-- We shall probably have to class Henry George with the men of one idea -- or men with a hobby. It is to me, evidence of how narrow and limitted his judgement was, that he should have believed there was a panacea for the ills of modern society -- that he should have thought the disease so simple that the remedy could be named for it, and was within easy reach, -- or that he should have thought it a disease at all, instead of a crudeness, an immaturity. Go in the woods, in the fields, any where, and you see the same struggle the same injustice, the strong oppressing the weak, failure, defeat, starvation, imperfection, etc. Its the law of nature, and is as operative in societies as [crossed out: in] among plants and animals
There are two ways to abolish poverty, abolish inequality of talents and oppor-tunity, or run society on the plan of a hospital, or poor house, or penitentiary -- regulate every-thing and see to it that all share like and like 5 Like December; light snow from N.E. nearly all day, about one inch; breaking in P.M. 6; Down to 19 this morning and clear. A winter landscape.
7.
A little milder and clear.

8.
A few degrees of frost last night. Clear to-day. Good sap day. Spring seems picking herself up again after being so rudely knocked down by winter.


-- How much more youthful and sentimental and unsophisticated the country was 40 years ago than it is to-day. Think of the popular songs then in vogue -- "Old Dog Tray", "Willie we have missed you" and the many negro melodies Since the War there have been no negro melodies. Life is too serious a matter now with our colored bretheren. The heart of the country is hardening. We have more business, more science then 40 years ago, but less soul and senti-ment.
-- Literary or artistic truth appeals to the taste and the imagina-tion, religious truth appeals to the religious sense, scientific truth appeals to the reason and understanding. Emerson appeals
to the two first. Huxley to the first and third. There are others who appeal to that rather indefinite or hard to define, sense called the intelligence.
11. Cloudy nearly all day with sprinkles of rain. Drive to P. to exchange the horse. I do not forget that 44 years ago to.day I began my first school.
12 Frost last night but clear and lovely this morning. Water thrush and chippie and bush sparrow yesterday.
14 Warmer -- above 70 yesterday. Still. Cloudy, warm this morning. Shad tree and spice bush just blooming. Sowing the onions to-day. 15 Raining. Go to P. to speak at High School in P.M. and before teachers at night. More rain at night. Julian comes home at 9 P.M. 16 Clearing off and warmer. Reach home on 10:16 train and rejoiced to see Julian.
17 Warm fine day. Julian brings the Primus stove over to Slabsides. Spend the day here, and very happy. 18 Julian and I row up Black Creek. A bright day and cool. J. shoots two ducks; one disappears under the water and we lose him. Eat our lunch at the old mound.
A rare and happy day. We return to Slabsides at 6. Find all the early flowers in bloom.
19 Cloudy and cold with spits of snow and rain and hail.
21 Julian and I again row up Black Creek [crossed out: to the] and up into the inlet of the pond. J. fires at some ducks but misses them; to many brush. A raw windy day but a happy one. 22d Warmer. Mr and Mrsd Booth and Mrs Patten up to Weuns Spend part of the day with them. 23d Warm, Cloudy, threatening rain. Expected company from Vassar do not come. 24 Heavy rain last night and this morning; probably 1 1/2 inches. Julian leaves on 10.16 train. Looks well and happy.
Come, come, do not be sad over it.
-- Ed came down Wednesday and is "doing off" a room [crossed out: f] a guest chamber -- up stairs. Ed adds much to our company.
April [crossed out: h] so far has been cold and sour. I have not got much out of it -- yet it brought me Julian for a whole week; is not that enough?
Cherry trees in bloom for a day or two.
25. Rain contintues, cold and nasty from the north. The whipporwill Saturday morning, the 23d
26 The miserable rain continues -- rained slowly all night, and still raining with prospects of continuing all day. One of those streaks of weather that make one want to flog the weather gods. Cold, wind N.E.
