[_Saranac Lake_, _December_ 1887.]
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,—I am so much afraid, our gamekeeper may weary of
unacknowledged reports! Hence, in the midst of a perfect horror of
detestable weathers of a quite incongruous strain, and with less desire
for correspondence than—well, than—well, with no desire for
correspondence, behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up your letters.
They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods family; and in your
next, we shall hope somehow or other to hear better news of you and
yours—that in the first place—and to hear more news of our beasts and
birds and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who are (truly)
too much with us.
I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. But then my
wife is no great shakes; the place does not suit her—it is my private
opinion that no place does—and she is now away down to New York for a
change, which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me and
Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hilltop hatbox of a house. You
should hear the cows butt against the walls in the early morning while
they feed; you should also see our back log when the thermometer goes (as
it does go) away—away below zero, till it can be seen no more by the eye
of man—not the thermometer, which is still perfectly visible, but the
mercury, which curls up into the bulb like a hibernating bear; you should
also see the lad who ‘does chores’ for us, with his red stockings and his
thirteen year old face, and his highly manly tramp into the room; and his
two alternative answers to all questions about the weather: either
‘Cold,’ or with a really lyrical movement of the voice,
‘_Lovely_—raining!’
Will you take this miserable scarp for what it is worth? Will you also
understand that I am the man to blame, and my wife is really almost too
much out of health to write, or at least doesn’t write?—And believe me,
with kind remembrance to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very sincerely
yours,