Sunday, June 24.—My Sunday School scholars are learning the shorter catechism. One recited thirty-five answers to questions to-day, another twenty-six, another twenty, the others eleven. Very well indeed. They do not see why it is called the “shorter” Catechism! They all had their ambrotypes taken with me yesterday at Finley’s—Mary Hoyt, Fannie and Ella Lyon, Ella Wood, Ella Van Tyne, Mary Vanderbrook, Jennie Whitlaw and Katie Neu. They are all going to dress in white and sit on the front seat in church at my wedding. Grandmother had Mrs. Gooding make individual fruit cakes for each of them and also some for each member of our sewing society.
Thursday, June 21.—We went to a lawn fete at Mrs. F. F. Thompson’s this afternoon. It was a beautiful sight. The flowers, the grounds, the young people and the music all combined to make the occasion perfect.
Note: Canandaigua is the summer home of Mrs. Thompson, who has previously given the village a children’s playground, a swimming school, a hospital and a home for the aged, and this year (1911) has presented a park as a beauty spot at foot of Canandaigua Lake.
June 28.—Dear Abbie Clark and Captain Williams were married in the Congregational church this evening. The church was trimmed beautifully and Abbie looked sweet. We attended the reception afterwards at her house. “May calm and sunshine hallow their clasped hands.”
July 15.—The girls of the Society have sent me my flag bed quilt, which they have just finished. It was hard work quilting such hot days but it is done beautifully. Bessie Seymour wrote the names on the stars. In the center they used six stars for “Three rousing cheers for the Union.” The names on the others are Sarah McCabe, Mary Paul, Fannie Paul, Fannie Palmer, Nettie Palmer, Susie Daggett, Fannie Pierce, Sarah Andrews, Lottie Clark, Abbie Williams, Carrie Lamport, Isadore Blodgett, Nannie Corson, Laura Chapin, Mary F. Fiske, Lucilla F. Pratt, Jennie H. Hazard, Sarah H. Foster, Mary Jewett, Mary C. Stevens, Etta Smith, Cornelia Richards, Ella Hildreth, Emma Wheeler, Mary Wheeler, Mrs. Pierce, Alice Jewett, Bessie Seymour, Clara Coleman, Julia Phelps. It kept the girls busy to get Abbie Clark’s quilt and mine finished within one month. They hope that the rest of the girls will postpone their nuptials till there is a change in the weather. Mercury stands 90 degrees in the shade.
July 19, 1866.—Our wedding day. We saw the dear little Grandmother, God bless her, watching us from the window as we drove away.
Alexandria Bay, July 26.—Anna writes me that Charlie Wells said he had always wanted a set of Clark’s Commentaries, but I had carried off the entire Ed.
July 28.—As we were changing boats at Burlington, Vt, for Saratoga, to our surprise, we met Captain and Abbie Williams, but could only stop a moment.
Saratoga, 29th.—We heard Rev. Theodore Cuyler preach to-day from the text, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.” He leads devotional exercises every morning in the parlors of the Columbian Hotel. I spoke to him this morning and he said my father was one of his best and earliest friends.
Canandaigua, September 1.—A party of us went down to the Canandaigua hotel this morning to see President Johnson, General Grant and Admiral Farragut and other dignitaries. The train stopped about half an hour and they all gave brief speeches.