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Thursday May 29, 1884, Barnums great show exhibited here today. Sivan the Children and I walked over to the place in Oreillys field just beyond our place and saw the procession start. They were at work in the night putting up the immense tents covering many acres. It was really a great affair and admirably organized. After they started we came home and I went down town to do some errands. There was an immense audience, I should say 25000 people and the performances were varied and interesting. The children were delighted. Mrs. Swan came up from N.Y. It has been a cold day, this meaning it was very cold so start a good fire felt comfortable. The circus gave another performance this evening and in the night will move off to Albany. It is like moving an army. Mr. Wilmarth sent me today three of Swedenborgs works. I wrote for the hooks for the pictures today. We are hindered in getting the house in order for the lack of them.

Friday 30 Decoration Day
This morning after breakfast Sara, Cousin Rachel & Mrs. Swan went over to the Cemetery with a quantity of flowers and decorated the graves of my mother, Gertrude, Maurice and Gussie. They had forgotten to make use of the little flags at Maurice's grave which marks the soldiers graves but I got one of the keepers and placed it. Many people were in the cemetery remembering their dead. Afterward we drove up to Kingston on some errands. I put up the flags in the morning as how Maurice did for the last time a year ago today. He did his last work on that day. Washed the wagon and harness and cleaned the horses and took Sara and Julia & Downing for a ride. We thought of all this today and of the sad days which followed until death released him while I was away in New York. After dinner I had the two horses harnessed and we drive to the cemetery taking my father with us, went all about it and then up to Kingston where we met Pratt Post with the [[?]] and the battle flag of the 120". We drove down with them to Rondout and back on the hill. They marched to the City Hall where their were to be rations music &c. This day is becoming more and more sacred and more generally observed. The sight of that flag thrilled me through and through and raised the memories of the war. It is a good thing to set apart one day in the year to remember the brave men who fought and died for a noble cause, and to keep green in our hearts the memories of our beloved dead. It was a cool day for these exercises and all the better for the men who had to march. This morning we noticed there had been a frost in the night which killed the potatoes, corn, cucumbers & tomato plants in our garden.- Annie Lee sent me a beautiful Easter Lily which she modeled in return I presume for a little picture I gave her several years ago. I received a letter from a Mr. Henry Gillman of Detroit wanting to get a small Autumn picture and asking my price. I wrote him this evening he could have the one in my studio (Autumn in Vermont 12x15) for $150 without frame.

Saturday 31. Busy about many things. We took the furniture out of the parlor and cleaned it but could not arrange it for lack of the hooks to hang the pictures. Mrs. Swan went back to N.Y. It has been warmer today. Many things in the garden are frozen. On Monday I destroyed a great many letters which had accumulated so that they were a great incumbrance. It cost me a pang but I thought it best to do it.

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