving grasses _ Mr. [Sever]ance preaches about Peter and John _ So he did Wednesday night _ at the the Mount After
church there were greetings from my Orwell girls that did my soul good - and I came home through the sunshine
thinking about them _ Annie looks very sad _ sadder even than I had thought.

Aggie goes to bed d[escre]tly hoping there wont be "skeeters" at our next place!


211. Monday, July 30, 1877.

When the mists unfurled at daylight it was hard to tell what kind of a day was breaking upon us _ Things looked
formidable _ but maybe the rain clouds would float up to Plattsburgh _ or down over the heads of the rioters ! _ Any
way we'd wait and see _ Done! _ When the heavens cleared _ "Burt" trolled off with us _ We are disposed of as follows
_ I am firmly borne from Burt's vehicle into Annie's _ somewhere between Col. Warren's and the depot _ which means
that I'm to be with Annie in school [doins] to-day _ while Aggie keeps on her rejoicing? way _ to spend the day with
Mrs. P So does it go -

Well _ this is like battle-smoke to an old veteran _ I am ready to put my finger on my sword hilt and spring! _
Aggie goes smelling round the assigned bedroom to see if its hot - also to see - are their(sic) winged creantures(sic)?



212. Tuesday, July 31, 1877.

We had just performed all our various arduous duties Miss Sister and I: _ made astonishing toilets _ straightened out our
room _ taken breakfast _ [seen] Annie off _ Then my sister produced her worsted work, and I had read aloud to her a
page I guess of the Princess of Thuli(sic)* _ when we saw Ella Royce coming for us _ What a very pleasant day we
have had there! _ It must have been the home atmosphere _ that made it every way so restful and happy to us _ Any way
we felt as if we were taken nearer to the heart of things after this one day of quiet visiting

There was a charm even in the way the rocking-chair was offered _ of the flower-garden shown to us _ Even father left
his haying and came in. _

At Annie's, letters were waiting for us _ Miss Burlinton to set my head to spinning - Well



*A Princess of Thule: a novel (1873) by William Black


213. Wednseday, August 1, 1877.

Aggie is present at the ushering in of August _ or pretty near - Anyway I took several naps after I heard her taking part
in the active affairs of life - The drive was to get a letter and a postal off by the morning mail _ She hadn't returned from
the station when Mrs. Forbes came for us _ In the meantime Annie is paying off her hired girl _ and healing imaginary
breaches between the hired man - and the existing state of things _ Rather ruffling processes _ Mrs. F's sitting-room has
an air about it that I like _ it is a "used room _ it is full of books and pictures _ selected evidently by one who knew both
_ Aggie sits by her pretty blue work spread out before her _ This chiefly _ I _ also in a rocking chair _ talk up the health
question _ Mrs. Forbes - has done me good in what she has been saying _ Evening characterized by a ride after the colt -
-- Allie driving ---


214. Thursday, August 2, 1877.

We slept in a large airy room - with three large windows _ and cool matting on the floor _ The sleep we got was a
blessing to us both! _ Mrs. Forbes has a very pleasing way of entertaining _ The decided unquestioning way in which
she says _ "I believe you can get well" _ does me infinite good _

We stop at Annie's a minute on our way to Mrs. Bowker's _ and find a letter there for me from Burlington _ Well _
there's one sure thing _ A final yes or no must go to-morrow _ Which it shall be rather perplexes me _ and I hear naught
from Dr. Van _

Mrs. Bowker has a very nice way of making people have a pleasant time at her house. Mrs. Billings _ and Susie are
stopping a day or two with her _ Aggie takes quite a fancy to them both _

There's a "sing" in the evening and we see Janet Thomas for the first time _ also some other people.


215. Friday, August 3, 1877.

I get up early to send that final word to Mr. Alger. It is with a sorrowful heart _ that I pull in all the cords that have held
my airy hope [structures] and tell him _ I cannot come _ But it is best so _

It took me so long to say it that the letter will not go until to-morrow! _

We visit to-day with Grandma Forbes and her pleasant people up in Shoreham _ It looks so pretty as we drive up to it _
where they live. Inside it seems as if most everything was birds and flowers _ Aggie has already bargained for one of
the canaries! _ We have a most comfortable talk with Grandma _ and tea in her own little room - on a cunning little
table _

In the evening Uncle Charlie and Grandpa - come in to help the visiting along


216. Saturday, August 4, 1877.

A day by itself = hard to talk about or write about _ but to think of always _ Was there ever a clearer, more glorious
morning? The very day of all for Snake Mountain _ this is what we all said at Grandpa's _ This is what Allie said when
he came over with the big lunch basket _ When "Uncle Charlie" and "Aunt Lucy" were ready _ we were off. it seemed
as if every sight and sound were perfect on this day of days _ At the last we climbed where there were great pineforests
_ and trees with great swinging branches - maples, birches elms _ Then we crossed the sawmill brook - climbed a little
more and lo ! we are at the very top - Such an outlook as there was for us! _ "O- for time to see it in" we said - "for days
and days up here _ with nothing to do but to look" _


217. Sunday, August 5, 1877.

How still it came over us _ up here in Shoreham at Grandma's _ What lovely, lovely sunshine lay over the face of the
earth! _ We took the longest way back to Orwell - so as to get all the pretty views _ Allie showing us all the points of
interest as we went along _ It is good for us sometimes to drink in a sermon of the living beauty as profitable as to have
all our sermons from the living spoken truth _

I had told Annie that I would give all of this Sunday to her that I could _ It must have been about noon when I reached
her. Aggie in the meantime riding on with Allie - home - It was a easy Sunday talk that we had - sitting through the
bright afternoon where we could look out thro' the open door _ But the rain came up _ and the brightness became storm
_ and the blue - vanished _ In one of the lulls we started for Minnie's - It seemed almost a treat to be out in such a storm



218. Monday, August 6, 1877.

We are once more on the move _ No storm upon us _ as we had feared when we heard the rain through the night of
things _ but all is smiles for us _ as we take up our line of march _

Birdie _ to whom most any form of life is as yet strange enough _ (he is very young!) _ [keeps] up funny little flops _
We feel as if we had a menagerie on our hands! _ Aggie scours Rutland in search of some device _ to make birdie come
into better humor with this world _ How hot it is _ and Mrs. Brown don't like to wait for matters of so small account _
as birds _ Once off and it is a smooth - green ... side _ before us _ and cool ... awaiting _ We try to visit thro' the
afternoon with Mrs. B _ but there are momentous pauses _ Laura won't be here until to-morrow to help _ In the
meantime I'll tell you what we'll do _ We will go to Jennie's


219. Thursday, August 7, 1877.

That's such a cunning little room we sleep in at Jennie's _ We are quite happy to wake and find ourselves here - The new
housekeeping in Jennie's home is full of bright little ways _ and we are glad to see Jennie -

We get back to the Brown's just before Mr. B _ starts off for Rutland _ and we take seats with him - and trudge along _
nothing particular to worry about _ or study up! Very good! Laura gives us energetic hugs - as she steps up to us _
from off the train -

We capture our trunk _ stop at the Rutland P.O. and retrace our steps to Clarendon _ Aggie gets papers from home _
This rejoices the souls of us _ So would a letter but our boy is a very still boy whatever! _ The word from Dr. Van is
significant! _

We settle down to knitting and tidies and any amount of visiting


220. Wednesday, August 8, 1877.

Birdie's [new] cage hangs over the side piazza _ birdie in quiet frames of mind since he got out of that box which he
effects to have despised _ Aggie is quite engaged with him _ his faintest twitter is of moment to her _ and we are
summoned in crowds if he warbles! _

I knit and am very quiet through the morning _ Mrs. Brown is not an awfully comfortable person _ Aggie vamooses to
do her to-day visiting with "Em" and Miss ... Existing states are interferred with by a call from Sarah Hazelton and her
mother _ Afterward Sarah [Squire] and Lizzie Gibson come over and stay for a nice long talk _ It does seem good to see
the old faces "Sweet summer sky bending over _ beyond your blue depths is there not Heaven?"*


* from Gala-days by Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge)


221. Thursday, August 9, 1877.

It was a long, still morning in the house _ We talk and break off and begin again _ I in one rocking-chair by the window
_ Aggie in another rocking-chair by the window just across - and Laura - in and out _ now with us a minute _ now _ out
where the work was! -

I got a line from Mr. Aler _ and I break it open quick and read it _ In the kindest manner possible he regrets my illness _
and says in closing - I am recommended for even a better position in Burlington next year! - Well - if this is the Lord's
doing _ He will make me well enough to go _

Jennie and her mother stop and take Aggie with them to Rutland _ It made the child quite rejoiced _ as she was out of
worsted _ she comes back in the happiness of blue cambric for sweeping caps _

"If the men were all transported"* to [hums] Laura - away


* from the song Reuben and Rachel, words by Harry Birch, published 1871


222. Friday, August 10, 1877.

"Well" - says Laura - "I can have a horse this morning- and we'll have a ride right off" _ but disaster is upon us _ The
first glimmer of it to my consciousness is when I put my head out of our window up stairs and behold my sister
careening thru' squash-vines & [beet]-beds _ chasing all the birds whose breasts are yellow _ A dire day _ We peer
under grass-blades _ stand in rows to gaze piteously up into the towering Balm of Gilead trees _ and lessen our hopes,
but not our labors _ No good! Well - we ride - This is of the nature of a small comfort to my sister _ The falls we go to
see are well worth seeing _ The gorges where the still waters are after their plunge over the rocks are beautiful with
mosses and fern-growths _ There is a wild beauty about it all _ that we don't often see - Mr. B. takes us over to Jennie's
after dinner - We end the day in jumping from gravestone to gravestone in pursuit of "Birdie" _ Our diligence is
rewarded! We feel quite soothed --

[right margin] We call a minute on Sarah [Squire]


223. Saturday, August 11, 1877.

I go off with "Will" to the queerest, wildest ride you ever heard of _ He _ ostensibly to salt the cattle _ the other side "of
a thousand hills" _ I _ to see scenery _ Our trappings are not kingly _ We don't look like a picture of an Oriental pageant
_ It was more like a woodcut from "Manners and customs of the Ancients"_ a Hebrew ploughing! But we'll take
mountain pictures, if you please - and not our own _ the very joy and strength of the morning has witched itself into us _

Aggie and Jen are left to [carry] "mother" to Rutland _ and make sweeping caps!

Evening - a party at "Mother ..." nice and neighborly in her to think of _ but it gets carried through with divers pushings
and boosts! "Won't you please play?" "Won't you please sing?" Jen's entertainment ... ...

But where is Ida?
Miss Ten Broeck & I visit in a corner


224. Sunday, August 12, 1877.

In which we go to the "South Flat" to hear Mr. Morse _ "I just love that man" _ This from Laura B _ some days ago _ It
is a pleasant drive over to the church _ We come to a place in the road where the way is fringed with tall green willows
_ Its rather hard on us to say the least that "father March" should have selected a pew so far front! and those last touches
to our [toilet] added to the situation - poignancy. I presume Jennie feels as if she were chairman of the committee on
ways and means - in this present draft upon her powers _ A sort of army of us sprinkle her table _ Miss [T.] B. favoring
us in spite of Laura's testimony that she was "awfully good" _ Ida is with us too _ Tho' she won't eat _ Mr. Adams
managed this _ I mean the getting here _ It is a very comfortable after dinner talk that we have _ Aggie comforting
herself meanwhile with "The Princess of Thule" _ Silence by & by & Will takes us over the [March barn]


225. Monday, August 13, 1877.

It showered a little early _ and then the sun came out in a great, magnificent burst _ It was fairly sweltering to people
who had to go to the East Clarendon depot _ thro drifts of Clarendon [sand]! _

The plan of yesterday proposed and carried out by "Miss Todd" has been a timely procedure _ I am quite in love with it
_ It has given me a long, much wished for talk with Ida - and a day with Rhoda and her dear people _ Their house stands
far back in one of the trimmest meadows _ "Do you suppose this is the place?" _ "It looks just like [Rhoda] let's try it" _
They were very right! _

My ! how dark it was - but Will there to pick me up [from] the arms of the Vt. conductor _

Aggie has news for me _ She has made her blue cambric sweeping cap _ too small!


