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190

The Democracy in the form of a lot of boys are out on the Common just astride our grounds firing a cannon over the nomination of Genl. Hancock for president and making night [[hideous?]] I wonder if people are always to continue to be fools. I dread this political campaign and wish some common sense could enter into these affairs. The chief requisite seems to be noise. 

Saturday June 26" 1880. Henry came this morning and cut out some of the tree tops on the side hill to open the view which had closed up very much. We improved it very much but owing to the great heat and the difficulty of getting to the tops of the trees had to abandon it before doing all I wished to. Painted my binders boards for the last time. I am very lonely, discontented and unhappy. I cannot work and do not know what to do to pass the time. The moment I am unoccupied I am unhappy and it seems so difficult to keep occupied in any thing I want to do. I miss dear Gertrude constantly and cannot but think of her and grieve for her all the time. I see other men get accustomed to the loss of their wives, but it begins to seem to me I never will. I am lost without her constant love and interest which I always felt about me and the earth is a desert without her sweet and intelligent companionship. I do not know what to do. It seems to me that if I could know that I could go to her it would solve every thing. 

Sunday 27. Very hot weather. Sara making her final preparations to leave tomorrow. I cannot bear to think of her going for we shall miss her very much. She and I walked over to the cemetery after tea. The daisies I placed on dear Gertrudes grave [[strikethrough]] were [[/strikethrough]] last Monday were still quite fresh. Dear, darling Gertrude. I have been reading some of her letters today. In one of them from College Hill she speaks of Mrs. Bissell and her loneliness and sadness and she says that if I should die and leave her she is sure she could not live without me. Dear loving heart - I wonder if she is conscious of my grief for her. I wonder if she can know how sad the world is without her. No one was ever more tenderly and devotedly beloved than I was and I do not think she could have endured my loss. It is easier that she went first. I often think of going to her with a feeling of longing