[Campton—Saturday, 8 June 1867]
Saturday morning. Clouds hanging heavily—last night the rain poured and yesterday at evening the dark weather began, until now we have had perfect summer weather since our arrival—pretty warm however for the season but “everything is so backward” that premature weather seems to be needed. The lilacs are scarcely blown, the acacia is not yet in leaf, dandelions are in hey-day as well as apple-blossoms while the wild cherries are lingering as if they wished to invite more brilliant skies to witness their advent.
12 o’clock. We have walked to the P.O. over a small foot-bridge and “round home by Durgin’s”. The clouds are dispersing and we are to have the perfect days which mark June in every climate, as surely as the bloom of maiden-hood marks sixteen.
We cannot pass the Durgins house without a feeling of sadness. Last year they were at the height of a successful career which they have been industriously building up. They were both well and strong with a fine son of 12 years of age. In September she sprained her ankle, in January her brother who lived in the next house lost his wife and one of two children by Diphtheria and two weeks later their own boy died. They no longer feel the impulse for their work, they have moved out of their own house which they wish to sell and have rented for the season. As the poor woman stood under the tree by her brothers door and told me all these things with the light and energy so dimmed in her face, I could not fail to reflect upon the suddeness of all change. The times not being in our hands.
The beauty of this place remains unchangeable, Lafayette & the Haystack, Willey’s Secret and Bare Mountain have as many aspects for our various moods as ever. They are clothed in a marvellous greenness this season which gives them a still more enchanting look of soft slumbrous strength-in-repose than during the last two or three years. The music of the rivers is quite as loud. As I sit scribbling here the rushing of the river comes swelling and fainting as the breezes blow soft or strong. I have the strongest disposition and desire to write something about this region. Literature has left it as nearly unimpressed as the hand of civilization but alack! I fear like Horatio with Hamlet’s pipe, I have not the skill. But I shall try.