226. Tuesday, August 14, 1877.

Imagine [it] _ The aspect was a martin-house stuck up on two sticks _ with a little hole for the swallows and martins to
crawl through _ They call it Clarendon station _ Its us _ standing there - peering _ I tell you we were on time - Will has
a genius that way. We rattle along musically _ and when the outside shows are gravel-trains _ and fields covered o'er
with pine stumps we devote ourselves to "flippy" in the cage _

We bring up at Helen's front door - somewheres near nine _ to find her setting out on an ironing which promises to be
[huge] _ I'm glad to see her _ bless her heart _ We just go into visiting like everything _ My first glimpse inside the little
home since "that night"

Henry takes Aggie to see "Dellwood" _ We walk as far as the Equinox with them - and how happy I came home with
this long_ long letter from Westfield


227. Wednesday, August 15, 1877.

We settle ourselves for a day in doors _ that is mostly _ the piazza in front has great charms for us and with the doors
open through we can gossip away at Helen _ just as well _ I think its just fine to live under the eye of such a mountain
as old Equinox _ "flippy" too is happy _ up there on the hook He is impressed with grandeur _ I know! _ "Lu" skips
about and is everywhere _ When her [mamma] washes her she says - "Go way" _ Her tendencies are more of the Miss
Thomas [order] _ then one might at first suppose _ She has the air of Gen. Sherman! _ ... us [down] completely! - While
Helen is meeting Aggie round the old '...' Where our boy used to hold forth - I compose myself over Holland's "Mistress
of the Manse"* the mignonette coming in currents through the windows! _ Night - and Equinox early a rain
impends !

[right margin] Helen gave us some Manchester [views] that I think ever so much of









* Mistress of the Manse, 1874 novel by J.G. Holland


228. Thursday, August 16, 1877.

It looked for awhile as if "Mr. Vanderlip" wasn't coming _ So long as we were flapping our wings _ and supposing that
we would bring up at Burlington _ & an air of impatience stirred when we stopped But we learned better! The seats
in the Manchester depot are not alluring _ We shall never divert ourselves from life's cares by calling to mind the four
hours we sat on them _ F.B. Golis could hardly be looked on in the light of an amelioration!

Well we don't see the President _ We give him up _ North Bennington and the next train home was our final conclusion
_ We do the rest of our waiting - where there's at least a remnant of curled hair to sit down on _ "Do I have to buy
something here if we go in?" _ says my sister _ it coming over _ how it was at "Hall's" _ We sweep in on them at home
with gusts _ We like the feeling _ of "home again"


229. Friday, August 17, 1877.

There's almost always some pleasant surprise in waiting for me when I get home _ This time it was the letter from Miss
Fields. I write a line to Mr. Alger _ on her behalf _ and send it with all speed but I am afraid I'm very late _ whatever! _
No. 2 Dallins St. looks good to me to-day _ We stand out by the little green stand where the plants are and watch mother
dig up places for the slips that have come down from Vermont with us in a [fruit] can _ The English ivy my special pet
looks as though it might live _ tho' I am harassed with doubts _

Aggie and I make plunges into "that trunk" _ with the pleasant intention of disposing of its floating masses and then
locking it up for a spell _

Then my sister leaves us for Cohoes _ I write to Lorle _ that is I begin


230. Saturday, August 18, 1877.

Aunt Mary says she didn't dream I had improved so _ "Why you don't look like the same girl!" _ How splendid it seems
to live where we can have her running in! We don't produce any perceptible shock in the family _ displaying the
pictures we were going to surprise them with! _ They all clamor for one that has "flippy" in! All the sensations must be
traced to him! _ Our venerable uncle has not dropped in upon us often as his wont has been. It discourages him
somewhat because he can't pray with grandmother _ One could hardly be expected to press matters! _

I took a time when the spirit of it was quite upon me _ to answer the letter I spoke of yesterday _
"O - for one short hour _ to feel as I used to feel!:
There are better prayers for you, Frances _


231. Sunday, August 19, 1877.

It is not early that any of us are up _ unless its grandma _ She has a talent for it! _ Isn't it nice to get back to take another
look at the table in the corner of the front parlor _ the one with the red spread on! I believe I think more of that corner
every time I go away and come back _

I wish "Eida" was here to play the dear Sunday hymns for us _ We haven't got Flippy so he can sing them for us perfect
_ yet _ We intend to _ His warbles now are uneven toot-toots!

The young minister in St. Paul's Chapel is not clerical in aspect _ How do I know? I was there [mum]!
Well - my sweet, still Sunday - God is in the midst of you - It is not a stranger that we follow!


232. Monday, August 20, 1877.

Who under the sun and earth it could be ringing our door-bell and calling for mother at half-past five _ A.M _ was a
poser _ To be asked for at any hour would be rather remarkable - considering how many times the bell is rung and we
aint asked for - but at 5:30 _ this was an experience! - And then to think it was I _ that was called for _ It is simply
astounding _ a green card explains - ... Allison Forbes! _ Mr. "Slip-and-Fetch-it" _ assisted by mother did the ushering
in! He comes back at nine o'clock bringing Mr. Stack _ and by dint of put forth exertion we get the use of [our] Dan _
and [trot] him off with them to the "Royce's Gallery" _ That's what we always do with our visitors "Five minutes for
refreshments" _ You've seen the picture _ A very good reproduction of it in our front basement _ to-day _ Aggie don't
come - and she don't come _

I sent a letter to Mrs. Forbes by []llie _ full of pros and cons


233. Tuesday, August 21, 1877.

Mr. Hughes hopes he'll get "that gate"! _ It would be a :mercy" to Aunt Mary if he'd get something _ Poor soul _ I wish
St. Peter wanted my old uncle to help [tend] his gate! _ "I don't expect anything else but what we'll have to go to
Earlville" _ This brings on a chapter of special [ations] in our basement _ and no end to ever! Aggie comes home with a
dreadful cold _ is so hoarse she can hardly speak! _ We are all so sorry! _ To begin over I will start by telling you that I
conferred once more with Dr. Van. He made his usual three seconds inspection _ didn't care anything about hearing
anything I had to say _ O _ yes _ yes _ I could go to Vermont _ with a [mental] "or some other place!" _ I think I'm kind
of "fraid" of him _ I'll keep this prescription for a "momentum" _ Everybody is talking about the shooting Sunday _ out
[at Mr.] Ten Eyck's _ where Aunt [Esther] is


Dannie _ poor boy, is having about all he can bear these days _ Its "galling" and no mistake to be asking for work _ and
not getting it _ People that have work to give out are not always _ courtesy itself' _ and Dan's heart is young _

We have many worries over the little girl to-day _ She came to day light _ up through a long _ sick night _ and she's
scarcely any better! _ "To each is given his burden _ on whose shoulders would we place it, that we might be free?" We
read _ so many times that our griefs have been "borne" & our sorrows "carried" _ Shall we hold our tired shoulders to
bear them on still wearily _ or shall we look up and rejoice that we are "free indeed"!? _ Shall we be faithless or
believing _ an appeal is in progress to Mr. Dawson of the Journal office _


235. Thursday, August 23, 1877.

We think Aggie is just a little more comfortable this morning _ She and mother both got a little rest last night_

I begin to copy in the new red blank book that is to be Ida Todd's when it is full _ There gets to be a sameness in it _
even after laying out upon it all the enthusiasm I can muster together! _ I like it there in the front parlor by the window.

I talk "Orwell" to mother and she don't like the idea much _ "Still if its best" _ she says_

Fr[] comes back from Mr. Dawson _ It looks as if there might be a chance for Dannie _ Anyway he's to go up and see _
Mother's heart is full of fretly things _ I can't make ways out for her somehow!


236. Friday, August 24, 1877.

We get Dan off for Wead Parsons and Co* "bright and early _ They'll "see" _ "Come in again in a few days" _ He
throws his hat down with a defeated air _ "That's what they all say _ Everywhere I go" _ "Well _ says Frances _ "I'll go
up and see him to-morrow!" _

Aggie is well enough to be about a little _ Frances copies _ mother cooks _ Now you have _ dear reader mine _ about
the story _ Over to Aunt Mary's _ their hero likewise is dangling over an abyss by a hair" _

Nellie has [proven] poor over [gun]-caps _ She pipes "Il Desiderio" _ and keeps her head held down_

Mrs. Forbes has written me a very nice letter _ On the strength of it I am fully decided that it is best for me to go back to
Vermont awhile!


*Weed Parsons and Company, Albany printer and bookbinder


237. Saturday, August 25, 1877.

In which I think I am taking something by the horns - dilemmas perhaps - when I assault the doors of W.P.and Co _
with my meek face - and gliding in way _ enquiring for Mr. P. He will see _ would I call again next week _ I think
when I came out _ Everybody I passed had a hopefulness about them! _

Then I sit down to copy _ copy _ The end I guess sanctifies the means or else I don't see how I keep a doing it - for it is
not happy work _ Not exactly a nice place to do it in there by the parlor window _ folks passing _ noises _ a stir in the
world _ that is what I like _ Sometimes _

The bird croaks a little The singing we get from him is poor yet!


"And the full will be beautiful up there" _ I say to myself _ many times thinking of Orwell - and the mountains where I
shall be pretty soon! _

It is Sunday, you see, and I do not do anything but sit and think _ There are sweet breaths that come to us from the
gardens _ when we sit at the east doors _ We can see grape-arbors that are green and [wooing].

Yes _ I think _ There is still that to do _ We may live low down but we can think high up _ The church-bells break
through my thought _ calling to thoughts of a better life _ There is something better then _ better things to do than we
have ever done _ "a better rest to go to than we have ever known" Received _ unto Himself! This is whither we are
drifting and He knows it _ so He is ever cheery _


239. Monday, August 27, 1877.

And there is no more stillness _ no more stopping to look off _ It is wheels over cobble-stones and all the various horses
under Heaven _ I copy away at the window and mind nothing else much There is a forgetting in it _ that much _ The
thought, too, that somebody will be pleased. Now and then I hear mother's slippers _ pat-pat up the stairs _ Perhaps she
sits down in the big chair by me _ with the look in her eyes _ as if life pressed her _ bone hard _ Perhaps she will have
come up to say _ "Fannie, do you think it will do any good to write to Mr. st[] to go up and see Mr. B[]" - to do this
or that or something? _ and Fannie will say _ "Perhaps_" and down in her heart she will hope so _ Then she will hunt up
her paper and write to Mr. St[] and lay the letter away in a drawer _ Well there are not "flowery beds of ease"!* _ in
any stance_

*From "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" a hymn by Isaac Watts, 1709


242. Thursday, August 30, 1877.

I'm reading up in Mineral Water _ I have leisure and a no inconsiderable library _ Its excellent summer _ reading _ I lie
on the couch in the back parlor and get hints that there's summer over the world _ from the open back_windows _ When
I get lonesome - (I sometimes do) then I betake myself to grandma's bed down stairs - We are there in the dark talking
always when the hush comes over things _ and nights _ Most always we are alone unless Aunt Mary happens in to sit a
minute! _

This time its Emma _ Aggie out of the grandeur of her heart prepares to do her royal service _
I've got a pain in my chest _ Makes getting along sort of "drefful"_


