Viewing page 371 of 607

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

349
 
in apprehension. Gertrude has not come to see us although we told her last year we would always be glad to see her. Marion and Downing called on her at the Dwights in N.Y. and found Joe there but Mary has not seen her and went away to Alpine fearing she might be again drawn into this miserable business by Joe who has come on to N.Y. apparently determined to  see Lucy who is just as anxious to avoid him. All this family trouble is a grief to me but I can never respect him again and shall have no intercourse with him.- I wrote to Whittredge today and to Mrs. Church from whom I had a  short letter a few days ago asking me to come up there for a visit. She has a crayon of her mother by Rouse which she wants me to see. Sara and I have sat in the parlor talking of dear Gertrude and our beloved dead, all the evening.  Oscar Sawyer has gone home to his fathers ill and Fred thinks there are indications that his mind is weakening. Poor Alice is to be burdened with the care of him with all her other cares. I pity poor Oscar but the end has come to him as I feared it would. It is raining hard now and I am glad to be home.    

Friday Oct 15" 1886. I set Tom at work picking the aples. I think we will have 20 barrels more or less. It has been a blustering day with fine skies. A cold wave is predicted as coming and we have not got the hall stove up. I spent the day in my studio painting on my two pictures which I thought were finished but I have improved them considerably. I wrote to Wilmart about frames and to send me a stretcher and to arrange for him to send my pictures to the Fall exhibition of the Academy. Sara invited Mr & Mrs Cantine to tea and we had a very pleasant evening together sitting in the parlor with a fire in the Franklin. I feel happy at work in my studio today. My pictures promise well and I hope I may sell them. Dear me. If I could only sell something I would be released from this awful state of anxiety.
[[left margin]] Commenced picking the apples. [[/left margin]]

Saturday 16" Have been at work sorting and putting in barrels the apples Tom has picked and have gathered the winter pears shaken down by the high wind last night. This afternoon I did various things after having put up my stove just before dinner. There seems an endless round of work and it piles up ahead of me in utter hopelessness. I found today our united school tax is nearly forty dollars more than last year $133 in all. I am being consumed with these endless demands and with no income to rely upon I feel as though an[[strikethrough]]d[[/strikethrough]] end to it mustsoon come. I am almost in despair as I do not hear from one of my pictures which are out and there is hardly a hope that I will. Lucy came home this evening bringing Jamie with her. She stopped over at Highland Falls and found him with a very lame knee from a fall. She saw Gertrude Tomkins in N.Y. but Joe and his wife had gone back to Boston the day she arrived in N.Y. Gertrude has not come here although she did last fall and we invited her to come whenever she came on. It is cold tonight and we will have frost for the first of any consequence. The tomatoes and the Okra are still  green in the garden, and there is comparatively little autumn color. "Gertrudes tree" on the side hill is just beginning to change in the lower part and the soft maple in front of the house is still green. [[left margin]] Put up my stove. [[/left margin]]
 
Sunday 17" We had a hard frost last night and this morning the mercury stood at 25[[degrees]]. I covered the geraniums in garden in the eveing with newspapers and today dug them up and hung them in the cellar. It has been cold and grey most of the day and has sprinkled a little. I sat in the parlor in front of the fire alone most of the time as Lucy was in her room with Jamie who stays in bed with his lame knee. Dr. Wm. Crispell came and examined it today and thought it not serious. We spent a part of the time with my father in his room which he does not leave while the weather is so cold. Cantine came up to see my pictures. Mrs. C. was to come but was not well. He brought his little girl who was very lively and inclined to investigate every thing. We went over to my studio, Sara with us, after 4 but the day was dark and there was no light. Girard [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] took tea with us and he and Jimmy spent the evening with us. We all sat in the Parlor