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to Mr. Crosbys gentlemans furnishing store and ordered two sets of under clothes. This afternoon I raised the gonfalon on the staff but the wind blew pretty hard from the N.W. and I left it up only a short time. I received a letter from Lamont Thompson dated Florence Nov. 5. Lang had sent him a Home Journal with a notice of Gertrudes death and he wrote me that but for the particularity of the details he could not have believed it. The letter was short but very expressive of his sorrow and sympathy. I felt that I would like to write to him and I have commenced it at once. It is the first letter I have received from him since he went away. Bel. Forsyth sent me some lines she had written on Gertrude, very nicely written indeed and very expressive of her sorrow. It was very kind of her and I appreciated it fully. This evening I have been looking over our writing desk and clearing it out. There were so many little reminders there of Gertrude in the shape of scraps from newspapers and various memoranda and little treasures that she had laid aside that I took the greatest satisfaction in looking them all over and reverently putting them away again just as I found them. It has been a solemn day of storms along the mountains, dark blue distances and sober landscapes, not sad but wistful and severe.
 
Sunday Nov. 24. 1878. This has been one of the loveliest of days, calm, bright and serene. Sara and I went to the Episcopal church. I do not think I am much in sympathy with the Episcopal service. I like more spontaneity in worship and a simpler form. Mr. Taylor is a good, kind, genial man but not much of a preacher. After church Sara and I walked over to the cemetery, but I cannot think of Gertrude there. She is everywhere in my daily life but not there. Joe Tubby and his wife and baby and his little daughter Ella came over and spent an hour or two. It was the twentieth anniversary of their marriage. They are a very happy and affectionate family and Joe said so naively "I think my wife is handsomer than she was twenty years ago." I have written long letters to Dr. Pelton and Emily Johnson, Calverts sister, to Mrs. Pychouska and Bel. Forsythe. Maurice had the gonfalon up today and it looked very prettily from below the hill and from the direction of the cemetery. 

Transcription Notes:
. gonfalon - heraldic flag