27 Partly clear and a little warmer.
28. Cold N.E. wind continues with dense clouds. 1 P.M. began hailing and raining and continued heavy till sun down. Cold. Cold. 29 Still cold and cloudy from N.E. Storm probably spent. Ed returns to-day 30 A lovely day at last, clear and warm -- above 70. Worthy of April. All day in the woods. May 1st Still fine and warm. Lowne and I row up black Creek. Worthy of May.
2d Cooler with slow rain. Hiram sick. Great news from our fleet at Manill. 6 Rain and cloud confined till this morning. Nearly clear and much colder [crossed out: this] now. Hiram better.
-- Some men wield their talent like a tool, [crossed out: like] as the woodsman his axe, or the fencer his sword. They are always equal, they are always effective. With others again their talent is more a part of themselves like their hand, or eye or ear. What they achieve is more a direct outcome of their character. They sustain [crossed out: an] a more intimate relation to it. Their life blood is in it.
13. Much rain and cloud the past week. But little sunshine. Heavy thunder shower last night or series of showers.
Clears up this morning. A fine day at last. Hiram starts for Hobart. Orchards in bloom. I go down to Rogers to lunch.
14 Cool night. Bright and lovely to-day.
15. The damnable rains upon us again; rained slowly all day.
16 Still raining. Oh for a chance to flog these drunken weather gods! 17 Cleared off in the night after a slow rain nearly all day. Very bright and fresh and lovely this morning. Wind N.W. 18 Cool night, -- fine day.
The chestnut sided warbler seems to say, "we, we, we, wee-sir," or is it, "cre-cre-cre creature?"
19. Shower in morning, very warm. Series of showers at night very heavy with much thunder. Mrs Hall and Mrs Segue here
20 Bright after the heavy rain warm 82.
21 Still warm with some cloud. 22 Cloudy 23 Rain nearly all day but not heavy. 24 Warm, muggy, cloudy, with showers in afternoon. This weather is enough to kill one.
25. Rain nearly all night and again this morning till 9 o'clock. Gleams of sunshine in P.M.
26 Still cloud and rain from the North now. No matter where the wind is the rain is sure to come. I have seen heavier rain but never so persistent in May. Every storm lasts three or four days. This is the fifth day of cloud and rain this week, and no signs of clearing
27 More and more, harder and harder, nearly as bad as last July; more cloud, but rainfall not so sudden and heavy. Rained all last night and all yesterday afternoon. Ditches full this morning; water, water everywhere. Came from N.E. Since one week ago the wind has been in every quarter and brought rain from all. No change of wind, or temperature or moon makes any difference; the rain comes, a hell of rain. The rainly season over due in Cuba and Jamaica has apparently drifted North. Paper reports another depression due to-night or to-morrow.
30 Sunshine Saturday afternoon. Cloudy again yesterday with light rain. Clearing and warm to-day. May be the wet spell is broken. How long before we will be cursing the dry weather gods?
31. Lovely day. Go to N.Y. to Whitman dinner.
June 1st Lovely day and warm.
2d
3d Some cloud and a little cooler.
4 Fine and warm
5
6 light shower. at 4 P.M.
7 Hot, 88.
8 light shower at night.
9
10
11
12 light thunder showers nearly all night, very little rain, mercury 89 today.
13 Hot, (89). Hiram again groaning with ague.
Heavy shower in P.M. over an inch of water 17 Fine weather. Johnson came to-night
18 Windy; we go fishing.
19 Heavy shower in afternoon 20 Clear and cooler; lovely day.
21. Rain nearly all night without thunder from S.W. Cool this morning with signs of clearing Rain again this afternoon, but not heavy. 22 Fine day. 23 do. Warm. 24 Miss Emerson comes to-day 25 Hot, we all go to muck swamp to see the cyps. 26 Hot and fine. 27 hot 28, 29, 30, All hot days, above 90. July 1st Hot -- 94
2d 92. 3 Very hot 100 at S.S from 12 o'clock to 4; dry, air like the breath of a furnace. The hottest day I have ever seen here. Our boys in Cuba fighting in
much greater heat. My thoughts run that way constantly.