243. Friday, August 31, 1877.

I suppose I call this getting ready to go to Vermont _ Some needed stitches get taken though not in time to save nine _
O'_dear_no! _ I always take getting ready to go away from home - sort of hard _ Like to talk and look at the folks until
an hour or so before starting time and then tie up the budgets quick _ to keep me from thinking _ This does _ Aggie is
busy entertaining Emma _ Dan is still "enquiring at the Express Office" _ Mother's caesuras are all "Why dont you's"
Flippy's training is somewhat neglected in the midst of all these things _ "Susie Sinkel" devotes herself very much to me
_ My cookies -(mothers's I mean) have a drawing power _ Well - I've read this page over _ and it reads some like the
first column of locals in the "Daily News" _ If I should add "hop time" _ and "dog days ended" the column would be
complete! mmm


244. Saturday, September 1, 1877.

This is the day in which I drank Waukesha Mineral Water _ Do it all I ought to _ Have no fruitful memory as to any
other proceeding except to make a comment or two on my black straw _ We debate some on the feasibility of getting a
half a barrel of the "water" up to me - Give it up. Well - there's enough for to-morrow - "Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof"* _ another awful query_ "Who's to be the cart-man? and where is he?" _ A dark saying _ Something has
happened Dan's got a postal! _ "May be" we say "maybe [its] the door to something" _ Too bad Fannie's going Monday
morning before she knows" _ so say they all! Dan to the top of the house in three bounds to tell Aggie "B[urchik] has
written for him to come up" I'm glad there's a disposition in ... in the [uncertain] things to let [our] [hoping] be the ...
side


*Matthew 6:34


245. Sunday, September 2, 1877.

Well - we've halted _ waiting for daylight _ then I'm going _ We've done all manner of things to-day _ but that
important thing _ []ained a cartman. yet been seen [to] _ Dan says _ "Leave it to me" _ We're very happy to _
finishing touches have touched everything _ even me _

Our lunch was as much of a matter as was Mrs. Sanitary Commission fair dinners _ pretty [near] _ Aggie is very
perverse when it comes to such a matter as getting a dinner to carry _ Aunt Mary comes over and wishes me all of
everything that any girl could have in this world _ Then she cries a little and goes her lonely way _

We go to bed to lie awake a long, long time _ We keep thinking of one more thing to say _


246. Monday, September 3, 1877.

And the night shifted and by and by it was early day dawn - but you just ought to have seen the rain come down _ not a
harbinger in all the heavens that it would be clearness itself afterwards _ and serenity! But it was _ the clouds were
lifting before we drew up to Cohoes and let my dear litte Aggie girl off _ I watch her go to begin her year - watch her
out of sight _ Then I try to comprehend the pleasantness that lay about my all day journey _ It is a country that I know _
some of it _ our little glimmer of green that I know so well _ That I am glad to have known _ But I'm at Rutland
speedily _ but where's my trunk?

Not in any sense a soul-inspiring conundrum _ I may live to find out yet _ In the meantime live with what clothes I have
on! I land amid afternoon grayness at E. Shoreham Mrs. F- in waiting - Other company also [land] - and we proceed up
the hill together _ a big load!


247. Tuesday, September 4, 1877.

When we were coming home last night there was a gray sky and an unfriendly breezing _ about us _ This morning it is
not brightness _ or dreaminess _ now September - do you call this kind? Your feet are "beautiful upon the mountains"*
_ Is it not so _ Is this only a sweet delusion to go after this and for always out of our lives? No _ No _ you dear one _
tried and true _ We shall not be sitting by a soap-stone stove rocking all your precious days!

I don't do anything but rock _ This is no misfortune _ you see _ I have made a good proper commencement to what I
came to do _ There are sounds of visiting about me _ right good sounds they are _ People who have come together again
after a long time _ apart _ I sent out a few electric queries as to that trunk _ I made a few computations likewise on how
long I can do without clothes

[right margin] A postal from Aggie "Dan is at work



*Isaiah 52:7


248. Wednesday, September 5, 1877.

To be sort of refreshing I'll begin and tell how about the first thing I saw was my much looked for trunk riding up to the
front door _ This was transporting in more senses than one! Then I sat down and made my blue sack _ and after I made
it, I wore it! _ and where do you spose? Over a lovely road to Orwell village that I've never been on - then out toward
the lake - on and on to the very lake borders _ to Julia's very front door _ You see _ Ida is there and we wanted one
more day with her _ The only question was - "Would Harry take us over safely? Harry did! _ Everything most
propitious was on our side! With "summer everywhere and sunshine too" _ In spite of all we could do though the west
would take to itself somber streaks and the night of things would come on So we came home Harry's hoofs beating time
for us _ and the forests very still around us -


249. Thursday, September 6, 1877.

A lovely Snake Mountain day and they're all going but Minnie Allie and I - We are booked for something quite as
felicitous _ Horton Pond! You ought to have seen the wagon we got into at "Herr Hibbard's" _ You'd have said "This is
holidaying of a high order! And it was only begun! A country picnic in its charm - makings is not to be put aside _ No_
No _ not for any pleasure or a day like this _ The better if its ... Horton Pond! We lunched on the island we hunted for
birch bark _ we rowed across and watched the men fish _ we sat on big rocks and let our feet hang over _ we laughed at
Janet's speeches - and Mr. Horton's way of [serving] pickles _ we looked to see the way the sun ... on the bosom of the
still-still waves _ Then we came home _ listening to Janet's songs


250. Friday, September 7, 1877.

No _ we needn't hurry to stir around this morning _ The Snake mountain people too _ are glad of a little license to sleep
_ When things do begin we take life light _ The minister _ rather "[]" amd "Josie" play croquet _ "Aunt Mattie Dickey"
_ helps about the house a little _ I take the lounge _ and listen to the mallets _ and to Aunt Mattie's mild, sweet voice _
In the evening Minnie, Allie, Josie and I _ take seats in the big wagon and duly present ourselves at Mrs. Bowker's _ to
the first "Shakespeare Club" of the season! My first in any season _ but don't mention it _ I must act the air of one long
accustomed to Clubs _ any kind! We are all very pok[ery] at this the inauguration one _ I'm sorry too _ Why couldn't
we have left our shoulder braces home? "Miss Bromley will you favor us?" (The President benignly) Her composure
where is it? _ It is unbecoming to shake one's head!


251. Saturday, September 8, 1877.

I knew there was a kindly heart in dear September _ We are finding it more and more! Think of me to-day riding along
in the gladness of everything ten long miles _ Of feeling like it and taking in the joy of it _ as those only can who have a
little of it just a little _ in their lives! It was such a nice cosy call at Addie Royce's boarding-place _ ending up with a
play with the baby-girl _ We came home another way and stopped at "Uncle Paulus's"_ a pretty brown house almost
hidden by the trees _ "Aunt Jane" _ a young and pretty looking lady with a pretty wrapper on _ was in the very
unenviable position of being "down with a fever" _ You'd hardly have guessed how nice things were made for us _ It
was really fine visiting _ Pet took hold and ... for us _ and "Mother [Jane]" made the biscuit & Uncle Paulus & Mr.
Knox talked away _ and it was
[right margin] all just nice


252. Sunday, September 9, 1877.

Dr. Post's sermon was a real treat _ A holding forth concerning the way of life we are apt to hear but rarely _ And then
there is something in his being such an old-old man _ His hair is so very white _ his voice so long ... and so thrilling in
its being so almost done _ His text that dear one _ beginning _ "Whatsoever things are pure"* _ We sat just behind Mr.
Fisher's seat _ I happened to look up once and across and somebody nodded to me and smiled _ That was Vassar right
over _ and a Vassar girl _ Gertie Bascom** _ I was just wild for a few minutes It seemed such a very nice thing to
happen! "I want you to meet my father and mother" Gertie said - and when she could get them away from other people
long enough _ she brought it about! _ I came home with lots to think of _

one door can open - on a jar and let in such floods of ... & Vassar is near my heart!


* Philippians 4:8

** Gertrude Bascom, Vassar College Class of 1878


253. Monday, September 10, 1877.

A getting well ready for to-morrow _ this was most of it _ A quiet, comfortable day at home, you can call it _ The
country places are glad - and smiling _ The mountains have a new face every day _ It is good to be where life has large
outlooks _ and I do love this ridge _

I watch them at croquet _ I [play] with Bertha.


261. Tuesday, September 18, 1877.

"I have been in a dream all day Lorle _ and such a dream Out of the still sweet beauty of it I call for you _ Come and
live in these places with me to-day and keep the charm for me lest I wake and find it gone _ Is it true that we are
together in that wonderful thought world or am I forever in a dream and forever alone? _ Your last letter was such a
dear one - I am glad we are to hear from each other often this fall_

God be with you, my beloved - You too are having your time to wait and to bear - The covenant of his peace shall not
be removed and his peace is better than anything. Once more God be with thee"

fb William Henry Hotel
Lake George _ N.Y._


274. Monday, October 1, 1877.

It does matter after all a good deal what kind of a day it is - It gives one/me a genuine thrill to see October come in like
this! I feel as if I had "loafed around" mostly _ but I got my license from the pink and promise of the day.

Nothing heavier to do than to ride along in the glory _ or sit at the dress maker's Well _ I wish my blank diary pages
didn't gape and stare so_

A dear evening with Annie Phelps _ A right good spirit of cheer to take to her _

Saw a woman to-day who told me that 22 years ago when she married her husband he had valvular heart-disease _ Has
overcome it _ Here's one more "perhaps" for me


275. Tuesday, October 2, 1877.

Neither was to-day exciting _ but I bound a ruffle _ I consider that quite well worth happening. I have been [born]
without a [reportive] instinct - else why am I so far behind in getting up my dailies? _ I can't trot out one other item for
you unless I tell you that I was just getting farther in some other intricate portion of the work when Uncle Paulus and
Aunt Jane drove in the yard _ Then we all changed ...! It comes out that I appear at tea when summoned _ (They called
it "tea") in my brown suit _ and white jacket _ I had an eye to helping grace the scene _ you see _ with what success _
you must wait to be told! _ I envy them the ride home _ it is so lovely as the afternoon goes gently out!


276. Wednesday, October 3, 1877.

Well - there's no use talking I've got to sit down and write my blessed mother instanter! How her eyes will grow wild
with wonderment when she reads the announcement from my postal that I have actually put a band on a dress-skirt _

Maggie Ryan - you don't know much _You were an exaggerated dismay to me in the days of my [flesh] _ You have a
sort of hang on to me as I think of you now - but I'd give a good deal to be the thing you called me once - "handy" _
well there's need of it! _

Am I in bed yet? Perhaps not _ but then _ everything else can wait till morning _ In a racking of [osseous] system -
up go the crimps - This is important _ at the surface maybe not _ but prowl! _


277. Thursday, October 4, 1877.

Who can help giving one's self a quiet sh[ore] of satisfaction on finding that one had started out to do a thing and - - - - -
- - - - - - done it _ As a rule I fizzle _ but to-day I march gloriously into realms where quiet satisfaction sh[ore]s _ I can
deal out to myself _ H-m! We - perhaps I ought to keep to the courtesies of this world _ although ego did sew on the
buttons - up there in that creaky door place - Ego _ bought the buttons too! _ Ego took Mrs. Forbes to where Belle
Skeeles has her rocking chairs and things _ As for lining She does it mostly in the school house - Well - this isn't telling
about Baptist State Conventions - but I can't help it Belle is of big account to me - Saw at the B.S.S_ Elder J.S. Goodall
and lady _ the years have parted _ and I peep through - Well I was young once - We all sat down in the parlor and
visited _ Julia, Mrs. Green _ Mrs Spencer _ and us!

