Viewing page 527 of 607

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

498

Thursday July 26" 1888. I went down town directly after breakfast and on my return put on some old clothes, and Tom and I went down on the side hill and repaired the gate. The fence is very old and constantly getting out of order. Some malicious person pulled off four or five boards directly along side the gate yesterday. It is very difficult for me to do any work like this, in account of my lame side and I am in a constant state of apprehension from the marauding boys for fear that is this dry weather they will set the woods on fire in the side hill. The days go by uneventfully and rather sadly. I feel my life slipping away and that perhaps I am not making the best use of my time. I am making my preparations to go out sketching in the mountains next week but I feel little enthusiasm in it. I hope I may become interested for it is only in congenial work that any of us can ever hope for anything like happiness.

Friday 27". It rained a little in the night and this morning. I went down town after breakfast. Girard told me that Austin Thompson had spoken to him about a lot on Chester St. and said he would go and look at it. He also said that Hanch had told him he would give ten dollars a foot for 100 ft. of the side hill opposite his brewery. My father considered it worth 30 per foot and besides there is no telling what he might use it for which would damage our property here on the hill. Girard spoke to John McEntee about it and he felt that while we ought to sell he would not say if it was wise to accept this offer. I have felt very dizzy and badly today.

Saturday 28". The wind is from the north today and I feel better. I am getting my things together to go to the mountains on Wednesday. I have set Tom to clearing away the branches from the side hill which the men cut from the tree tops and am going to have him cut down the mass of pruning growth which has sprung up on the edge of the woods. I had a letter from Mr. Morse telling me his school opens on the 27th of Sept. and he would like to have Sedgwick there at that time. Sara expects to go to Boston to visit Alice while I am away and she has advised me to send Alice some of dear Gertrude's clothing &c. So she and I went up into the garret this forenoon where I keep her things in a trunk and we selected a number of things which Sara said would be useful to Alice and her children. I gave her the green silk dress with Chintz pattern which Mrs. Townsend made her and which looked so like her. Her Mexicaine polonaise and also the Batiste grey with purple stripe, 4 Linen Chemises, two sacks, a red one and the black one she lost on our trip to Minnewaska and recovered, two little red scarfs, (one camels hair) and three Roman riband scarfs. Dear Gertrude. It costs me a pang to part with a single thing she once wore, for all her things were so a part of her, and I think I could give them to no one but to members of our respective families who loved her dearly. Now I have given away nearly all her clothes but I have many little trifles still. The day is not distant when we will have to leave here and it is better that Alice and her children should use these things than that they should go to strangers or be destroyed by moth. Dear loving heart - I think of her as tenderly after these long years of absence as when I first felt the sorrowful reality of her death. The world is lonely indeed to me without her, but I believe that we will meet again. It must be so. 
[[left margin]] Selected Gertrudes things for Alice [[/left margin]]

Sunday 29" Beautiful weather, so cool last night I had to put on more clothing. Sara is going with John tomorrow to bring Nannie home from Middleton. I went over to see the progress of the grading on Chester St and from there to the Cemetery. The Phloxes on dear Gertrudes grave were in bloom and those also on my