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16

I wrote to Alice and to Miss Nesmith. The summer is almost gone and an autumnal feeling is in the air. We have had no rain in some time and the grass is dying and the weeds ripening. The birds have disappeared. The little "chippies" for whom we scattered crumbs in front of the house my father says have not been seen for a week past. I keep thinking of my dear Gertrude constantly and thoughts of her color all the days. I want to get to work again as soon as I can for it is only then that I am happy.

Friday Aug. 31. 1883. The last day of summer has gone. So short it has seemed that we hardly seem to have had summer, the weather having been so uniformly cool. Julia and Harry Donaldson left for N. Y. by 11 oclock train. Sara came home from High Falls and with her came Miss Pierce and Miss Delay two ladies who have been sketching at High Falls all summer, to see my studies. I was at work over in my outside studio mending my old tent which I made to go to the Adirondacs [[Adirondacks]] with in 1852. I came over and saw them showed them my sketches and looked at some of Miss Pierce's which she wanted me to criticise. After they left I went back and finished my work. Downing and I would have gone to Mink Hollow today to explore but my boil or carbuncle is developing and becoming troublesome and that will have to be delayed indefinitely. Wrote to Jake Sharpe and also to Stedman who has failed again in business.

Saturday September 1" 1883.

My boil or carbuncle, I can hardly tell which it is begins to inconvenience me, and I have done very little. Have begun a letter to Booth. The weather is dry and melancholy to me. Nothing so dispiriting as a drought. The summer is gone. I am appalled when I stop to think how time flies and saddened to reflect how little I accomplish

Sunday 2. There is little to record when one has a boil. Mine seems to have culminated but I had to retire early because it troubled me greatly. John and Nannie came up. Finished my letter to Booth and wrote to Eastman and to Calvert.

Monday 3. Went down town this forenoon and had my hair cut and did various errands. My boil is painful when I move about. Downing and I hoped we could get off tomorrow but I fear I shall not be able to walk. Cousin Rachel left this morning by the Powell.

Tuesday 4. Downing and I drove out to Mink Hollow today through Woodstock, Bearsville and Lake Hill. We left home at 10 o'clock and reached there about 19 miles at 3.30 having stopped one hour to feed our horse. We drove through clouds of dust the wind being with us and the road rough and as dry as ash beds. We stopped at Rufus Wilbers at the Steam Mill 

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