July.—I have not written in my journal for several days because we have been out of town. Grandfather had to go to Victor on business and took Anna and me with him. Anna says she loves to ride on the cars as it is fun to watch the trees and fences run so. We took dinner at Dr. Ball’s and came home on the evening train. Then Judge Ellsworth came over from Penn Yan to see Grandfather on business and asked if he could take us home with him and he said yes, so we went and had a splendid time and stayed two days. Stewart was at home and took us all around driving and took us to the graveyard to see our mother’s grave. I copied this verse from the gravestone:
| “Of gentle seeming was her form And the soft beaming of her radiant eye Was sunlight to the beauty of her face. Peace, sacred peace, was written on her brow And flowed in the low music of her voice Which came unto the list’ner like the tones of soothing Autumn winds. Her hands were full of consolations which she scattered free to all—the poor, the sick, the sorrowful.” |
I think she must have been exactly like Grandmother only she was 32 and Grandmother is 72.
Stewart went to prayer meeting because it was Wednesday night, and when he came home his mother asked him if he took part in the meeting. He said he did and she asked him what he said. He said he told the story of Ethan Allen, the infidel, who was dying, and his daughter asked him whose religion she should live by, his or her mother’s, and he said, “Your mother’s, my daughter, your mother’s.” This pleased Mrs. Ellsworth very much. Stewart is a great boy and you never can tell whether he is in earnest or not. It was very warm while we were gone and when we got home Anna told Grandmother she was going to put on her barège dress and take a rocking-chair and a glass of ice water and a palm leaf fan and go down cellar and sit, but Grandmother told her if she would just sit still and take a book and get her mind on something else besides the weather, she would be cool enough. Grandmother always looks as cool as a cucumber even when the thermometer is 90 in the shade.
Sunday, August.—Rev. Anson D. Eddy preached this morning. His text was from the sixth chapter of John, 44th verse. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him.” He is Tom Eddy’s father, and very good-looking and smart too. He used to be one of the ministers of our church before Mr. Daggett came. He wrote a book in our Sunday School library, about Old Black Jacob, and Grandmother loves to read it. We had a nice dinner to-day, green peas, lemonade and gooseberry pie. We had cold roast lamb too, because Grandmother never has any meat cooked on Sunday.
Sunday.—Mr. Noah T. Clarke is superintendent of our Sunday School now, and this morning he asked, “What is prayer?” No one answered, so I stood up and gave the definition from the catechism. He seemed pleased and so was Grandmother when I told her. Anna said she supposes she was glad that “her labor was not in vain in the Lord.” I think she is trying to see if she can say Bible verses, like grown-up people do.
Grandfather said that I did better than the little boy he read about who, when a visitor asked the Sunday School children what was the ostensible object of Sabbath School instruction, waited till the question was repeated three times and then stood up and said, “Yes, sir.”
Wednesday.—We could not go to prayer meeting to-night because it rained, so Grandmother said we could go into the kitchen and stand by the window and hear the Methodists. We could hear every word that old Father Thompson said, and every hymn they sung, but Mr. Jervis used such big words we could not understand him at all.
Sunday.—Grandmother says she loves to look at the beautiful white heads of Mr. Francis Granger and General Granger as they sit in their pews in church. She says that is what it means in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes where it says, “And the almond tree shall flourish.” I don’t know exactly why it means them, but I suppose she does. We have got a beautiful almond tree in our front yard covered with flowers, but the blossoms are pink. Probably they had white ones in Jerusalem, where Solomon lived.
Monday.—Mr. Alex. Jeffrey has come from Lexington, Ky., and brought Mrs. Ross and his three daughters, Julia, Shaddie and Bessie Jeffrey. Mrs. Ross knows Grandmother and came to call and brought the girls. They are very pretty and General Granger’s granddaughters. I think they are going to stay all summer.