Mr. Burchard of Brattleboro gave us the evening talk "More than conquerors"*


* Romans 8:37


278. Friday, October 5, 1877.

"My Dear Ida Todd _ your letter reached me safely a few days since and I take this opportunity to send you my blessing
and my very best wishes _ I do this with the strong hope that the happiness you so nobly merit may be yours _ We who
have been associated with you in the pleasant intimacy of school life are glad that you have grown so strong and self-
reliant and we feel sure that you will be equal to the new demands of the new life and that those with whom you have to
do will be better and happier for your companionship. Begin by consecrating yourself to the dear Lord and that you
may receive his abundant blessing is my earnest prayer _

I am glad you were pleased with the note-book _ I still continue to improve _ Good bye and God bless you" _

The glory of the October woods about us _ everything ours _ as we ride along _ up home Fair Haven and the ministers a
memento mori!* _

Reading club - not any! _ Our glad girl _ Also sleevless[sic] jacket not any _


*a memento mori - Latin "remember that you will die"


279. Saturday, October 6, 1877.

Enough sun for a sun-bath _ taken with shiverings. Great props in the shape of extracts from the Trotty books* - also
some account of the Peterkins** _

Arrival at last of ""News" per uncle Paulus _ Explanations begin: _

My sister's letter hails from Quoes _ She has not yet seen My lately wafted blossoms _ Stirrings go on in side of me _ a
queer world _ Things wrong end up! Mother's at Dr. Jones _ H_m! Divers places _ Sunday times I still [continue] _
"Quoth the cedar to the reeds and rushes"***


Evening _ In phalanx deep to Mrs. Bowker's _ Miss Taylor and a young widow in demand _
Mrs. Non[] D _ Well _ I wish I could play _


* The Trotty Book (1870) and Trotty's Wedding Tour, and Story-book (1873) by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

** The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Peabody Hale

***First line of the poem "The Apology" by Jean Ingelow


280. Sunday, October 7, 1877.

Whew! it begins to get cold! _ Dressing, mornings hasn't in it that calm delight one might desire

It might be well to mention that as a fact unprecedented in our history as a family we drove up to the church door
alarmingly early _ Mr. Severance hadn't even begun to preach! _

Was paid for having my S.S. lesson Announcement a la Branch _ "No Sabbath School service!" _ Well its a peculiar
way of doing they have here in the country _ that's all I've got to say _

Squirrel for supper - Taste my first _ was prepared to be delighted _ found no pleasure therein - Deliver me hereafter
from stewed squirrel! _

A ride to gaze again upon the new baby _ the new little round [ball] that she is!


293. Saturday, October 20, 1877.

All the cheerful chapters these days are in-doors.
The time to take sly peeps in windows and


294. Sunday, October 21, 1877.

We splashed along to church in the mud under scurrying clouds _ and were not early _ We sailed in _ the door creaking
_ and showed that we were not intimidated by knocking over several stools _ What Mr. S_ impressed upon me chiefly
was that "the Lord did not come down to earth to teach astronomy" - We rode home under a streak of blue sky.

Annie drove in the yard and as I told her I was glad to have a chance to see what she looked like once more _ She was
on her way to the grave_

Evening at Mr. Murray's singing and cider _ Fannie [Parrish] has a fresh face - and she sang "I stood by the bridge at
midnight" _ (as I thought) charmingly _


295. Monday, October 22, 1877.

The mountains are all white _


304. Wednesday, October 31, 1877.

A hard kind of a day to lay away to rest one of the old citizens of the town _ The rain came down in such a dreary way _
in Judge Both[]'s open grave this one of the things I thought of with us there was "Joe" to get off _ but clouds and
storms and ... holes - were as nothing to his asserting spirit _ Having donned Minnie's waterproof sometime before it
was in any sense necessary _ he undertakes our refreshing!? entertainment for a few minutes - Then curtsies himself out
of our sight _ and we are left a vision of rain! Well! _

In the evening scarcely less of a drama _ You see "Roll" is back _ and in close consultation with Minnie and "pa" _
[Dorna] stationed in the hall near the scene of interview brings in telling dispatches _ [fired] with comments of her own!
_ The rest of us mostly sit and laugh


305. Thursday, November 1, 1877.

To be fully unpersuaded in one's mind is not a quieting state of things in any sense_ But then - we can get along without
being in superbly quiet states _ This according to a preconcerted plan! _ It is ever before me these latter days that "I'm
but a pilgrim"* here" although I am present in my usual haunts with an unperturbed brow _

I get my trunk in readiness _ which may mean home to-morrow _ or Julia Miller's on Sunday _ In either case []tures
placid! _

I entertain to-day _ That is there's no one here to preside but the pilgrim _ and Grandpa and Grandma Forbes are here _
. .._ Well _ I staid home from Brandon and this that the old lady has to say is what came of it! _ and afterwards -
golden silence forevermore - They drive away _ and after all the old lady's reminders Grandpa Forbes handkerchief is
still sticking in that broken window-light!

* from a hymn by Elisha A. Hoffman


306. Friday, November 2, 1877.

I don't like to set up and say that it was dreary _ but I've really stumbled this day on to an uncomforting text _ its
keynote taken from the skies above us _ I seem completely under the influence of this determined rain-storm _ and no
alleviating circumstances!

It is not to be wondered at that I sought a balm in Jules Verne's "from the Earth to the Moon" _ 218000 miles isn't any
too far to go in such a day as this _ Well _ I wrote to my boy too - and - rising up _ after folding the sheets I give myself
private little words of approbation! _ What next? _

Lying on the lounge in the corner Roll, a sort of god-send rehearses for my benefit _ full accounts of his trip to Lockport
_ I bless him _ One resource is left me _ a nap _ this at four p.m.
I wake up to find it dark & Minnie and Dana coming .


307. Saturday, November 3, 1877.

"My willinah soulah ... not stayah _ in soochah frame ay zis"! - Not exactly _

I am surprised to see me so meek _ A surprise I do not rally from! The inside of meek people don't say - "Blessed are
the meek"* _ not if they're put together my way! - Not having any red flannel garments to sew on _ and not finding in
"from the Earth to the Moon" that bliss I sigh for _ it falls out that I roam about in an aimless sort of way chatting a little
at various times with Dana concerning Anstiss and Richard _ She is on the last pages of Hitherto** _ I might take that
for wings to upland places - but I don't want to read it here! _ I wish somebody would say something _ If they won't I
wish they'd cut out some red flannel! _ It blows out and its cold _ but blessed be Nature there's a light in her leaves!

The young people have gone to Shoreham No mail for Frances to-night to
[right margin] [bless] her birthday with. I'm going to Julia's to-morrow!

*Matthew 5:5

** book by Adeline Dutton Train Whitney


308 - Sunday, November 4, 1877. -

There were silent silver lights all along the mountain wall _ early _ This is the way the day broke _ There was joy in the
east - how could there but be joy in the sense of living! _ "As it really is at the heart of things" _ I drew nearer to this to-
day _ I could think of the "stronghold" with such a sense of rest _ as if I were gently drawn! - That dear "dwelling-place
in all generations!" _ There was nothing of this in the sermon _ but the lovely text went to my heart "Romans 14-17"

To church thanks to Mr. Fisher. To Julia's thanks to Mr. Clark - in other words _ "Life"! _

Those white birthday chrysanthemums in the sitting room - waiting for me! _ Wasn't it beautiful? _ I whisper sweet
things to them _ for we both plainly under-stand one prayer - to-day -

"O _ for grace my heart to soften
Teach me, Lord, at last to love"


309. Monday, November 5, 1877.

If you want to be sort of moderately satisfied with yourself - ... a dressing before it is quite light _ It makes you feel as if
you too could sh[] where other people were sh[]ing - as if you were emerging! - We have a smoking breakfast which I
am properly hungry for _ Then I "write up" I and the chrysanthemums bear one another company _ We like it! _ Ah!
don't we? _

After dinner "Doll" is brought around _ and Julia and I are off for the Point_ The wind blew and it was some muddy but
we are dauntless spirits - We have a laughing call at Gracie's _ I quite decide that I will make a bed-spread _ Mother
needs one _ Then point lace takes my eye _ Ah _ that is what I want to do _ Grace makes startling proposals to me and I
come off with something to begin on in my pocket _ I think I must be of a progressive mind! _


310. Tuesday, November 6, 1877.

The quiet sitting room here at Julia's makes me think of those Thanksgiving days at dear Mrs. Lloyd's! _ It is a kind of
life that I love to drift into _ We had some sunshine to-day _ to lighten the sombre faces of the woods and to throw a
sparkle over the old Champlain! _ How glad I was in the day before it was over _

My birthday week is rich in blessing _ With "The Divine Tragedy"* in my hand from the dear little mother the
messages from home _ the good word from the Earle and Huldah _ Laura's dear letter. Edith's greeting _ the "Story of
Avis"** at home _ and the flowers on the way _ surely _ my way blossoms in rarest ...[ting] _ Down in my heart I feel
so glad to be thought of _ Love has such a sweetness in its coming.

[left margin] I make my beginning in point lace It goes fine!



* by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

** by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward


311. Wednesday, November 7, 1877.

The day went in little pieces of things _ as far as I was concerned _ and I believe its "I" that I'm telling about _ One spell
you'd find me [darning] _ Later along she went clambering over the rocks at the Mount _ looking for soldier's graves _
and saying over "Winstanley"* _ It was not until afternoon that the flowers came _ The darlings how imploringly they
looked up at me _ the tea-roses could hardly wait to open their pretty lips _ the "pink bud" "the queen of them all" had
kept its "very sweet kiss" for me _ and I have taken it into one of the very sacred places of my heart _ then there were
Earle's carnations _ full of color _ and with a fresh word or two from "So" _ Evening _ Reading club at Mrs. Royce's _ a
house full of pictures and pretty things _ Everything _ quite festive and my [lands] _ a letter from Sue

* poem by Jean Ingelow


312. Thursday, November 8, 1877.

I am not very adept in the art of point-lace _ not yet. I am fairly at it _ Grace buoying me up _ and keeping me out of
deep water _ "The stitch" _ is a wery [sic] portentous word to me _

Julia gets over in the neighborhood of one o'clock and in an hour or so _ it takes to raining _ This to her mind is very
distracting _ whatever _ It blows up hard and gets dark early _ but inside _ we know very little about it _ Grace makes a
pretty picture in her home. I am glad for these little glimpses of her _ in the home place _ Julia goes out into the arms of
the night with a boy _ "You don't know" _ she says _ "you don't know how peculiar father is"


313. Friday, November 9, 1877.

"How did you feel, Grace, when you were ripping your lace-work off the pattern?" It was easy to see from her answer
that it was a really enlivening experience! I am doubly anxious to live one such! _ The storm has forsaken us and a
bland spell is upon us _ I washed my face in some of the new rain-water out doors _ and felt like as if it was May _ in
earnest _ My "[phelinx]" would not encourage much depth seeking in learning "the stitch" _

I am not such a wery smart to-day _ Mrs. W. and Stella came for me about one _ bringing sorry stories of [wind] - and
ridges _

I read a little in "The Divine Tragedy" _ and was glad enough to get off up stairs where I can feel bad to myself _
This is discouraging business - to look at it from below _ but our eyes ought to be up there! _


314. Saturday, November 10, 1877.

A day when she thought she would write to Dr. Jackson but she didn't _ She kept at "Dr" persistently _ darned two
stockings _ it was in the midst of chaotic [stirs] in the sitting room _ At this stage _ the quiet satisfaction in other people
deserted her _ and she did the right thing and laid right down for a nap! It was not a beguiling day _ and the roads are
beyond anything? If we might only have a little Indian Summer! Longfellow's "Divine Tragedy" is very sweet. It is
one of the books that rests _ and reconciles

My "queen bud" is sweet yet. How rich I am _

I wonder if I ought to wish less pain out of to-day _ it was the dragging, wearisome kind _ that makes me feel how slow
_ how very slow _ all getting well is!


