Wednesday, November twentieth.
To-morrow we hope to get off—although it still storms. There’s a terrific sea running but even such a sea would trouble us less than the chop of the north wind. The wind above all else is to be feared here.
I painted little—it was so dark. Somehow on these short days it is difficult to accomplish much. Certain things have to be done by daylight: the chopping of wood, carrying of water from a hundred yards away, lamp filling, and some cooking. I made myself a lot of envelopes to-day and second-coated the canvases of yesterday’s stretching. And now it is bedtime for to-morrow we rise early. Oh! the porcupine returned to-day and was discovered feeding calmly near the cabin. He showed no alarm at Rockwell’s approach, and, when finally after some hours of undisturbed nibbling and napping Rockwell carried him home by his tail and set him down a little distance from his old cage, he ran straight there and interned himself.