Saturday, May 21, 1921.
Dick and I and Louise started off for the week-end, not knowing in the least where we were going to. Someone fetched us, our tickets were taken and we were put on a train for Philadelphia. At Philadelphia we were removed to a private car. The day was steaming hot, and Dick enjoyed standing out on the balcony at the end of the car. It reminded me of my journey to Moscow, the private car that met Kameneff was just like it, perhaps it was made in the U. S. At Harrisburg we had an hour to wait and went motoring in the town. First we visited the Capitol to see George Barnard’s sculpture groups. These are attached to the building on either side of the entrance, and they do not seem rightly to belong to the place. Perhaps Barnard is too individualistic to be architectural. We then drove along the riverside to the Country Club, which was opening that day. I must say, that if Harrisburg happened to be one’s “home-town,” or if by accident of fate one’s father or husband’s work attached one there, I can imagine living very happily in one of those riverside residences, bathed in sunshine, and prefaced with a lawn and trees—overlooking the great wide river with its islands and rapids, and the mountains beyond. It was truly grandiose.
Having in one hour “done” Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, we then continued our journey until we fetched up in a place called Chambersburg. This seemed to me remote, and detached from the world.
That evening a dance made of me a total wreck, but the next day was heavenly, spent in sleeping on the grass in the shadow of a bush. Dick tossed hay and said it smelt of home, and there was a rivulet which engulfed his boat, but he did not cry, he climbed onto the sluice gate and made believe the wheel was steering a real ship, and that comforted him. It was real, wild, ragged country, and we were happy. But it was a long way to go for one night and one day. On Sunday night we travelled back on the private car, sleeping fitfully. Since then Dick’s toy trains are all private cars, and I had hoped to make a good Socialist of him. All my work and plans are ruined. He seems to have become so very exclusive!
Friday, May 27, 1921. Philadelphia.
Having deposited Dick in New York, and having had a second inoculation for typhoid (preparatory for Mexico) and feeling quite ill, I returned to Philadelphia on Tuesday. The place is becoming almost familiar to me. It is not unlike an English old-world town, there are parts of it that recall Winchester, or even remote bits of London. I have come to work. When I was here last someone commissioned me to do her husband. “If you can get him to sit for you,” she said. I have got him. It is true he made every effort to evade me, to escape me, to postpone me. But I was determined not to be beat, and I gave him no loophole. Dr. Tait McKenzie has lent me his studio, and my victim comes there every morning from 11 to 1. He says he hates it, and he arrives protesting and resentful. But I like him, and we talk quite pleasantly all the time without stopping. I think he resents it less than he imagines. He has a good head, typically American.
When I get back in the afternoon to my friends in the Chilten Hills, where I am staying, I work in the loggia, on the portrait of their little daughter. She is the same age as my Margaret, and makes me feel rather homesick. To-morrow I return to New York, my work completed.
Sunday, May 29, 1921. New York.
Dick and I with Kenneth, caught an 11:30 train for Croton. We lunched with Crystal Eastman and her husband, Walter Fuller, in a roadside cottage surrounded by roses. It was real country and, luxuriantly green, with the fresh immaturity of impending summer. In the orchard on the steep grassy hill behind the house the children climbed a cherry tree, and Dick brought me greenleafed branches hanging with ripe sweet cherries. After lunch we walked up the road to see the view from the top of the hill. There is a sort of Colony at Croton, and every other house is inhabited by someone one knows, or who knows the other. All work-worn journalists, artists and Bohemians generally, who come there with their children for a rest. The houses have no gardens, the grass grows long and the rose bushes are weed tangled. Now and then a bunch of peonies survives. The cottages have almost an abandoned look, for the town toilers are too weary to work in their gardens when they get there. Towards the hill summit I noticed a wooden veranda’d cottage, looking rather neglected and lonely, the ground sloped down to a stream where some yellow and some purple iris bloomed amid the waste. On the post box at the gate were inscribed the two names: Reed, Bryant, and sure enough it was the summer cottage of Jack Reed and his wife. My thoughts shot straight across to Moscow, and to the grave under the Kremlin wall. At the top of the hill we lay down in the long grass under the shadow of a giant tree, and felt like insects, with the butter-cups so much higher than ourselves, and the tall seed grasses like slender trees above our heads. Dick, who was unrestful, and looking for work, built a wall of loose stones between us, “to separate us,” he said, and that accomplished he proceeded to pull down a post and chain and dig up another. In my half somnolent state I was aware of much hammering and cracking and splitting but took no notice. After awhile Dick came running to me, and in some trepidation asked anxiously if he were likely to be put in prison.
“What on earth for?” I asked.