Later when he visited me in Cambridge he wrote a daily theme, and I
copied it and handed it in as my own, and it promptly came back marked
"sane and sensible," the instructor quite unconsciously and unknowingly
having hit upon two salient qualities of Father's style. I remember the
theme he wrote was about the statue of John Harvard who sits bareheaded
in the open, exposed to all weathers. Father said he always wanted to go
and hold something over him to keep off the snow or sun. The life he
led here and the surroundings could not produce other than wholesome and
sane writing. The old house spoken of was the original farmhouse that
stood up near the road--it was torn down in 1903 and a new cottage put
up just below it. Father and I spent one summer there when we rented
Riverby to New York people and he spent time there later as for
instance:
Saturday P. M., Jan. 29 {1898}.