Thursday, March sixth.
It’s mighty hard work, this painting under pressure. I’m too tired to attempt more than the briefest record on this page of two days’ doings. Yesterday it was gray. At sundown it cleared giving us the most splendid and beautiful sunset, the sun sinking behind the purple, snowy mountains and throwing its rays upward into a seething red-hot mass of clouds. I painted most of the afternoon out-of-doors.
To-day we bathed at sunrise, brisk and cold and clear. The morning tide was so exceedingly low that I ran dry shod clear around the north side of the cove until the whole upper bay was visible. Olson had not known it could be done. Returning we put Olson’s boat into the water and Rockwell and I embarked with my painting outfit. I landed on the point I had just visited afoot. Rockwell in jumping ashore with the painter timed it badly, slipped, and fell full length into the surf of the ground swell, the dory almost riding over him. I roared with laughter—to his great fury. He rowed about in the harbor for almost two hours returning to bring me home. In the afternoon we repeated our excursion—all but the water sports—going this time to the south side of the cove. Rockwell’s a good little oarsman and above all to be trusted to do as he’s told to—a vice in grown-ups, a virtue in children.