Rain needed. I fear a drouth. Now at 5 P.M. Mercury stands at 98. 4 A little cooler 92 and 94. I spend the day at Slabsides. The Taylors come over. Clear and dry. In evening Julian and I go down to Taylors. A walk in the cool moonlight at 12.
5 Much cooler; and dry. 6 The destruction of the Spanish Fleet is the one thought and makes every body rejoice.
7. Cool night; bright and dry to-day and getting warmer. Hiram was here yesterday and day before.
10 Cool and dry.
11 Monday, Julian and I start for Roxbury. A cool bright day Reach home at 5 P.M. All well and in the midst of the haying. A large and excellent crop of hay. Drought not so severe here as on the Hudson. How pure fresh and sweet the air and fields seem! Very cool at night, a little frost reported. Curtis and his family unchanged.
13. Signs of a N.E. rain; very heavy clouds with long crooked keels sweep over the mountains from the east, presenting a very singular appearance. In one case a vast mass of vapor is spun off across an open spot to another mass like flax from a distaff. A sprinkle but no rain. In P.M. clouds slacken their speed and grow thin [crossed out: at sun] the sky comes out at sunset they flush and all signs of rain vanish.
14 Much warmer. The storm turns out to have been heavy along the coast and in lower Hudson. A singular storm; wind seemed to come from storm centre. It blew in from the ocean. I fancied the storm was west of us, but it was east contrary to the general law of storms. The clouds shot out from the sea over the land and seemed to lose their rain before they crossed the Catskills. As the day advanced they seemed to lose their impulse and gradually failed. What drove them at such speed from the storm center? I remember nothing like it.
15 Clear and warm. A hot night last night.
16 Warm, tranquil, dry summer days; ideal hay weather. A large crop of best quality of hay is
being gathered on this farm and on all other farms in this town. To day the boys are mowing and drawing over on the other place.
I learned of the surrender of Santiago yesterday. Walked down to the station for a paper.
19 Light shower yesterday and again last night -- relieves the tension of the drought somewhat -- very warm for this altitude. -- A nest of young robins in the maple in front being fed by chipping sparrow. The little sparrow is very attentive -.seems very fond of her adopted babies. The old robins resent her services and hustle her out of the tree whenever they find her near the nest. She watches her chances and comes with food in their absense. The young birds are about ready to fly and when the chippie feeds them her head fairly disappears in their capacious mouths.
She jerks it back as if she were afraid of being swallowed. Then she lingers near them on the edge of the nest and seems to admire them. When she sees the old robin coming, she spreads her wings in an attitude of defense and then flies away. I wonder if she has had the experience of raising a cow bunting?
20 The robins are out of their nests and little chippie continues to feed them. She approaches them rather timidly and hesitatingly as if she feared they might swallow her; then thrusts [crossed out: ???] her tid bit quickly into the distended mouth and jerks back.
Still hot for this climate. Hiram came up yesterday.
It is the afternoon of a hot day of mid summer; the midsummer ripeness and tranquility are in the air. I sit from three to four with my back against a moss covered rock or ledge between two springs at the edge of the woods that cover the mountain where I look down upon a broad sun light land-scape many miles in extent. I can see the hay makers at work on nearly a dozen different farms. With my glass I can see a woman apparently raking after the load in a meadow in Mont-gomery Hollow 4 miles away. At my feet about 50 rods below me the boys are at work in one of the home meadows. Ed and By are drawing. By swearing and jawing at his horses incessantly "God damn you, you are old enough to know better than that Get up there, you lazy old Cuss, there is where I want you to go." etc. Julian and Curtis are "heaping up". J with only his shoes, hat, and short rowing pants on. I shout to him this choice bit from Emerson:
"Little thinks you [crossed out: assed] bare legged clown Of me from the hill top looking down."
