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Saturday, June 16" 1883.

I begin my new diary with a history of poor Maurice's last struggle. He had been writing all winter in the County Clerks office in Kingston at a good salary and had lived at home, occasionally giving Sara money and some of the time being companionable and helpful in the care of my mother. The work was about finished, I think entirely completed on Saturday June 2. We noticed that he had been drinking and two or three times he failed to come home to tea which he always did with great regularity. Sunday 3" he was at breakfast and he and Downing walked out towards the cemetery to try to see a strange bird he saw the day before (and which, we saw as we return from the cemetery yesterday) Shortly afterwards he disappeared and we saw nothing more of him until the following Monday afternoon (11") when Mrs Davis saw him stagger up to his room. The servant said he asked her to get him something to eat and she took him some bread and meat which however we found afterward he had not touched. Sara was up very early and went to his room and told him the girls need not wait upon him and that if he did not behave himself he would not be allowed to stay here, to which he made no reply, but must have gone off directly after Dr Smith found him Wednesday 13" afternoon at Anderson Jansens drug store corner of Union & Foxhall Av's, in a very alarming condition, and sitting there suffering great pain. He sent for a carriage to Patchin's and had him taken to Girards and they brought him over here, greatly against his wish. Girards wife who came over with him describes him as evidently in great pain, almost paralyzed and unable to express himself except that he did not want to go home and that they had deceived him telling him they would not take him home. Tom and the driver assisted him up stairs and Mary said it seemed such agony to him that she begged them to carry him, but he straightened up and said no, no, and cautioned them not to disturb his mother. They undressed him and put him in bed where he seemed to suffer less. Dr. Smith had come to see him and told Sara he was in a critical condition and cautioned her not to arouse him as he feared delirium. Poor Sara was awake all night here alone in the house, for I went to N.Y. that day, and kept watch of him leaving his door open and going to the stairs to listen at every noise she heard. She said the wind blew with a mournful sound 

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. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-05 17:21:27