315. Sunday, November 11, 1877.

It was good to see the sun shine again _ it meant good _ we thought _ What with the roughness and the wind _ there was
hardly any way for us to get to church _ so we looked for the Sunday sweetness that there might be about us _ and we
found [rest] everywhere - for reading I had my "Divine Tragedy" _ and my "De Imitative - and my Greek Testament _
There was such an inviting in the day that I walked as far as Mr. Arthur's _ It seemed to be [a real] piece out of the rich
outside _ though the steps were accomplished in a dull misery _ O _ for a Dansville, Dansville. I say to myself _ to-day
as I have said so many, many times _

I don't know what this trouble inside means - exactly

I am reading Headley's "Civil War" and it just holds me -


316. Monday, November 12, 1877.

Well- a letter has been given a comely shape and form and early in the morning so will be on its way to Dr. Austin
_ It proved to be a lack of dimensions _ to get said _ what I began to say _

There were streaks of sunshine coming and going _ I have needed props to-day. The dear Sunday words from Thomas a
Kempis - do not go out of my heart _ "Be thou so full of courage - and so patient in hope that when inward comfort is
withdrawn thou mayest prepare thy heart to suffer even greater things" _

"Junge me tibi inseparabili dilectionis vinculo quoniam tu solus sufficis amanti" _ So very quiet all day I and the
chrysanthemums!


317. Tuesday, November 13, 1877.

A better color in the face of things _ It seems such a comfort to wake and find that dragging pain wearing away _ The
world is steeped in sunshine _ We are not to be denied our sweet Indian Summer ! _ We are having, too, the luxury of a
new moon _ I sit upstairs by Julia's window and try and thank my Lorle for the birthday flowers _ I can talk to her better
with the lake to look at.

We are having visitors - Mr. and Mrs. Severance. They are very pleasant people to meet _ There is something
wonderfully cosy to me in country visiting _

When Burt comes back from the point with no letter for Frances _ She is quite too amazed to speak. She had inordinate
desires that way! and had built!


318. Wednesday, November 14, 1877.

We are blessed this week - We could not ask for lovelier days _ As for feelings my state is strangely comfortable!
Writing up _ and I mean it _ is a pure affliction! _ It grinds slowly _ Mrs. Burk thinks it a very nice day _ and to be
made of _ so she comes a-visiting. Brings ... to sew on! "Rome" Sholus _ our neighbor drops in a minute _ and tells us
rather queer news _ "The Forbes's are to be "tached"" _ I don't know much about what it means but it has a sort of
dreadful sound _ I am sorry enough for poor Mr. Forbes. Burt says _ reassuringly _ "They are going to "tach" every one
that has been there this fall" _

Grace gets here just after dinner _ We have ever so nice a day with her _ and point lace comes on wonderfully


319. Thursday, November 15, 1877.

A box of "bitter sweet" is on its way to Lorle _ When I get it tied up _ I stand up straight and with an air in front of
Grace - and I say _ "All of which is respectfully submitted " _ "To my tender curiosity" = wickedly _ from this young
maiden! Mail arrangements in Chipman's Point need to be understood to take in the merits of her joke! _

There were sweet south weather to-day _ You could be very glad _ in the out-doors of things _ My writing up went like
a consuming _ on through most of the afternoon _ dismal thought _ wasn't it? _ When Julia came back from the Pt. she
brought me a letter from home _ I feel better now _ I lie down for a minute on the lounge _ Am off in a sleep in a
twinkling _

In two hours or more am pulled back to time and sense with a fierce grip from Julia "Miss Bromley _ Mr. and Mrs.
Sholes are coming!" _ Miss B. rises with an air distingue! A nice evening with our visitors _


320. Friday, November 16, 1877. -------

There was nothing of the nature of proving invincible in my first feelings _ However it was valiantly I got up _ and
valiantly I "wrote up" _ could see the sparkle on the lake every minute while I was a doing it! _ The roads are simply at
the worst _ Julia didn't believe Annie would come for me and we could have Doll _ so we started for the Point _ the
myrtle-green has unquestionably arrived _ this gives a cheerfulness to things _ so Julia thinks Just before we get to the
brick church we see Annie coming _ she looks, we observe somewhat forlorn _ but her buggy wheels forlorner! _ I don't
pick up my property to go _ without thinking _ how very pleasant these two weeks with Julia and her mother have been
_

We turn a leaf _ Annie & I plough the [road] _ with tender moonlight to help us _


321. Saturday, November 17, 1877.

It had not been a cheery night - last night _ You see my limbs were swollen or looked so - and they pained me - there
was room in this alone for endless conjecture but with the light came something pleasanter _ and the day and I began
our acquaintance well braced up _ I did nothing heavier than to read St. Nicholas _ found a chaming installment of the
Peterkins - Glad of it! _

My respect for Miss Annie is being "exceedingly augmented" for the patient way that she has with her mother's quirks
_ Its kind of intolerable by my gauge - Well _

About noon I guess it was _ their cousin came _ She has the name of "Jane Smith" _ Nice eyes though -

Down in the corner I will put my one poor little protest _ I can't have my way about air o' nights _ They will stuff that
broken pane Alas


322. Sunday, November 18, 1877.

Sunday sometimes means sunshine and heart-rest _ but this one was off one side _ and not quite like the beautifulness
that we know _ One little lighting on the face of things _ Aggie Bowker's ways with the kittens For the rest the folks
talked _ At dusk Charles Phelps and his wife came over _ and "Glen" their four-year old _ gave our scene a piquancy _
that we surely should not miss _ Thomas a Kempis talked a little to me _ and the Greek of some of the blessed gospel
words that lie in my heart _

An out-door glimpse or two over the hill-places _ and the stretches of brown - a remembering in little pauses that this is
the Lord's Day Mixed up though with a good deal of "Olivia" and "I thought I would tell you"_


323. Monday, November 19, 1877.

"Jennie" must be got off early _ It was distinctly so stated in talking up last night _ "Ma" gets up with spirit and fries
some griddle cakes for her _ potatoes not to be waited for _ Then we start out over the hills and past the cheese-factory
and Annie can talk but I can't_ My fingers have a time of it in the gloveless [race] !

Annie warms up - washing but not I _ Besides I got up - early and I must doze a little

I get a story or two in short Harper stories _ and I make a few visible marks on the point lace _
We have a truly cosy evening after the lamps are lighted.
Close by the oven door we draw up the big sofa _ I vanish into Harper's _ and Annie into "Tale of Two Cities" _ We
finish up with the Latin of Thomas a Kempis _ I go to sleep thinking of my brave little girl working down in Cohoes _ I
often do.


324. Tuesday, November 20, 1877.

More point lace _ more Harper short stories _ more soft November sky and sweet Indian Summer weather! _ Life seems
to claim little of me these days _ and gives so much! _

Annie sits down right after breakfast to finish "ma's" black dress for to-morrow night _ I wake up to the impressive
points of the occasion _ and engineer the sleeves! Annie tries to persevere in spite of opposing [fates] _ The things
"ma" finds to make her get up _ would be "stumps" unsurrmountable to any but the "Grapp" spirit! _ She winds up the
day setting her at hunting tours for "porous plasters"_ The check that "ma" expects arrives _ "This aint no great" _ is
Mrs. P. on the situation.

We get up stairs finally _ I _ defeated as far as a means of getting out-door air in!


325. Wednesday, November 21, 1877.

"Ma" wants a chicken for breakfast _ This is very plain _ nobody could be in this house and not know it _ but by the
refusing to turn of a contrary screw _ she writes in her diary _ "not chicken but pork"!

Annie you've set herself like a big perversity against it_

There was lots to do _ piles of things _ and a jewel of a day we had to smile on us from without! _ And such a
moonlight - such a moonlight at the end! _ I had one ride - It was over to Mollie's for [lamps] _ The first arrival on our
scene was Aunt Logina (long i) _ I shall always see her _ just as she looked stalking thru' the parlors _ after they were
filled _ Reading club _ an entire success _ Nice people in plenty with nice things to say _ and all right merry _ I had a
long nice talk in the corner with Mrs. Warren about Dansville


326. Thursday, November 22, 1877.

This time "ma" got chicken _ neither screws nor perversities to prevent _ While its cooking, the aunt talks _ She has
opinions on the way folks ought to do _ Lives in the village where news in plentiful _ It would be wrong to be chary of
it in visiting the benighted outskirts _ Not along the hedge-rows exactly _ but out in the crisp air _ and past very brown
fields Annie and I are pretty soon riding She is taking me back to "East View Farm" _ I find Minnie putting her quilt
together _ I find a needle and set down by her _ after I have had my kisses from the little people _ Naomi has gone and
it seems very still in the sitting-room _ I am glad to be back for another look on this valley of the fair _ and the
mountains profiles rising up dark behind it _ You're such a lovely picture.


327. Saturday, November 24, 1877.

I am awake and up moderately early - looking out tenderly for the last little peeps at the blue-earnest east _ Just think
what it has been to have had these picture outlines nine weeks!

When I got down stairs Minnie was just taking up _ the ... meal _ Bertha was trotting around - fresh as a damask rose _
Well _ I taught Minnie a new scarf-stitch _ and sat down on the floor and cut out a Briton jacket pattern and we talked
over what had happened and how things were going to be and the day went _ ... the ... whistled and I heard Addie Royce
driving in the yard for me _ But _ mind you _ Mr. Clark drove in the same minute and I got my Dansville letter _ This
was interesting to me _ and so was the charming evening at Addie's - They are lovely people _


328. Saturday, November 24, 1877.

How beautifully everything has dove-tailed! It is all so safe and comfortable a thing to think of _ as I ride along in the
early night-fall _ After breakfast an hour of two of visit in the sitting-room _ then over to say the last words to the kind
friends at Mr. Forbes' _ a pleasant ride in the big wagon with Addie and Ella along _ the sun deciding no longer to be
uncertain but to come out with a good, [brisk] shine. Dinner with Grace _ and a most comfortable visit _ with her to see
me even to the very steps of the afternoon express _ What very pleasant little ways of doing _ I glide along the lower
hall like a phantum and knock at the kitchen door not like a phantom _ Mother sings out _ "Walk in" _ Aggie says _ "for
the land's sake"


329. Sunday, November 25, 1877.

The storm that has been signalling these last days came down to-day on our devoted heads _ Its purposes were in every
respect most tenacious _ How very cheery our front basement looks since mother went at it _ it begins to seem as if we
might make a home out of this after all We have thought we never could _

I have a new scare _ My limbs look large and swelled up _ and they pain me some - Well _ it is better not to think about
it much _ My! how it rains - Its a dark prophet day! I take up the "Story of Avis"* reverently _ turning back many times
to the dear []** on the blank page _

It is in a rain pour that our dear little girl goes _ but it is best, she says _

I go to sleep saying over and over _ "Now all the meaning of the King was to see Sir Galahad proved"***



*novel by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

** Greek letters lambda, alpha, sigma

*** from Thomas Bulfinch's King Arthur and His Knights, XIX The Sangreal, or Holy Graal quoted in "Story of Avis"


330. Monday, November 26, 1877.

"By the time you get the floors painted here we'll be ready to move again" _ "Yes ma'am" _ says she _ "And then you
can go to work and paint some body else's old floor" "Yes ma'am " _ This [qaint] piece of scene shifting from
Grandma's bed _ where I had paddled thro the paint to rest my swollen cords _ I guess its cords _ I stitch considerable
on Aggie's handkerchief _ I tell 'em every few minutes they must ask me no questions _ they mustn't dare look! Aunt
Mary says - "Don't be sassy" _ Dan reads Bob Ingersoll's lecture venting a few occasional comments! _ I get a second
letter off to Dansville _ and then give up the long evening to "The Story of Avis" _ Lorle _ You are right it is not a
"comfortable book" _ but "we love Miss Phelps"


331. Tuesday, November 27, 1877.

Grandma says she don't want to go to Heaven _ she wants to go to that other place _ "Yes" _ says mother "You want to
go where you can get some "cold meat"!

