So ends my day's
fishing.
* * * * *
"Went over to-day to see Watkins make bricks. I have always thought
there was some mystery about it, but I can make them myself. Why did the
Israelites complain so much at having to make bricks without straw? I
should not use straw if I was a brick-maker; besides, when they are
burned in the kiln, the straw will burn out and leave the bricks full of
holes.
* * * * *
"I can, from my chamber window, look across into Aunt Manning's garden,
this morning, and see little Betty Tarbox, flitting among the
rose-bushes, and in and out of the arbor, like a tiny witch. She will
never realize the calamity that came upon her brothers and sisters that
terrible night when her father and mother lay within a few rods of each
other, in the snow, freezing to death. I love the elf, because of her
loss; and still my aunt is much more to her than her own mother, in her
poverty, could have been."
* * * * *
This little girl was the child of some poor people of the neighborhood
who were frozen to death one March night, in 1819. In a letter to his
uncle Robert, March 24, 1819, Nathaniel says: "I suppose you have not
heard of the death of Mr. Tarbox and his wife, who were froze to death
last Wednesday. They were brought out from the Cape on Saturday, and
buried from Captain Dingley's on Sunday." This determines the time of
writing the last-quoted extract from the journal.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104