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with a long letter to Weir. Received a charming letter from Booth one of the best he ever wrote me.

Tuesday Aug. 19. 1879. One of the loveliest of days, cool and delightful with the wind from the N.W. and the color of the landscape as rich and full as I have seldom seen it. Busied myself in making a box in which to pack dear Gertrudes things which her mother is to take. How sad it has been to handle them all over and to think they are to be put out of my sight. Mr & Mrs. Sawyer went over to my house with me. I knew that they were remembering the days when we were there and they visited us, for both of them were visibly affected. My furniture came up from N.Y. and with it my curtains which Mrs. Sawyer is turning for me when they will be very pretty and like new. Have been over at my house the most of the day and opened it to let it dry. Towards evening Mr & Mrs. Sawyer, Mrs. Davis, Sara and I went to the cemetery. I cut the grass on Gertrudes grave and Sara placed fresh flowers on it although the petunias are blooming profusely and look very pretty. She was so great a lover of flowers that I always associate them with her. A brief note from Church. Gertrude and I took a charming ride a year ago today after the Booths left. It was just such a day. Wrote to Gifford

Wednesday 20. Another beautiful day. I was over at my house preparing some canvas to take to Maine and doing many things. I opened the house and let the sun shine in. This afternoon painted a little on Gertrudes portrait and improved it. Mrs. Sawyer has been turning the curtains that I had in our parlor and they are very pretty, yellow where they were blue before and as fresh as new. Wrote to Pell. My father is not at all well and it always troubles me when he is ailing. Here is a song I wrote last year and finished a few days ago. I sent it to Booth when I wrote him last.

Song of the Wilderness

Where the caribou roam,
Where the waters foam
round the otters home
And morning glows.
Thro purple and rose
on Katahdins snows,
In my loneliness
In the soft caress
of the Wilderness
Voice shalt thou be
of the absent to me
Old friend T.D.

Where the birch glides,
Where the wood=chuck rides
On the answering tides
Where thro' misty miles
Willinoket smiles
To her hundred isles

While a touch I keep,
On my sorrows sleep,
Lest it wake to weep,
In my liberty
I am slave to thee
Best friend T. D.

In the stormy night
By the fading light
Of the camp=fire bright
When memory clings
In her wanderings
To vanished things
And the faded gold
Which her hands unfold
To my dreams is told
Then comfort me
My solace be
Last friend T.D.