Several times I take a drink from the spring near me where I often drank as a boy. How cold and sweet it is. By and by Olly appears with lemonade for the thirsty men. I see her hand the pail up to By and Ed on the hay rigging, as they back the team out of the barn. Then she comes to the meadow and serves Julian and Curtis. Her red dress, big straw hat and tin pail make a bright bit of color in the landscape. I hear the rattle of Johnnys horse rake, where, in the other meadow he gathers to-gether what the fork has left. I hear old Wilder barking loud and long some-where below me; he probably has as a wood chuck in the wall. Julian and Curtis finish the heaping up, when J [crossed out: goes] starts for the field around the old house where Johnny is now raking. Presently I see him with all the dogs about him working in an old stone row under a tree. He is after the wood chuck that "Wilder" [crossed out: had] has been baying so long, my glass brings him and the dogs near. He looks more than half nude. I hear stones rattle and see him at work removing them. Presently Nip sets up a fierce barking and I know he can see the "chuck". He fairly spreads in his ex-citement. I can see a white spot where [crossed out: his] I know his rear end protrudes from the [crossed out: ???] cavity in the stone wall. The other dogs move about and leap from side to side of the fence. Once they fall to fighting when Julian parts them. Evidently there is great rivalry and excitement among them. Momentarily I expect to see Nip or T??? or Cuff or Wilder drag forth the chuck but he does not appear, and after a long delay J. abandons the hunt and returns with his fork to the hay field. He shouts to me that [crossed out: the] he has not more time to fool with the chuck, he is too deep in the wall. I take another turn at the spring and start across the hill for the house.
21 Another very hot day. Again I sit on the hill side under the woods and look down upon the hay makers as I did yesterday. Great cloud shadows drift slowly over the land
scape and up the mountain sides. The rock is cool at my back; the cooler air of the mountain flows down upon me; it pours upon my uncovered head [crossed out: like] in a gentle current. The dogs find a wood chuck in the ledge near by. Nip goes far in out of sight and barks fiercely. I see the chuck in a crack on the rocks and try to dislodge him with a pole, but he keeps out of reach of the dog. The indigo bird, the vireo and the bush sparrow sing here and there. The spring at which I drink does not seem as cold as in my youth. Ice-water and various iced things sophisticate ones taste.
26 A rainy morning at the old home after three weeks of drought. Began in the night, heavy at times. The mountains are all blotted out as I so often have seen them, fog clings here and there to their sides and top and to the lower land scape, the rain pours steadily, the trees stand motionless. The boys are in the wag[crossed out: g]on-house talking and chaffing [crossed out: each] one another, or lounging upon the hay. An inch or more of rain has fallen and still it comes down. The barns look wet, the road full of puddles and coursing runlets. The thirsty ground takes it and it tastes good. I know it does. I read Scott, or lounge about or loaf with the boys.
10 A.M. Rain over apparently. A good dose at a good time.
A little sparrow here has 4 different songs, one of them suggests the words, come, come, come, don't you wish you were me-e-e? with rising inflection. I hear and see the bobolinks in the meadow, old and young in groups or small flocks, getting ready to migrate. No song now, only "pink", pink."
28 Another gentle rain early this morning 3 or 4 hours. Very warm, another heated term.
30 Curtis and I drive over to Edens. Find him nearly all well again. Hot weather.
31. Hot. After dinner we drive to Homer Lynch's. Homer very feeble. Can hardly understand what he says. He shakes like an aspen leaf. Cannot get up out of his chair. Says he has no desire to live longer. Jane well and getting stouter each year. A sad house no help on the farm. Jane has a terrible hard lot, not a gleam of sunshine in her life [crossed oug: as] that I can see. Yet she does not com-plain. Oh, how I pity her and Homer too. [crossed out: We left]
Aug 1st We leave for home this morning, Jane is weeping and Homer, too. A sadder house I never saw. Hot and sticky weather.
2d Julian and I return home to-day. On the boat coming down from Rondout a little girl, 6 or
7 years old seemed attracted by me. My glasses interested her, and she took great pleasure in looking through them. She was the daughter of a travelling showman and with her father was going to "New Gipsy" which I found out meant Po'keepsie. There was something very pleasing about her and her frank childish ways. She hesitated a little in her speech, said her home was in Chicago, she said she was hungry, and every time the pilot signalled to the engineer she thought it was the dinner bell. Had I had dinner? Yes. It fairly made her mouth water. Was there no dining room on the boat? No, but she went to look for one. When we were about to leave the boat she said she wished she was going home with me.
