[Boston—Friday, 10 November 1865]
Friday. Lucy Larcom came to pass the night. Jamie went out in the evening to a reception for Dr Gannett at Mr Little’s the rich merchant. So Lucy and I were left at home. She told me something of the Western experience which was not unlike that Mrs Kirkland records in “A New Home” so only the strange part was that Lucy & her sister were entirely familiar with Mrs Kirkland’s book and had fancied they were going to something entirely different. There were no roads, only stubble fields about their house or hut it was scarcely more and they landed at the door without a mouthful of anything to eat, present or in prospect. She told me many of the details of her two years sojourn but her experience trying as it must have been was not an uncommon one. The intermittent fever is the most terrible feature of it for hardships with health can be borne while without it utter helplessness and misery are the result.
I can never forget her description of returning to her sister & family unexpectedly from school one Saturday. The school being 40 miles away a friend offered to convey her thither. She reached the farm gate quite late, the air was chilly & the whole landscape cold—a shiver ran through her as she descended for she had heard at the last place they stopped there was sickness in the house. Her friend had driven off on his way—half way to the house she met a younger brother of her sisters husband just coming away. “Why Lucy he said is that you, I pity you”! She did not ask what he meant but pushed forward to the house—there lay her brother and sister in bed ill with the intermittent fever and their baby dead of the same dreary disease by their side. The place was cold and she made a fire—when she came & looked around her she saw the washing of two weeks in the tubs frozen hard. When Monday morning came she did the washing, first thawing the water and dried the clothes. Then she prepared to iron and ironed till someone came to fetch her back to school. She went punctually but her grief, fatigue & the long cold drive gave her the fever also and in less than a week she was carried again to her sister’s, herself ill nor did she recover for two months.