Dan has found a misery _ his tooth aches _ Odors of creosote fill the house _ Can't we call the bird "Avis" I make bold
to enquire - not a word from anybody on the subject _

Point lace proceeds _ You'd be surprised to see how little one can do in a day _ especially if he or she works [steadily] _
I am trying to talk mother into my Dansville plans _ but she is far from being readily brought round However I have
hopes _ She says _ "But where you going to get your money?" _ That's just what I don't know muzzy! - I find Mr.
Hughes in a "Glare" at last but not a gale!


332. Wednesday, November 28, 1877.

It was a loss of a morning _ "Sunshine everywhere and summer too" _ Rather dry to begin right off in the little green
chair by the kitchen window _ at spinning wheel stitch ! When our eyes ached properly we dressed us and went over to
Aunt Mary's _ A circus ensued _ Aunt Mary chasing Helen Bly around the sitting room with the market-basket. Helen
was very mad! Mother has got on a streak and everything must be painted _ Besides all visitors must be yelled at _
Even the best of us will forget to take hold of doors by the knobs _

Mother and I are coequal in another project _ three "childers" _ "We'll use Miss Pangburns doctrine" quoth mother _ "If
its right we'll get them" .

Dan wants to know what we are going to have for Thanksgiving _


Thanksgiving --

333. Thursday, November 29, 1877.

"There was the sound of revelry at night" * _ but not at our house - good folks - though we did have a dear nice day _
our way _ Dan said when he came home to dinner that every house he passed "smelt like turkey" _ Ours don't _
However he deigned to dine with us - on roast pig _ He has read Charles L[] probably _ Come to think though ours was
stewed! _ Mother insists on [washing] [some] - so she and I have a little dialogue about it _ If folks would listen to me
they'd squeeze a good time in _ holidays _ and wash-tubs - I gave you my opinion long ago -

I [putter] over the star-stitch - and have a sort of dreadful time - but I achieve! Then I take my Greek "die" and things
out of my trunk - and read up old diaries on Thanksgivings _ and Tennyson's Elaine _

Something a little cold and dark comes into my warm peaces as I think of a year ago - but I put it away - and try to
understand about being triumphant!





*from Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson


334. Friday, November 30, 1877.

The wind has changed _ mum! It is raw and cold and bleak out! _ This is one of those days "You're ... tell on" _ which
governs the winter months _ Hardly consoling! - I get well-nigh on a verge - its that star-stitch! I am glad that there's
only five on a side! _ I've got another trouble _ my "point-lace" thread for which I journeyed up to Reid's in Broadway
is like welting cord by the side of my dainty Madame Gurney's gossamer! _ It has got to go back! My star-stitches are
beyond anything - I feel quite forlorn over them! Aggie comes home with a small craft of Oliver's meal - and nobody to
meet her _ but there are a legion of alleviating circumstances, Hot supper _ with ... _ and "[swirling] coals in the
American Base-burner!

Now we're ready _ lets hear! Just hear that wind


335. Saturday, December 1, 1877.

You show us not a very rough face _ at the outset _ but your name sounds cold! _ Yes - yes! I get up like a soldier
called by the long roll _ and get the point-lace shirt done quick because pretty soon Aggie would be up _ and would
catch me at it! Not star-stitches _ thank my stars! Aggie is a household diversity _ to-day _ Mother is at the blue and
black plaid! So am I _ Its awful nice to be so sort of comfortable _ and get around a little and begin to know just a wee
bit what my old self was - Cheer up Fannie _ You are coming out of this! We eat our Thanksgiving dinner the second
day after with airs ! - Its a fine fat chicken that we have! Aunt Mary has got educated up to calling it "fowl" _ No letter
from Dr. J _ Grandma is feeling better to-day _ Says her head is more settled! Aggie and I talk up Dansville in fits.


336. Sunday, December 2, 1877.

I told Dan I didn't see why he hadn't pretty near as good a voice as Joe Sault _ "Yes _ and better than Joe Pepper's"
shouts mother from the kitchen! Aggie goes off without her blue and black plaid_ its done but it isn't the thing _ We are
sorry mother and I that our energies were not put forth to better advantage to all _ Avis startles us with his efforts to sing
_ Wants to, I write to Satie _ Its [time] I should think! _ This hasn't been a right comfortable Sunday _ Too much
packing up to go - and flurrying _ Some of our Lord's days here at home are almost pitiful_

"God forgive us if hereafter
Our hearts break to hear Him say,
Careless one, I never knew you _
from my presence flee away"*


* Last verse of "If we Knew" by Helen H. Gates, 1863


337. Monday, December 3, 1877.

"Good morning, Mrs. Hughes" I said - She came over with her dress-up suit on - and looked quite to my mind ! Mother
has a lovely new felt bonnet to be trimmed and she's going to have a new long cloak - but don't you tell _ "Don't you
ever breathe it" _

While they"ve gone up to see Mary and [Jenny] _ I take my station directly under Avis _ and pull my thread through
and sing "When the general roll is called I'll be there" It is not a song that builds up the family _ However _ let's sing
something.

To-morrow is Huldah's birthday _ I think I will be good and write to-day _ so I do _ amazing truth _ I don't know when
you've thought you'd be good and been it before! _ Mother makes a raid on Grandma's head - same as if it were the
enemy's [trench]works _ Then comes the ameliorating circumstance of a fresh-ironed cap


338. Tuesday, December 4, 1877.

It is a real family affliction that Avis has turned out to be a female bird _ Mother can hardly be reconciled to give it
seed! _

The postman has a way of coming in the hall and shouting "Bromley" _ instead of knocking at the window as on former
occasions. It must be that he has [aspect] into our new lace curtains! The postal was from Susie _ I was in the middle of
a debate with Frances' self - at that moment _ all about what should she do _ stay at home this winter _ or what _ I give
it up! _ Mother's dialogues with Dan are not soul-inspiring _ My _ how my soul would drag if I would let it! _As it is it
almost smoulders [over] point-lace _ button-hole stitch - I go to see Aunt Mary _ and we talk _ and in five minutes more
I would have fretted - but I came home!


339. Wednesday, December 5, 1877.

"Well" says mother last night _ "Dan was going to start out Monday morning to business _ As soon as he made up his
mind to this, Dawson and Parsons left the city and will never come back _ Henly in the Express office hanged himself to
death so Dan couldn't get a chance to speak to him. As soon as Eaton at the Capitol saw him coming he discharged all
his hands _ and now he wants to get in the Assembly that won't set this winter" _ This and kindred things is the high
tragedy of our lives. Where our talk drifts - and our dreams _ Well _ we have [swamped] _ and that's the truth _ It has
rained out _ so for my part exercise has been minus _ Dan is blue _ uncomfortably blue _ I aint _ nor Avis _ I seem to
have only one prayer these days _ "Lord, thou knowest" _ I begin and end a letter that is to go to [Chelause] _ I've
come to the conclusion that point-lace business aint good for me - exactly


340. Thursday, December 6, 1877-

To-day small pieces of high-comedy _ Dan in rehearsal previous to going up to see Smythe _ "Mr. Smythe - I believe _
Well I've come to give you and Georgie Dawson a place in the Assembly _ messengers _ or something _ I know your
mother is poor _ and your sister's teaching in Cohoes - and the other sister's got the dropsy _ and I'm a popular young
man in Albany and I've come to give you my influence" _ Etc. etc _ Many times _ Exit left! _

Postman appears - armed with a letter from Grace _ Its full of pleasant little things _ The pattern came - in it addendum!
_

I'm awful smart to-day _ Trot around at no great rate _ Dress up - too - and go a visiting my Aunt Mary _ Bless her heart
- she brought me over over an apple and a pint of milk to-day _ More star-stitch but my reason remains _


341. Friday, December 7, 1877.

"I wonder who Dan'll give the place to to-day" says mother while the lad continues his tour upstreet - He don't come
back to tell us _ even up to our awaiting dinner! _ How long the winter is holding off _

The weather is everything that's good - besides! _ Avis sighs for a little more adaptation on our part to his whims. He
thinks us a very cold shouldered set! _ Grandma is like the moon - she sets an hour earlier every evening - Its later with
the moon _ but the force of my comparison is not lost! "Jefferson" to-night in [Masonic] Hall _ I have "hurries to ..."
Very pleasant pieces of talk come from Mrs. Forbes _

Aggie arrives _ her new cloak huge enough [borne] along by her _ in spite of Dan and another's both on the spot at
trains - but not the train _ bad luck _ to the ought to be


342. Saturday, December 8, 1877.

It consisted in buying more pants for Dan _ The time has come around I humbly beg leave to record! The "pedestals
from which his aspirations soar" fate ill-natureally [sic] seems bent on shortening! _ This time he's going to pay only
three shillings to get them cut! I button-hole and spinning-wheel - and [tent] - pushing on in minutes when Aggie is
"non est" _ These were the emphatic portions of December 8 _ to me who came pretty near becoming non est _ as to
eyes _ and spine! It comes out that Aggie goes back to-night _ Then mother walks to Duanes-... or less for a dress-
maker and comes home with the ear-ache! _ I _ Dansville - pm and am - until blessed sleep folds me from it _ from hard
life for a night!


343. Sunday, December 9, 1877.

Grandma "has the dreadful ... - and is froze to death" as mother puts it _ This to Dan when he came in to supper _ I
guess it was pretty cold though the sun is bright enough to give one the feeling that all "his irons are in the fire"

As for me _ "I'm ..." _ Amounted to just precisely nothing whatever _ unless its "amounting to something" to lie there
on Grandma's bed _ and be what comes _

I wish I might leave my Dansville prospects with the Lord, who "suffices for heaven" _

This perpetual reckoning and counting up _ tires me - tires me - tires me! _ I am very weak and very foolish O Lord! _
Aunt Mary comes over twice to see me - How quickly she would send me to Dansville if she could!


344. - Monday, December 10, 1877. -

"its your mother's birthday" says Aunt Mary _ taking out two cookies from under her shawl _ "Shan't do it" says muzzy
_ want a better [present] _ I ain't a going to tell how you're going to have a new cloak - No _ I shan't _ The first thing I
heard of time and sense was the postman's "Bromley" in the hall below _ A letter from Polly _ [fresh] and very Vassary
_ I needed to read up on Vassar _ its so long since anything has helped from there! _ Avis has gone to a righteous (we
trust) tribunal to hear whether its a he Avis or a she Avis _ Will be gone a week _ She may come back and retrieve her
fallen fortunes in this family! _ Most everything [in] family [limits] has been "coat and pants" _ a source of very serious
debate between my mother and Dan a beginning of the end is [arrived] at and Miss Anderson [mustered]in! _ It snows -
out to-night - acts as if it meant to


345 - Tuesday, December 11, 1877. -

I've got over reeling for one thing - this to my consolation _ I was not much of a "tower of defence" yesterday _ Didn't
stand well! _ I got better just in time _ its "star-stitch" day _ Mother says _ "Don't you think its sticking to that work so
close that makes you feel so 'misable'"? Guess likely - Star-stitch is debilitating.

