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Saturday July 24" 1886. Went down town this morning to engage our coal for the winter. I find I laid in more than was needed last fall (21 tons) We had at least five tons left this spring. When I came back I took my father to Kingston and drove across the bridge and around the road along the creek towards the toll gate on the Sawkill road. After dinner I picked about four quarts of cherries from the two trees just outside my place near my studio. I remember how impatient I was coming home from some absence one evening, at dear Gertrudes telling me she had bought four late cherry trees from Mr. Foster. I didnt know where to set them and put three of them over there and one in front of my fathers house down towards the woods. She paid Mr. Foster with a bill for more than the amount which he could not change and he never gave her back the change which was always a standing joke between us. I have picked a half bushel of cherries from one of these trees this year. Sara had on a piece of lace embroidery today which she said Gertrude worked. It always strikes me very strangely that the trifles one hands have wrought in frail and perishable materials should last after we are dust. I think if dear Gertrude had lived I would have been a much happier man. She was restful to my anxious, troublous nature and I lost my better self with her.- Lucy and Sedgwick came back from N.Y. this evening. I was to meet them at the 7.10 train and had just started for the station when I met them in front of Mrs. Andersons, having come in a fast train which arrived a little earlier. I have heard all sorts of stories latterly of the impurity of our Sawkill water. Mrs. Ned Tomkins with her sister called here this afternoon and told of snakes and dead fish and other awful things being found in the pipes and that no one will drink it. Now I shall have our well cleaned out on Monday and use that. Our board of health and our Common Council must take little oversight of public affairs I think to permit such a state of affairs.  

Sunday 25" It promised to rain and has been cloudy all day, but as yet no hot weather. I am unhappy and far from a healthy state of mind. I am trying to think of painting and getting interested in some plans for pictures but find it very difficult with so many things to constantly engage my attention. I wrote to Weir about his brother Verplancks death and a note to Mrs. Anderson. I am reading the life of Sir Joshua Reynolds and trying to strengthen my respect for the great men in Art of whom he was one, and he was greatly strengthened in his career by his veneration and study of the great masters, particularly Raphael and Michael Angelo and Titian. Sara and I called on the Cantines who returned Friday from a fortnights stay at East Hampton.

Monday 26" A showery day. Tom and Henry cleaned out the well taking them until the middle of the afternoon as there were twelve feet of water in it. They brought up tin cups, and sticks, a kerosene torch lamp and all the things children would be likely to throw in it, but looking very disgusting as I feared they might. I nailed on the slats and the door and tomorrow shall get a lock and fix it so that nothing can be thrown into it. We had very hard showers with thunder and lightning after dark and the air is close and we shall probably have more rain during the night. I worked a little while in my studio but did not do much. I am plodding on in a wearisome sort of way, hoping there may be some encouragement in the future and pretty sure there will be trials. I am taking great comfort in the life of Sir Joshua Reynolds and in his lofty and sincere devotion to his Art.

Tuesday 27" Went down town to do some errands. It rained a little. Received a letter from Frank Weeks inviting me to go to the Yellowstone