THE SORT OF LIFE WE LEAD. 31 



the bay to ourselves. One storm in early Sep- 

 tember seems to scare the whole crowd off. 

 Had another fire after dinner, and read the last 

 instalment of Howells' novel in Harper s. 



Friday. Opened a lot of oysters before 

 breakfast and dug the other post-holes before 

 lunch, making a long morning's work as I have 

 no digging apparatus fit for the job. Let the 

 chickens out for a tramp over the garden, keep- 

 ing the children to see that they did not get into 

 the tomato vines. The children picked all the 

 tomatoes for the yearly canning more than 

 three bushels. Wrote after lunch until three 

 o'clock, and started out with the whole family 

 to go down along the shore about a mile from 

 here where there are some branches of dead 

 pine overgrown with silvery moss ; took a saw 

 along and brought home a lot with which to 

 decorate ; picked up some wonderful grasses of 

 a kind unknown to me, which we found grow- 

 ing to a height of seven feet in a sort of half 

 swamp, half bog. Growing dark early, but 

 not cold enough for our fire. Looked up and 

 read some chapters on wild grasses, and wrote 

 some private letters. S. gave us some remi- 

 niscences of " Die Meistersinger," on the piano, 

 and A. sang some Schubert songs. 



The talk this evening ran upon the future of 

 music in New York, and while in J. we had a 

 devoted believer in the grandeur and import- 

 ance of our musical future, S. was entirely 