Dan's getting ready for a party to-morrow night _ Our family foundations snap and crack! _ Mother thinks a [bare/base]-
floor committee not imposing _ Brings her energies to the sticking point _ on the old coat _ We miss Avis Even the
occasional cheeps and twitters were something! _ I write up to Sis _ and duly inform her how Avis has gone out to
board _ Our snow of last night was a delusion and a ... - Its warm out to-day _ but O dear! I can't walk much _ "Now is
our salvation nearer

[right margin] than when we believed"*

*Romans 13:11


346. Wednesday, December 12, 1877.

I think it must have been the brightness _ for the sun was glad and gave to all things a glow and hopefulness _ to-day _ I
know my heart has lacked no courage _ How good it was that I could get out a little ways _ "walk and not faint"* Point-
lace is getting to have a dragging about it _ The little needle goes in & out only patiently now _ but just think _ its
almost done!

Dan is not chirk and chipper today _Don't know why _ Don't know a bit _ "It was so kind of pleasant" says Aunt Mary _
"I didn't know but what Aunt Esther might be in" _ Nell has found some untold attraction in our east window _ Don't
explain herself but goes away from it reluctantly _ Wonder if there's poetry in it to her dog-soul _ or rats! _ I give it up!
_ Plevna** has fallen - so runs the war news _ The effective stroke, so say the papers, that shall end the war _ and yet _
we must wait to find out!


* Isaiah 40:31

** The Siege of Plevna was a battle of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878)


347. Thursday, December 13, 1877.

Grandma feels tempest-tossed and forlorn enough _ I suppose _ She has broken "..." and mother went over the subject
somewhat_at length giving leading points! _ That was the first I heard this morning. Then the postman came with ...
letter! Yesterday had inspirations _ to-day there's considerable less _ But leave out all the rest _ drags _ aches _ wills -
whatnots _ one precious_sacred fact stands in letters of light _ I took a walk that was a pure pleasure _ I feel as if I had
nothing else to desire! Dan has gone up to Cohoes to see Mr. Bean If something only may come of it! _ "We kneel at
the knee of a mild mystery"* _ To-day it is in drumbeat silence _
out or in - not weaving blossoms there or chance halos _ but standing still and looking dumbly


* From A Rhapsody of Life's Progress by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1844


348. Friday, December 14, 1877.

A milder atmosphere to descend to this morning _ though an awful mercury stands and testifies. Its the great tendency
in us all to placidity that I began at the outset to comment upon! _ We eat the last of those fish-balls - and mother does
not fail to express the sentiment of the united house when she says she's glad of it! Awaiting my rather unenthusiastic
fingers [were] _ the last five stars _ on that lace work - I approach the end breathlessly _ for fear I shall allow myself to
become somewhat excited! There's only one more thing to do _ sew the linen in! Aunt Mary brings over a letter from
Aunt Mary Griffin _ A mild row ensues _ It is not a family spectacle that I would like a lithograph plate made to set
forth _ but I shall never fail to laugh when it comes before me _ how Aunt Mary looked whaling protecting Nellie with
mother's clothes stick!
Aggie has arrived once more but no Dan _


349. Saturday, December 15, 1877. \\

I'm afraid I don't feel like writing diary to-night. There - that doesn't sound very toothsome so far - but go on - See what
comes next _ The dressmaker I guess _ She's the one that's turned our water courses out of their olden channels for the
day _ a mild, silent little woman all in black _ A silent woman to come in and sew is a rare thing in this world _ we are
glad we've found one _ glad Aggie's new pretty cloak is all done - glad that it is so pretty _ Well _ I took a walk up
street with Aggie _ the first since when? It was a long, long one and I'm some tired _ but will omit that.

Its a year ago to-day that I wrote my first letter to Lorle _ just a year ago to-day _ Saturday _
We have tickets for "Hamlet" Monday evening _ I've begun to read him up _
We can't sing "one boy day"* to-night very well _ He isn't here _


* from Helen's Babies by John Habberton


+ +
+
350. Sunday, December 16, 1877.

To begin where we left off _ he is here now _ I couldn't have told though for sure this morning _ I mixed it up so in my
strange dreaming ! _We hoped he might say Mr. Bean wanted him _ but we must wait for that _ just as we have _ Dan
keeps at what we dumbly fancy to be the spring of our fortune but it won't spring _ No_No! Something has sprung
though for mother _ A man has come for her _ and the little new satchel is brought right straight down and before we've
got to the end of the first conclusion she is gone _ The Sunday had been blue enough before _ This betokens good - so
we think. And Aggie's gone and its lonesome sitting here by the little stove _ thro' the still evening and then creeping
off to bed _ alone_ I must say I have known much cheerier occasions!


351. Monday, December 17, 1877.

And my boy made my fire so nice last night all I have to do when I come down shivering, is to light a match and touch
it to the little end of paper that wiggles below _ then I sit down and wait till a fire happens _ All day when I've done the
cosy little housekeeping things _ I like so to do when mother's gone _ I devote myself assiduously to that lace
handkerchief _ I needn't have kept at it so hard _ I have less sense on some subjects than one would suppose_ But listen
_ it is all done _ I have been thro' the whole category of pleasant sensations that come when you're ripping it away from
the cambric Yes'm! And we've been to see Booth in Hamlet! I don't know what it was to other people it seemed
perfection to me -
We come home too delighted for anything _


352. Tuesday, December 18, 1877.

The sitting-room fire didn't go out last night _ You may not think it but this is a large item! _ My sister has to wake her
own little self _ and move away from Albany scenes before the day is fairly upon us _ She does it in a vigorous way _
which I inwardly commend!

I'm tired of buying Larrabee's Graham bread _ in the first place its dear _ and in the second place it is not delicious! I've
appealed to Aunt Mary _ and not in vain!

I quite enjoy this minding things for mother while she is away _ I don't have it hard _ Dannie is so nice about it_

All day little snatches of Hamlet keep coming to me _ I see Booth's hand go up_ and hear him say the best parts over _
or some more of [his] comes back to me done with that perfect grace of his _ It is early _ real early when I fix the fire
and go off up to bed _ "A sleepy/sleeky cat" as Laura Skinner would say


353. Wednesday, December 19, 1877.

Another comfortable thing has happened Mr. Burdick has sent for Dan _ Its not large _ O_no_ but the boy is glad of
straws _
So I fire him up a breakfast and he goes off somewhat brightened up _ Then I go over to tell Aunt Mary _ Dinner-time
Dan and I work in a somewhat haggly manner over those pig's feet _ which just came to light _ I'm not perfectly at
home in making souse - Perhaps I've cut away most too much _ but I poke the residue [down] in the kettle _ pour on
water _ and then go at my dinner dishes _

It is not long after, that the little mother walks in _ "My little woman died right in my arms last night" _ This was the
first thing she said _ Then she took her bonnet off and told me all about it _ Of the quiet passing away the entering into
life eternal _ The beautiful rest for the over tired body _ of the "rod and the staff comforting" _ *

*Psalm 23:4


354: Thursday, December 20, 1877.

I am actually surprised at myself _ to think that I could go way up to the Delavan with Aggie's postal _ I spects I am
tired but _ that I could do it at all is kind of bewildering!
I've gone into another speculation _ a motto to be worked for Aunt Mary _ shaded gold to work it with! _ Something
else for to-day is walking toward me _ the postman is bringing it _ It sets the afternoon a quivering _ I'm so anxious to
do some more dovetailing _ Mottos and things become of little account in this shifting of the fates! _ I open to Mr.
Alger at length _ Then abstractedly to Julia Miller after it fall to wondering how it will come out _ Winter is so gentle
with us _ no snows _ [no] storms do we know yet _ Nothing but etherial wildness! _ To-day "I spose" they are
scattering down to the college _ Last night, I spose my girl went through here ... & not to _ ...


355. Friday, December 21, 1877.

Avis has fairly astonished us to-day with _ singing _ while we were in attitude expectant he didn't deign any [musick]
except "cheep" _ We give him up _ and lo: he breaks forth! We are completely dazed _ how our vocabulary lacks
sweet things to say to him!

Mother engages herself in the not [aesthetic] pursuit of washing shawls _ Its a good day for that _ or anything _ clear
and bright! _ I don't know anything but "motto" _ Don't say anything to me _ Let me keep at it till my head swims if I
will be void of sense! _ We are having our shortest day _ This rejoices me - I hate to have it get dark so quick! Mother
says she is going to buy me a little carriage and let the rats in our yard be harnessed to it _ This plan meets with my
commendation_

Then muzzy tugged home that gallon of [Waukesha] - to-night


356. Saturday, December 22, 1877.

Do you suppose we are coming to a cheerful chapter? Hardly _ More mope-y _ like and void of the little agreeable
nothings that make the complexion of a day _ No letters - no visitors _ no news - nobody to say anything to except deaf
grandma _ an awful feeling that my motto I'm working aint going to be pretty - my codfish at dinner a very melancholy
success _ Aggie coming home and telling me maybe she won't eat Christmas dinner with us _ Aunt Mary gliding in pale
and ghost-like _ dear me its easy to believe we are all spectors - and sit grimly looking at each other _ on the borders of
something more spectral still _ Fannie I think you will put your pen down pretty soon and go to the gospel of St. John
If we all do have our "trubs" as ma[] says _ never mind _ Nothing can quite touch love _ That is forever and forever safe



357. Sunday, December 23, 1877.

And so the Sunday comes to us _ a day of heights if we but know where to look _ A day at least to be still in _ and to
call to mind the "new and living way"

There is no winter over the world yet _ Not an omen in the sky or air or anywhere that storms are preparing ! _

I turn to Thomas a Kempis and it says _ "Be then so full of courage and so patient in hope _ that when inward comfort is
withdrawn then mayest prepare thy heart to suffer even greater things"! To think of lesser things then this I have no
heart to-day.

In the morning Aggie and I went up to hear Dr. Bridgman It was a dear service as his ever are to me _ Text Hebrews_
10 _ 14.17. Christ able to make us come up to a perfect manhood and womanhood

The church was beautiful in its Christmas deckings


358. Monday, December 24, 1877.

Let us get together the bits of to-day that were glad _ We can find them in most any day _ only Frances _ sometimes
your eyes are holden _

The dressmaker, one of the quiet yet steadily propelling forces in this world _ gets Aggie's blue dress on toward the
[end]-

Aggie on a pinch catches the train _ in time, as we trust, to see Miss Chisholm married_ Aunt Mary's motto under my
proprietorship gets done and that aint all _ It gets framed and borne to her _ I feel as if it was I that had discovered the
way to take Vicksburg! _ There's good wholesome cheer everywhere - faces are full of it _ steps go by with a sort of joy
[and] expectation in the sound! _ One must be in it _ to be in the world _



359. Tuesday, December 25, 1877.

The bittersweet gives us cheery greeting as we come down to the places where it decks our Christmas _ Avis too, sets
up curious little sings! The calla holds out broad green leaves _ "See"_ it says _ "I have been frost-bitten and died down
at the top these ever so many winters _ but my courage is greater than my misfortunes _ don't you see? _

I've read Hamlet to-day all through and the second book of Aurora Leigh* _ So I've been royally entertained_

We [wanted] the little girl home with us to-day _ all day _ She came just as tea was in progress _ then Dan came _ He
insisted on wishing us "Merrie Christmas" Mrs. []ports' way _ The audience keeps calling for it! Our evening turns out
to be "wery" full of good cheer _ here in muzzy's little home.


* 1856 epic poem/novel by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


360. Wednesday, December 26, 1877.

The voice of the dressmaker is still heard in our land _ but hardly enough to make a note on! She talks the least little bit
and then in the mildest possible way _ My sister's world [wags] _ how/now she's cleaning up _ now at the silver _ then
at the fires - now at the cupboards _ then something else _ so it goes till we're all amazed we're so clean! _ As for me _ I
go up-stairs "way way way up" _ as our family put it _ I hunt up Dr. Austin's letter of five years ago _ bring down my
old "[Laws]" and ponder and ponder over Dansville! _ If we only knew, Frances and I _ if we only knew what was best!