Aug 2 and 3d Very hot and murky
4 A terrific thunder shower
last night about midnight. A tropical tempest. Incessant lightning and thunder [crossed out: ???] crash and peal. A tremendous fall of rain 1 1/2 inch. Washed the vineyard badly in places. Nearly clear to-day, with prospects of cooler weather.
5 Cooler weather did not come, but more rain and thunder. A brink shower at 6; then rain from 11 till morning. An inch and 1/2 of water last night. Wind N.W. this morning and clearing and cooler.
7 Hot and sultry.
8 with sharp, [crossed out: viscious] vicious shower at 5.
9 Cloudy and sultry, but cooler at night.
10 Cooler with slow rain. -- There is no such thing as chance in the world, all events are determined by law. But with reference to my will and purpose there is chance. If I cast a stone in the dark, so far as my will is concerned, it is a matter of chance where it strikes. I may chance to be on the train when there is a smash up; inexorable law control[crossed out: l]s the event and brought me there, but to my will and conscious purpose, it is a matter of chance. Where the seed born by yonder floating thistle.down will fall, is not a matter of chance. If we could see all the forces that act upon it and will act upon it, we could tell accurately where it will lodge. What seems chance to us is the result of our ignorance and impotence.
17. Still warm and sultry, with lucid intervals now and then A brisk thunder shower last night at 6 1/2 -- One must work at his [crossed out: paper] essay till it is ripe -- till all stress, stiffness, formality, are worked out of it, and ease, and a kind of indifference take their place, [crossed out: so that he] and he makes his point without seeming to aim to. This is mastery -- to do a difficult thing with ease and with reserve strength.
19 The rotten weather continues, rain every day, tho, not heavy, but the air reeks with moisture all the time and the least exertion starts copious perspiration. The very ground will rot by and by. How mushrooms and mildews do flourish. Yet the grape rot seems about over; not serious in my vineyards, but very destructive in many others.
Rained till noon and then broke away
20. Clear and much cooler. How long will it last? Hiram returned Thursday, the 18th.
No echo of the war in my journal, yet what an absorbed spectator of it I have been, and now that it is ended I feel a great strain taken off me. I no longer rush for the news paper in the morning, nor tarry impatiently at the station for it at night. I shared the popular feeling about it and wanted to see Spain kicked out of the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish blight and mildew have rested upon those fair islands long enough. If the races there are not worthy of liberty and self-government we will put a race there that is. What a brilliant spot the war has made in our recent hum-drum history. Out of a corrupt mammonish time, given over to millionaireism, emerge these heroes, plenty of them, vying with [crossed out: each] one an other, courting death as a bride. How their example has electrified the whole country, and fused us and made us more completely one. It makes us realize that we are a country, it has begotten an enthusiasm of nationality; henceforth we are a worthier and a nobler people. This heroism at Santiago is enough the leaven the whole lump.
Oh, war, so cruel, so mad, so destruc-tive, yet how can a nation be knitted and compacted and expanded without thee! It is like the heat that helps make iron into steel. It transforms the baser metals. So selfish and yet so unselfish! It is the plow and harrow of God. It tears and destroys, yet a quicker, fuller life follows. A battle between men is brutal; a battle between nations is often divine -- not from the personal point of view, but from the point of view of history. Spain will ultimately be better for this war as well as this Country. "He maketh the wrath of man to praise him." -- A chimney swift just now came down my chimney with its beak stuffed with food for its young, and was caught by me It held a large wad or mass, as large as large as a small chestnut, of flies, house flies, and larger flies, some of which were still alive, and other insects more ma[crossed out: s]cerated, in its lower mandible. Thiss mass gave a stuffed and distended appearance to its throat. As I tried to [crossed out: oppe] open its beak, it [crossed out: disgor] ejected this mass and I let it fly away. I wonder how soon it will be back. I hear [crossed out: the] already the impatient chippering of its nearly fleged young. These fell down my chimney last night at 2 o'clock, and set up such a squeaking and chattering that I was compelled to get up and put them up in the throat of the chimney and then stop it up with news papers. The mother bird in her haste or carelessness in some way fell down through or between these papers.
