Monday, January thirteenth.
Of the three days that have again passed two have been quite fair enough for Olson to have come. Both yesterday and to-day Rockwell and I made frequent trips down the shore to look for him. It is terribly depressing to have your heart set upon that mail that doesn’t come. I begin to think that some other cause than the weather holds Olson away. It is possible that the steamer we saw going to Seward was no mail steamer, and that Olson, who has gone for his pension money, is waiting for a mail. I feel like making no record of these days. I take pleasure only in their quick passage.
Saturday night Rockwell received the order of knighthood. For three quarters of an hour he stayed upon his knees watching over his arms. He was all that time as motionless as stone and as silent. Now he is Sir Lancelot of the Lake and jousts all day with imaginary giants and wicked knights. He has rescued one queen for himself but as yet none for me.
We have run about some on our snowshoes, though the snow is nowhere deep enough for that except along the shore. The weather is still mild—hardly freezing at all—and it forever successively rains, snows, and hails. All the animals are still alive. I don’t love them, they’re rather a nuisance. Nothing could be less amusing than a blue fox,—small creatures, excessively timid, of cowed demeanor. Saturday I had to get a bag of fish from the lake where they had been soaking and cook up another great supply of fox food.