CLOSING YEARS 93 



Then there are many blank pages in the diary. For 

 the long period of forty-one years it had been kept regu- 

 larly and uninterruptedly and with only a single day's 

 blank previous to this. Here was the second and for 

 twenty days there are no entries. The long and happy 

 married life had been broken and his beloved wife, com- 

 panion, helpmate and counselor for fifty-one years had 

 left him and he was sick. No wonder there were days 

 when no record could be made and when life itself seemed 

 a blank. On March 24, Mr. Boardman'sson, William B., 

 reached Calais from the west and on March 28 his son 

 Charles "took him down stairs to unlock the safe." 

 William left for Minneapolis on March 30 and on April 

 7, Mr. Boardman's daughter, Mrs. Taylor and her hus- 

 band, left for the west. On April 8, Mr. Boardman "went 

 down stairs to dinner for the first time" since his illness. 

 After this friends called to see him, he was soon able to ride 

 out, the entries of daily events were resumed in the diary 

 and life went on much in the old way, as life must go on, 

 how great soever the losses and sorrows which it brings. 

 One record in this year, that of July 15, is pathetic and 

 touching: "Went to ride up to Maguerrewock and 

 called at Bragg's." It was the scene of his old shooting 

 and collecting days, where he always went two or three 

 times a week and where he took his naturalist and sport- 

 ing friends and he wanted to see it again. No other 

 record for the year tells so much or is so full of sugges- 

 tion. It is, indeed, almost the summing up of Mr. Board- 

 man's life as a lover of out door life and sports, of his 

 love for birds and nature study. 



The years which followed were happy and quiet. Not 

 the old happiness nor the quiet of the earlier years when 



