|
|
|
|
|
Wed. night
14th Apr.
Believe I shall quit journalizing -- Where's the use? --I feel "kinder" disgusted tonight -- whith (with an H!) myself!
Saturday - A.M.
Apr. 24th 1875
Driven to desperation "by all the gods that be!" The wind howls! The rain beats! The cold "sneaks" and I am hopelessly "corraled". "Close herded", for today, certainly --
Wolf's Rest
Sunday - Apr. 25th '75
The "Beautiful (???) Snow" is upon us. Commenced snowing about noon yesterday - and snowed until this morning. The hills are as white, or whiter, than they were in Jan. --And oh, the mud and wet and -- horror! I have been cleaning things ever since I got out of bed -- trying to make our huts livable! Is that a word of my coinage? -- Or have I seen it some where before? N'importante -- but I wish I could coin a word tht would in some degree express my present state of mind -- the vocabulary at my command being utterly inefficient.
Wolf's Rest
Tuesday - 27th Apr. 1875
The shadows are gathering. --Night, sleep and forgetfulness will soon be here! -- And I am tired - too utterly weary to think, only in a disjointed, half-comprehensive way.
I remember yesterday!!! Will the memory ever become hateful to me? Patience, wayward child! Time will tell.
Wolf's Rest
Saturday - May 1st 1875
The first of May -- The tide ebbs and flows! Taking away and bringing! This restless turbid tide! I am on a shoal - or drifted into still-water - or is it an eddy? I watch the ebb and flow, and "bide my time"! Herbert has gone to the Black Hills with Col. Mills' "out-fit". Left here today, three weeks ago. Have heard from him once. Sixty miles north of North Platte -- camping at "Sand Beach Lake". I feel interested in that direction -- and await further news impatiently.
Mr. Ballantine left the medicine, also, last Tuesday -- gone to Lincoln. His return, or the time of it, is uncertain. We had five men here last night -- besides Mr. P[almer]. Judge Watts - Mr. Simpson (the mail-carrier-), The County Clerk of Red Willow, and our two "hired men" - It was delightful - the mixture!
Killed the prettiest duck yesterday evening I ever saw -- delicate head - crested, and as varied and brilliant in hue as a peacock.
"May day"! How different from the May days I use to know! We always had a ball or party. I wonder how much uglier I have grown since I got the bouquet - compliment, by vote, at the May Ball in B[runswick] six years ago tonight? I look in the glass to see a face almost utterly changed from the one I recall - I wonder if it is very much uglier? Self-will, ill-temper, suspicion and pride leave traces that are not pretty -- how should I expect to escape?
Sunday
May 2nd '75
The principal events of our existence are independent of our will. Our designs are at the mercy of Fate - or circumstance -- which shall we name it? ---- I am haunted today with the memory of Jennie. Poor Jennie! How I have lost you! Without a word of warning. Nothing - but silence between us - silence, unbroken by a single word from tongue or pen. Silence! -- I know Death has sealed your lips and stiffened your hands. The tender, faithful hands that have so often caressed mine! What an end is this?
The world gives us so little that is true -- so little that is faithful! And your love - your heart - both true and faithful were mine! I knew it - proved it - depended on it - and I have lost it! How? ----- ----------
|
|
|
|
|
