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Monday Aug 16" 1886. Sara went out to visit Jannette Holland and her sister Emily this morning. I walked down with her and went over the ferry and put her on the train, the West Shore trains not making connection with the train from Utica to Waterville. Sara needs rest and recreation and I hope she will find it there as I think she will. I stopped at the bank and paid my note of $300 I was obliged to have discounted in May. I also pd Tom today and now my bank account is alarmingly low and with a family of ten to provide for most of the time. It frightens me but there is no use repining. I am going to N.Y. tomorrow for my sketches and studies and hope to be able to get to work producing something in my studio here. I am occasionally reading in Amiel's Journal. His lack of will and his dread of acting and deciding I recognize in myself, a frightful dread of responsibility except in certain directions. It has been grey & cloudy and this evening it rained copiously. [[left margin ]] Grey and cool with rain [[/left margin]]

Tuesday 17". The North wind blew this morning and the air was cool and brilliant. Calvert and I went to N.Y. and Andrews and Jamie to West Point. I went directly to my room and selected a lot of my studies, and got a box and packed them up and ordered them sent by express. Then I went around to see Wilmart about my Detroit picture but he was not in. Evidently it had not arrived there but may have been sent directly to Louisville. Went to the Vienna Restaurant and got my dinner. After I had finished discovered that I had broken a great piece from one of my back teeth to my great chagrin. Having a little time on my hands I strolled down Broadway and on my return met Calvert who was on his way to see Mr. Green about the money Tilden still owed him for work on his Grammercy [[Gramercy]] Park house. He looked jaded and worried and felt how uncertain it was when he would get his money. I returned to my room for a couple of canvases to take with me and went up to the 3.45 train reaching home at 6.25. I am thankful I do not have to stay in town. My room looked forbidding and forlorn and it gave me a homesick feeling to think of going back there. It is a different place to me now that my bed room is taken away and Mrs. Winter is no longer there, and I feel my tenure very slight there. I thought sadly of dear Gertrude there and of our life in that place where we had many anxieties indeed but all softened and tempered by mutual love and helpfulness. I came across a sketch made many years ago in the Close in which I painted her and little "Penny" the dog sitting beside her. I noticed the leaves are changing a little in places and the year seems on the wane. The little "chippies" which I fed in front of the door every day have not been seen for several days. I wonder where they go. [[left margin]] Cool and brilliant with wind N.W. [[/left margin]]

Wednesday 18". The children have thrown down the corn which Tom cut as they did last year in spite of my displeasure and admonition then. I went over and complained to Girard and he punished Charlie and Girard. I also went over to Woods and saw Mrs. Wood, but she, poor thing, is ill and Wood had been off and had not got up yet, but the children got away when they saw me come and Mrs Wood divined my errand. I dislike to make myself odious to the children and sometimes wonder if I am not too exacting, but the fact is the children are undisciplined and are most annoying. I have not as much patience with them as I wish I had. I went up to Kingston to see the dentist who fixed the tooth I broke yesterday, in a few minutes and would take no pay for it, so that was got along with much more easily than I feared. I awoke this morning with a quieter 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-11 14:44:41 . .