24 Hot wave began Monday. 94 to-day on my porch and air loaded with moisture. Thunder shower last night, two of them. Another to-night nearly an inch of water both nights. A season prodigal of heat and rain. How long oh Lord, or Devil, will it last?
Saw vinyards all ragged with grape rot [crossed out: ye] to-day near Highland. -- It seems to me in vain for Tolstoi to combat the idea that pleasure, [crossed out: wor] worthy pleasure is the aim or effect of art. Unworthy pleasure, like that aimed at by much French literature -- no. To convey what one has really felt and experienced to others, that is a pleasure, worthy if the feeling is worthy, if not, then not. But the art is in the manner, not in the matter(?)
28. Very cold last night -- down to 50 this morning. Clear and bright. Only a little rain since the 24th. Hiram and Ed topping the onions yesterday. -- Denton told me again of his adven-ture with a weasel. He was passing along the road early one morning between Highland falls and West Point, when he heard something squealing just over the wall by the road side. In a moment a rat came hastily over the wall and in hot pursuit a weasel. The weasel overtook and seized the rat before it reached the wall on the other side. Denton with his cane rushed to the rescue of the rat. He struck at the weasel several times and was dodged. Then the animal dropped the rat and turned upon him, jump-ing up before him nearly on a level with his face and within reach of his cane, its eyes gleaming fiercely. He struck at it repeatedly and was each time avoided. Denton seems chiefly to remember how the little [crossed out: fierce a] murderous eyes danced and twinkled and shone in his very face and he could not strike the owner of them. He began to back off. Then the weasel seized the rat again. Then D. tried stoning it, but each time the weasel dodged the missil. Presently a soldier joined him, and they both stoned it, and finally hit it and mad it loosen its hold upon the rat. It took refuge in the wall and thrust its head out at them and dodged every stone they threw.
Sept. 1 Terrific heat all over the country -- began two days ago. Hottest 1st of Sept. ever known in N.Y. 107 at Herald office -- returned soldiers prostrated. Hiram and Charley topping onions. On the shady side of a stake stuck in the muck near them, mercury marked 102. On the porch 96. Clear, calm. This will be remembered as the hot summer -- the hottest three months I remember in this latitude. In the vineyard the grape cutters nearly melt. At night my eyes are inflamed by the sweat -- and not cool wave yet in sight.
2d The day begins as hot or hotter than yesterday. Shower at night.
4 Still in the nineties, abortive showers in afternoon. The clouds rotted in the sky. Great electric display at night.
7. Still hot, but the heated term is slowly wearing itself out. Mercury keeps well up in the eighties. Brief shower last night, with much lightning. Muggy to-day with [crossed out: si] increaseing signs of more showers. P.M. Heavy shower -- 2 inches of water -- rained half the afternoon.
8 Clearing and much cooler.
9 Bright and cool; felt like frost last night.
17 Warm and dry for the past few days. Finish most of the grapes to-day -- about 28 tons. Mercury 86 to-day.
18 Hot and dry.
19 A little cooler and dry.
20 Clear, cool, dry smoky
Julian starts for Harvard again to-day. Again I wheel his trunk over to the station, filled with the old sad thoughts and retrospections. He is not very well and this too troubles me. How well that children think less of their parents than parents of their children. If it were not so sons and daughters would never leave home, families would never break up and scatter as Nature meant they should. The old cry to the young, "Oh, do not leave me!" But the young are full of hope and courage, and the future and not the past sways them. Until[crossed out: l] they have become parents themselves, and tasted the pathos of life, do the [crossed out: yo] children know how their parents suffer.
22.
To Asbury Park to-day., Wife and I. Reach there at 7 P.M. Heavy rain at night.

23.
Mild bright weather. The untiring sea, how it draws me. I spend most of my time upon the beach.


