[Boston—Friday, 31 December 1869]
Last day of this year. Mother and Sarah here—Jamie ill yesterday, out today—Childrens party (small).
Yesterday Mr. Longfellow passed an hour here. He has tried to buy the low land of Cambridge for the Colleges so he will save Cambridge from much annoyance of poor huts and bad odors holding the lands for a beautiful possession forever. He has given much money to this cause and I call it his latest work.
He made a milk punch to teach me how—one glass of milk, 3 or 4 lumps loaf sugar, ½ wine glass Jamaica or Santa Cruz rum with a little nutmeg on the top.
Nothing from Dickens yet. I think of him much indeed, we both talk of him when alone, continually and often waking in the night we follow him and look in his dear suffering face and long, long for what, we hardly know.