We have fallen upon wondrous times _ there have been ... here to-day after mother! _ Its very exciting _ As a sort of tail
end to it she spends the evening with Mrs. Cork in Dove St. while I tend to the bread! _ Aggie's company has arrived !


361. Thursday, December 27, 1877.

Mr. Dawson tells Dan his chance is "slim" _ O _ our prophetic souls! _ and yet we don't one of us say "I told you so" _
We've disposed ourselves variously to-day. I'm getting short of diary phrases _ Mother has attended to a washing of
porportions _ Aggie and ... have helped at a Normal Reunion _ I've taken a few stitches in the point lace barb _ and for
the [rest] part _ it was mostly rocking chair and lounge _ Miss [Mark] came in a few minutes to see me and it was ... in
the extreme _ We aren't flooded with visitors! _ After the girls go upstreet in the morning mother and I sit by the fire
and we have a long long talk about getting well - and the dark ... of it - of Dansville and what might _ what might not be
_


365.

365. Monday, December 31, 1877.

What a sleepy heroine to close up this story with - I can't begin to tell you how sleepy she was _ To dismiss the subject
and not sit here talking about it _ we'll explain how that all she could do there was no ... sleep last night and she had told
Mr. V_T knock her up at five thirty! Sleep was shy of her to-day too _ this she did get an hour of it and got in indefinite
dozing! The snows of a year ago are not here - none of the wailing and storming to-night _ only quietness and steady
cold! _ The sun has been a beautiful smile in the face of the dying year _

I chanced to pick up Bits of Travel* and it gave me a lovely hour - I have not looked in it since that day I came up the
river _ I'm giving Avis a second more careful reading- I like its little suggestive similes - and it is full of them! _ I
brighten up in the flow of the evening fire _ feeling much less disagreeable than I did -

Well to happen - Thea Frances!


*may be : Bits of Travel at Home, 1878 by Helen Hunt Jackson


Memoranda.

Dannie began with Weed, Parsons and Co. on Saturday _ Feb. 9 _ 1878.


CASH ACCOUNT. JANUARY

Received. Paid.

Aggie's bill.
Diary 32
Toothbrush 25
For cleaning watch 1.50
Felt skirt 75
Ribbon
30

Money Jan 10


4.00
Paid ... Wm. W.

70

Postage
14


Carriage
50


Fare to Albany

25

Furniture m[]d

1.50

Stamps & money

20

Mothers fare

50

Camphor

20

Book binding


5.25
Change
25


Money

5.25

"
1.00


Hat
1.75



[right margin]
Board at Aunt May's - $3.00 | Paid I think it [ought] have been |


CASH ACCOUNT. FEBRUARY.

Received. Paid.

Fare to Cohoes

25
Postage
06

Money
10

Watch crystal

15
Pin mended

15
Money
15

"
3.00

"
1.00

"
16

Trunk at H.F.

20
Fare to N. Adams

70
" " Poultney

1.60
" " Ft Ti
1.20

" " Rutland

1.20
" " Ida's
45

" " Albany

3.20
Trunk at "

13
Prescriptions
85

Milk & Ferry [pass.] 27
Ruffs 08.


CASH ACCOUNT. MARCH.

Received.Paid.

Aunt Mary's bill _
Hack 50
Stamps 09
Telegrams 50
Lent mother 1.00
Whiskey 10
Meat 14
Lent me 05
Camphor 25 Pd
Lent Dan 25
closed



Postage &c

40
[Rhetine] postage

11
Cards
05

Note book

45
Box of paper

12
Money
25

Postage

06
Money
5.10

Postage

06


CASH ACCOUNT. APRIL.

Received.Paid.

Money
23

Book

1.12
Linen thread

25
Envelopes

05
Stamps
06

Books to Lettie

12
Vassar Misallany postage 03
Linen lawn 44
Dan's pants _(my share) 2.50
Mother's Christmas 3.00
Shaded floss 06
Forwarded letter 03
Mineral water 40
Postage 07


CASH ACCOUNT. MAY.

Received.Paid.

Jan. 1878_

Candy for the girls


30
Postage [on] candy


18
Postals &c

07

Block of paper

15

Postage
25


Medicine

1.00

Postage
06


- For "Dansville"

12.00 -

Envelopes

05

Postal cards

05

Stamps
03


Ruffs
10


For Dansville

15.00

Medicine

25



CASH ACCOUNT. JULY.

Received.Paid.

Mother's account


Money
18

"
Mineral water
Car fare
Medicine
45

11

80

45
Camphor
Shoes

1.00
50
Money from bank
11.00
00
Medicine
25



CASH ACCOUNT. AUGUST


CASH ACCOUNT. SEPTEMBER

Received.Paid.

Dr. Vanderveer.


Examination at office Feb. 20
Call _ 17 Westerlo St. " 21
"
"
"
"
"
24
"
42 S. Ferry
"
Mar. 1
"
"
"
"
"
6
"
"
"
"
"
12
"
"
"
"
"
13 Examination
"
"
"
"
"
17
"
"
"
"
"
22
"
"
"
"
"
30
"
"
"
"
Apr. 5
"
"
"
"
" 12
Office prescription " 19 (Jar[vie])
" " May 1
"
"
" 18
"
"
June 4
"
"
" 8
"
"
" 18
"
"
" 29
"
"
Aug. 21
By letter _ " 3


CASH ACCOUNT. OCTOBER

Received.Paid.

Dr. Vanderveer _
Call _ 2 Dallins St. Jan.23
Mother went to the office
twice _ Dan once _ up to
Feb_13_


CASH ACCOUNT. NOVEMBER.

Received.Paid.

Miss M. A. Hastings
35 Spring St
Hartford _ Conn.


Miss Naomi Taylor -
119 1/2 Vroom St.
Jersey City Heights

Mrs. Huldah Calkins
Alpha
Henry Co.
Ill.


CASH ACCOUNT. DECEMBER.

Received.Paid.

"It seems to us saddest of all that discord on the music fell and darkness on the story"
We can but be glad that now it is all made clear to her that her friends are dearer than ever
and that she is glad to be among us - [Named] softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken" -
Vassar Miscellany


SUMMARY OF CASH ACCOUNT

Received.Paid.

"The most sensitive are walled and padded with stupidity _ it is well it is so else it would be like hearing the grass grow
and the squirrels heartbeat and we should die of the woe that lies on the other side of silence"* George Eliot
From Laura's letter - Jan. 6.

"Jesus, thou present Savior
Thou hast known the depths of all sorrow! thou hast entered the black darkness where God is not, and hast uttered the
cry of the forsaken. Come Lord and gather of the fruits of thy travail and thy pleading stretch forth thine hand
thou who art mighty to save to the uttermost and rescue this lost one She is clothed


*from Middlemarch by George Eliot


MEMORANDA.

around with thick darkness the fetters of her sin are upon her and she cannot stir to come to thee: she can only feel that
her heart is hard and she is helpless. She cries to thee _ thy weak creature _.. Savior, it is a blind cry to thee Hear it!

Pierce the darkness| Look upon her with thy face of love and sorrow that thou didst turn on him who denied thee ; and
melt her hard heart. See Lord - bring her as they of old brought the sick and helpless, and thou didst heal them: I bear
her on my arms and carry her before thee. Fear and trembling have taken hold in her: but she trembles only at the pain
& death of the body: breathe upon her thy life-giving spirit, and put a new fear within - the fear of her sin. Make her
dread to keep the accursed thing within her soul: make her feel the presence of the living God who beholds all the past,
to whom the darkness is as noonday

Savior there is yet time _ time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting darkness.
I believe _ I believe in thy


MEMORANDA.

inifinite love. What is my love or my pleading? It is quenched in thine, I can only clasp her in my weak arms and urge
her with my weak pity _ Thou _ thou wilt breathe on the dead soul and it shall arise from the unanswering sleep of death

Yea, Lord, I see thee coming through the darkness coming, like the morning with healing on thy wings. The marks of
thy agony are upon thee _ I see. I see thou art able and willing to save _ thou wilt not let her perish forever.

Come mighty Savior! let the dead hear thy voice! let the eyes of the blind be opened! let her see that God encumpasses
her! let her tremble at nothing but at the sin that cuts her off from him. Melt the hard heart; unseal the closed lips; make
her cry with her whole soul, 'Father I have sinned'"

From Adam Bede -
May 8!


MEMORANDA.

'Dagmar.

The beautiful princess Dagmar
The "darling queen" lay dead
With lilies on her bosom
And roses round her head.

Cold and fair and silent
Upon her bier she lay
And weeping lords and gentlemen
Were bearing her away

1 When down the city causeway
4 The king came riding fast
2 Whereon the mourners passed
3 In bitter grief and raging woe

The dead heart in her bosom
Leapt up his voice to hear
The dead life opened softly
She rose upon the bier

Straight to her husband's smitten soul
A smile of Heaven she sent
A word of love and pleading
Then back to death she went.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

To die a double dying
Oh! fate be spared to me!
When death has kissed my eyelids
And life has set me free.

Thou, dearest, do not call me!
Do not utter a word;
Let not my peace be broken
My hard-worn slumber stirred.

Leave it for one Voice, dearer,
Dearer even than thine
When the resurrection morning
On Heaven and Earth shall shine


Mrs. O.S.F.Dart
1158 East Jersey St
Elizabeth, N.J.











To send its trumpet clangor
Thro' star, and sod, and sky
And call His dead, where'er their bed,
To the life that cannot die.
Rose Terry Cooke


1- 36732. H.
2- 36776
3- 36799
4- 36851
5- 36884 Bloat ...
6- 36945
7- 36951 - ... 8


46 (170 Elm St)


Huldah Wilbur.


At our house - Monday _ Jan 8.
Miss Emma Monk
Miss Susis Flagler
Miss E.L. Hastings
Miss Katie Doyle
Miss Mary Reilly
Miss Babe Reilly


[Handwritten note placed over advertisement for cornstarch]
J.W. [lehuslem]
77 University Place
New York


4
7' annie


Dear Sister,

Please commence my letter and write a little for me. It will take me so long to write it alone, and I want to send it
tomorrow, I won't call you names again for a long time,

Aggie


Of Vassar college, reports
Of the Vienna comet in the Con-
Us


Piano tuned by careful and
Leave your orders with Messrs
TIETZ at Mrs. Tietz's
Orders by [piano] [war]


Dear Miss Bromley

Please excuse for not returning earlier but I copied until supper then as it so bad walking Mrs N said John might take
it down as soon as he finishes supper _ I never


could make out an analysis like this _ It is awfully hard

- Jennie -

P.S. I am beginning to think that John had something better for his supper than we did --


Margaret E. Goble,
E. Munro,
Mary E. Munro,
Mary H. Beach,å
Edward L. Bisdee
Martha J. Robbins,


The latest arrivals in our village were Prof. Wight and wife of Williston seminary, Massachusetts, and their daughter
Allie of Wellesley female college, she having just passed her second year in that institution at Mrs. Branche's, Mr. and
Miss Knowlson of Sand Lake and Mrs. Satterlee of New York, at Mr. Jonas Adams; John Knowlson, M. D., and wife, at
John H. Langdon's; Charles Sherman from Yale college at C.S. Sherman's; Mrs. Benlah Moulton Morse at William
Moulton's; Mr. L. L. Stone, Boston, at REv. L. H. Stone's, and the Collins family from New York at the Bemoseen
house.


Centennial Horse Rake,
Drag Rakes, Hand Rakes, and hay forks
Atå
W. C. Landon's.

Geo. W. Chaplin, Jr.,
Dealer in
Unfading green and purple roofing slate