29 One week by the sea; weather superb most of the time. I gain 4 pounds in 5 days; then bathe once in the surf and lose one pound. How
I eat and sleep! The sea is as kind and medicinal to me as of old.
30 Back home to-day. Weather warm and fine. Oct 1st Pretty hot, above 80. 2d Bright and warm. 4 Still summer heat. 84 to-day. Wind S.W. 5 Heavy rain last night, over an inch of water. Still hot and sultry this morning with signs of more rain. 8 Slow rain to-day. 9 Bright and cool. 12 Mild weather continues. Fine rain last night in the middle of the night. Bright and warm this morning
15. Pretty heavy rain last night. Windy and colder to-day. Go to West Point and see the foot-ball game. Cold and wind.
Pass the night at Dentons. 16 Sharp and windy. A long walk, Stay in P. with Mrs B. 17 Home to-day. Clear and sharp. Our first considerable frost last night. 18 Milder with signs of appraching storm. A gloomy day to me. Headache in afternoon. Boys working ditching the
swamp. I burn brush. In evening Hiram and I sit before the fire, with long periods of silence as usual. Hiram soon to
leave me for Del. Co.
19. Cloudy, with light rain. A bad night -- headache. Woods getting yellow -- but little orange and crimson yet
22. Rain last nght, about 1 inch. Mild to-day, 66. Clearing off cooler in afternoon. Forests all all golden now, with touches of orange and crimson. Katy dids last night.
25. Bright golden day. Hiram leaves me to-day and goes back to Del. co to stay. As I help him on the 10 o'clock train with his bundles, Lolita Gill and Mrs Strong get off to spend the day with me. It pained me to see Hiram go. Nearly three years has he been with me -- a fragment of the old home. Shall I see him no more coming along the road here? [crossed out: h] or hear his hammer no more in my shop?
Spend the evening in P. to attend the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr and Mrs Combs -- Both 82 years old and well and hearty. Especially the woman. She looks about 70. The woman outlasts the man on this home stretch. The change brought about by old age is not so great in the case of the woman as in that of the man. The current of her life goes on nearly the same. She sews and knits and helps about the house. She has always been in doors and she does not pine. But with the man the chane is more radical. He is done with active life, he keeps in-doors, he pines, he rusts, he is useless, and he dies before the woman. Mainly, I think because of this greater change.
26 Rain to-day and all night. Warm 27 Clearing to-day with wind and falling temperature. Miss Segue and Miss Haviland here. 28 Quite a severe frost last night.
29.
Cloudy. Mrs B. returns to-day from P. gone 17 days. Prof. Bracq and wife and the Gordon girls here in the after.noon.

30.
Cold slow rain. Stayed at Riverby last night for the first.

31.
I make my last entry in this [crossed out: journal] month to record the death of my beloved dog Nip, which occured yesterday afternoon at 4.40 by falling through the high R.R. bridge over black creek. We went on a walk up the track as we have done a hundred times, I stopped at this end of the bridge to look down upon the creek. Nip passed over. I heard a train coming [crossed out: up] down the track and called the dog back. He came to near the end when he paused and in some way, his hind feet slipped off the tie and he fell through before my eyes. He struck heavily on soft ground, got up and ran crying a few yards, and fell in his death agony. When I got to him he had ceased to breathe. It was one of the worst shocks I ever had, and quite stunned me For a moment the whole universe


seemed bereft and my whole outlook upon life changed. I laid his limp body beside the abutment of the bridge and came home in the twilight to pass a sleepless night. When I was not thinking of him I was dreaming of him. I dreamed of sending two girls for his body with a pole to chile they were to tie it. I got the strings and pole for them. Then I dreamed the R.R. men had buried him and had shot him before doing so. Mrs B. guided me to the spot in the road, and I dug him up.
This morning I brought him over here in a basket and laid him down once more beside the fire, that my eyes might behold him [crossed out: once more] again in his old place. What a conterfeit of sleep.
I did not know I loved the dog so. Now Hiram is gone, he was my only companion. I shall bury him here near Slabsides -- almost a part of myself.