I am here surrounded by the peace and sweetness of Slabsides. I came
here Saturday morning in the rain. It is a soft, hazy morning, the sun
looking red through a thin layer of seamless clouds. Amasa is hoeing in
the celery, which looks good, and the birds are singing and calling all
about. I have got to go to N. Y. this afternoon to a dinner. I had much
rather stay here, but I cannot well get out of going.... I begin to feel
that I could get to writing again if I was left alone. I want to write
a _Youth's Companion_ piece called "Babes in the Woods" about some
young rabbits and young blue birds Teddy {Footnote: The son of President
Roosevelt.} and I found.
Did you row in the races? What race are you preparing for now? It is bad
business. The doctors tell me that those athletic and racing men nearly
all have enlargement of the heart and die young. When they stop it,
as they do after their college days, they have fatty degeneration. In
anything we force nature at our peril.
When you are in Boston go into Houghton Mifflin Co. and tell them to
give you my last book "The Light of Day" and charge to me. There is some
good writing in it. Your loving father,