Your letter came to find me in a sorrowful and weary spot. My dear M. lies here with typhoid fever, and my heart and soul and body are in less than a fortnight of it pretty well used up, and my husband is in almost as bad a case with double anxiety, he and A. expecting every hour to see me break down. It has been an awful pull for us all, for not one of us has an atom of health to spare, and only keep about by avoiding all the wear and tear we can. Dr. Buck has sent us an excellent English nurse; she came yesterday and insisted on sitting up with M. all night and we all dropped into our beds like so many shot birds. I heard her go down for ice three times, so I knew my precious lamb was not neglected, and slept in peace. We are encompassed with mercies; the physician who drives over from Manchester is as skilful as he is conscientious; this house is admirably adapted to sickness, the stairway only nine feet high, plenty of water, and my room, which I have given her, admits of her lying in a draught as the doctor wishes her to do. While the nurse is sleeping, as she is now, A. and I take turns sitting out on the piazza, where there is a delicious breeze almost always blowing.
The ladies here are disappointed that I can no longer hold the Bible- readings, but it is not so much matter that I am put off work if you are put on it; the field is one, and the Master knows whom to use and when and where. We have been reading with great delight a little book called "Miracles of Faith." I am called to M., who has had a slight chill, and of course high fever after it. It seems painfully unnatural to see my sunbeam turned into a dark cloud, and it distresses me so to see her suffer that I don't know how I am going to stand it. But I won't plague you with any more of this, nor must I forget how often I have said, "Thy will be done." You need not doubt that God's will looks so much better to us than our own, that nothing would tempt us to decide our child's future.
To her eldest Son, Dorset, Sept. 19, 1875.
Your letters are a great comfort to us, and the way to get many is to write many. M.'s fever ran twenty-one days, as the doctor said it would, and began to break yesterday. On Friday it ran very high; her pulse was 120 and her temperature 105—bad, bad, bad. She is very, very weak. We have sent away Pharaoh and the kitten; Pha would bark, and Kit would come in and stare at her, and both made her cry. The doctor has the house kept still as the grave; he even brought over his slippers lest his step should disturb her. She is not yet out of danger; so you must not be too elated. We four are sitting in the dining-room with a hot fire; papa is reading aloud to A. and H.; it is evening, and M. has had her opiate, and is getting to sleep. I have not much material of which to make letters, sitting all day in a dark room in almost total silence. The artists are rigging up the church beautifully with my flowers, etc., Mr. Palmer and Mr. Lawrence lending their aid. Your father is reading about Hans Andersen; you must read the article in the Living Age, No. 1,631; it is ever so funny.
I had such a queer dream last night. I dreamed that Maggie plagued us so that your father went to New York and brought back two cooks. I said I only wanted one. "Oh, but these are so rare," he said; "come out and see them." So he led me into the kitchen, and there sat at the table, eating dinner very solemnly, two ostriches! Now what that dream was made of I can not imagine. Now I must go to bed, pretty tired. When you are lonely and blue, think how we all love you. Goodnight, dear old fellow.
Sept. 21st.—It cuts me to the heart, my precious boy, that your college life begins under such a shadow. But I hope you know where to go in both loneliness and trouble. You may get a telegram before this reaches you; if you do not you had better pack your valise and have it ready for you to come at a minute's warning. The doctor gives us hardly a hope that M. will live; she may drop away at any moment. While she does live you are better off at Princeton; but when she is gone we shall all want to be together. We shall have her buried here in Dorset; otherwise I never should want to come here again. A. said this was her day to write you, but she had no heart to do it. The only thing I can do while M. is asleep, is to write letters about her. Good-night, dear boy.
22d—The doctor was here from eight to nine last night and said she would suffer little more and sleep her life away. She says she is nicely and the nurse says so. Your father and I have had a good cry this morning, which has done us no little service. Dear boy, this is a bad letter for you, but I have done the best I can.
To Mrs. George Payson, New York, Oct. 31, 1875
I hope you received the postal announcing our safe arrival home. I have been wanting to answer your last letter, but now that the awful strain is over I begin to flag, am tired and lame and sore, and any exertion is an effort. But after all the dismal letters I have had to write, I want to tell you what a delightful day yesterday was to us all; G. home from Princeton, all six of us at the table at once, "eating our meat with gladness"; the pleasantest family day of our lives. M.'s recovery during the last week has been little short of miraculous. We got her home, after making such a bugbear of it, in perfect comfort. We left Dorset about noon in a close carriage; the doctor and his wife were at the station and weighed M., when we found she had lost thirty-six pounds. The coachman took her in his arms and carried her into the car, when who should meet us but the Warners. On reaching the New York depot, George rushed into the car in such a state of wild excitement that he took no notice of any one but M.; he then flew out and a man flew in, and without saying a word snatched her up in his arms, whipped her into a reclining-chair, and he and another man scampered with her to the carriage and seated her in it; I had to run to keep up with them, and nearly knocked down a gigantic policeman who was guarding it. The Warners spent the night here and left next morning before I was up, so afraid of making trouble…. A friend has put a carriage at our disposal, and M. is to drive every day when and where and as long as she pleases. And now I hope I shall have something else to write about…. As to the Bible-readings, I do not find commentaries of much use. Experience of life has been my chief earthly teacher, and one gains that every day. You must not write me such long letters; it is too much for you. How I do wish you would do something desperate about getting well! At any rate, don't, any of you, have typhoid fever. It is the very meanest old snake of a fox I ever heard of, making its way like a masked burglar.
To Mrs. Condict, New York, Nov 7, 1875.