... Has Ball returned to England? If so, please tell him that he promised to look up in Dublin, and give from his own knowledge, some details of Coulter’s life. Alphonse de Candolle has sent me copies of what letters he has, and they enable me to trace Coulter’s movements and whereabouts, which is helpful.
Old Goldie,[139] your father’s correspondent lang syne, died only this summer, very old.
My last bit of work was upon our Portulacaceæ for my “Flora.” The genera are thin. It is as much as one can do to keep up Montia (though if that fails Claytonia should go to it rather than the contrary, by right,—but convenience would call for the contrary), also Spraguea.
I have been having a holiday. A fortnight ago my wife and I set out; made a visit to my natal soil, in the centre of the State of New York, in Oneida County; had a gathering of the surviving members—most of them—of the family, of which I am the senior,—two widowed sisters (one a sister-in-law), there resident, and an older one who came with her husband from Michigan; my oldest brother and family, who have the paternal homestead; the unmarried sister, who passes all her winters with us; children and some grandchildren. One brother, a lawyer in New York, and residing near by in New Jersey, with wife and two boys, did not come. Another absent nephew is in California, well settled there.
It is a pretty country, the upper valley of the Mohawk and of tributary streams from the south, which interlock with tributaries of the Susquehanna, at a height of 1,000 to 1,500 feet above tide-water, beautiful rolling hills and valleys, fertile and well cultivated, more like much of rural England than anything else you saw over here. We wished you and Lady Hooker could have been with us in our drives. The summer air is just delightful, soft and fresh.
On our return we struck off and visited my brother Joe and family, in the environs of New York, and so came home much refreshed—though, indeed, I hardly felt the need of a holiday.
Sargent has just started for a trip to the southern part of the mountains of North Carolina,—a region we are fond of and long to show you.
Now I am going to pitch into Malvaceæ. I am quite alone. Goodale took off Sereno Watson with him, on a slow steamer to Amsterdam; will run for a fortnight or so over nearer parts of the Continent, and Watson will look in at Kew. He was much worn down, and the rest and change will be good for him. I have filled my sheet with this gossip.
It was during this visit that Dr. Gray, when the family gathered one morning for breakfast, had disappeared. He came in smiling when the meal was half over, and in answer to the anxious question where he had been, said, “Oh, I have been to say to Mrs. Rogers that I forgave her for getting above me in the spelling-class.”
Cambridge, October 31, 1886.