I hope this severely hot weather has not been too much for you, and that sometime you will find time to drop a line to your

Affectionate Coz

Clara

I neglected to say that I find a good many old friends here. Our chaplain was a member of the Sanitary Commission in Washington, and the Reverend Dr. Abbott, who is here with his family, was President of the Christian Commission. Love to any who may inquire.

Clinton Hotel, Rochester
Sunday [1876]

Dearest Mamie:

Does the date take you by surprise? Don’t be alarmed, it’s all right. I am only on a visit of a few days. Dr. Jackson, Miss Austin, and several other lady friends made a party and came last Friday to stay several days in Rochester, and enjoy the change and rest, and here we are having a glorious time. All but I can go to operas, church, lectures, galleries, etc., etc., and I can stay by and keep guard and direct the servants how to order the rooms, to have all ready and jolly for them when they get back. Mrs. Jones, principal of the Dansville Seminary, and a Miss Reynolds, who is “Thirza Ann” in a Betsey Bobbet Club we have here and a capital dramatist, are my room companions in the hotel. There is no lack of fun with two such fertile brains about. We go home next Tuesday.

Now that I am through with myself, let me turn to you and say how glad I am that you have been to the Centennial and enjoyed it so well, made so much of it, and got home so well. What a beautiful gift that was from Mr. and Mrs. Shrubler, to you, that trip, a hundred-fold more than the beautiful dress which was a thing to be most grateful for, but it will wear out in time, while nothing short of eternity can take from you the knowledge and benefits of that exhibition. It is a thing for a lifetime, not only its pleasure but its profits. Please thank them both for me for this thoughtful courtesy to you and for the good dress also, and indeed for all their kindnesses to my little girl, who I know is grateful for herself, but I am also grateful for her.

Now, you see I have not your letter here and cannot answer it as I ought, for I really do not recollect the questions it asks, neither do I recollect when I wrote you last, or what I told you then, so this letter is liable to be a repetition or an omission, but you will forgive this in either of the circumstances. I had a good letter from Ida just an hour before I started from Dansville and have answered it from there. She is a very easy, natural correspondent and would make a fine writer in some special directions if she could be cultivated. She sends me advertisement of your Papa D.’s farm. I was a little surprised at this, but it shows him in earnest in his assertion that he would like to be rid of it, and I do not wonder that he feels it a burden. It is more so than if it were larger and would afford more and efficient help, and pay for outlays. I consider it one of the most laborious sizes that a farm can have if one intends to use it as a farm, and if not, then it is too large. Four acres of nice buildings would really be worth more in the way of comfort, and these buildings have got to an age which will call for constant repairs, and the house is never convenient nor built for a farmhouse; in fact it was not intended for a farm by Grandpa, and there was no farm till your father made it so by his cultivation, for it was waste land.

Did I tell you that the Taylors had sailed for England? They must be there now. How sweet and beautiful they were when here, and how in the two or three little days they spent here they made themselves felt and beloved. Mrs. Taylor is really one of the sweetest women I have ever known. Fannie is at the Centennial and I have just one line from her. She is almost frantic from the confusion. You know her head gets troubled easily, and she had not got it rested from the journey and the first days of the great show. She will remain long enough to find herself and look clearly and see what she “went for to see,” I trust. I am glad you have heard from Etta and glad they are getting on so well. Please give a great deal of love to dear Anna and congratulate her on her Centennial trip which, I trust, she enjoyed to its fullest, and thank Mr. Shrubler for his good gift to my dear old brother. I know it has made a warm spot in his heart for all the time he will live to wear it, and with his poor health and tendency to melancholy his joys are not too many. Mr. Shrubler has given him a great many pleasures, and I thank him most earnestly for them all.