If only it will hold calm! To-night it is fair and starlight—but we can never be sure of the weather’s constancy. We hold everything in readiness to start in the morning.
Saturday, October twelfth.
A mild and lovely day on our island but in the bay a breeze from the north that would have made our rowing to Seward difficult. Still we wait with our things assembled for the trip. We shall go at the very first good chance. This morning Olson cleared the limbs from the trees about us to ten or twelve feet from the ground. Only the tall, clean trunks are now between us and our mountains across the bay. I painted most of the afternoon. My canvas is still quite impossible—rough and absorbent. We built a large cage for the magpie he was so restless in his small one. And now he’s quite contented.
Rockwell said to-day that he would like to live here always. That when he was grown he’d come here with his many children and me, if I was not dead, and stay. It is hard to write, it is hard to work, with the trip to Seward at hand. Olson says it is Sunday. I think he’s right. Somehow I’ve missed a day.
Sunday, October thirteenth.
(I still keep to my chronology until we find out from Seward where we stand.) A wonderfully beautiful day with a raging northwest wind. I must sometime honor the northwest wind in a great picture as the embodiment of clean, strong, exuberant life, the joy of every young thing, bearing energy on its wings and the will to triumph. How I remember at Monhegan on such a day, when it seemed that every living thing must emerge from its house or its hole or its nest to breathe the clean air and exult in it; when men could stand on the hilltops and look far over the green sea and the distant land and delight in the infinite detail of the view, discerning distant ships at sea and remote blue islands, and, over the land, sparkling cities and such enchanting forests and pastures that the spirit leaped the intervening miles and with a new delight claimed the whole earth to the farthest mountains—and beyond; on such a day there crept from his hole an artist, and, shading his squinting eyes with his hand, saluted the day with a groan. “How can one paint?” he said, “such sharpness! Here is no mystery, no beauty.” And he crept back, this fog lover, to wait for earth’s sick spell to return.
This morning the magpie sang—or recited poetry; he made strange glad noises in his throat—and that in a cage! We worked, the rest of us, like mad. At five-thirty Olson, resting at last, said: “Well, you’ve done a great day’s work.” And after that I painted a sketch, cut and trimmed three small spruce trees; and then, it being dark, prepared supper.
But when do we go to Seward? My bag is packed. Olson begins each day by testing his motor. The wind must moderate in time. We see it pass our cove driving the water as in a mill-race. To-day it swept the cove itself.
Rockwell went for a walk in the woods; he has a delightful time on his rambles, discovering goats’ wool on the bushes, following the paths of the porcupines to their holes, and to-day finding the porcupine himself. He always returns with some marvelous discovery or new enthusiasm over his explorations. He has been practicing writing to-day. He says that if he could only write he would put down the wonderful stories of his dreams. These stories would run into volumes.
