Tuesday, Oct 3, 1882 My father took me out to Mr. Louis Beviers in Marbletown where I had engaged board, to make some autumn sketches. The autumn color as yet was hardly perceptible. Calvert came on Friday 6th and returned on Sunday 8 to N. Y . On Friday 13th I received a letter from him telling me that the morning before he went into Downings room and found him unconscious. He had left his gas burning and it had evidently blown out and the door blown shut. Dr. Conant was administering oxygen. Next day Friday at 7.30 he wrote me he was still unconscious but had taken beef tea automatically and retained it and he showed some shrinking at the prick of a pin. I came home in the stage Saturday and telegraphed Calvert to know his condition and offering to come down if he wished. An answer came about 9 oclock that he was conscious and they were relieved of great anxiety. Today Sunday 15th have not heard farther but hope to tomorrow. Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of darling Gertrudes death and in spite of my anxiety about Downing I thought constantly of her and how lonely my life is without her. It is in these troubles that I more and more miss her sweet sympathy always so active and alert. To crown all our troubles Maurice is behaving his worst again in spite of a plain talking my father has given him since I have been gone. He tries us more and more and I can only look forward to every thing that is to be dreaded and feared. I brought some vines with me from Marbletown and went this morning to the cemetery and set them out along the rocks on our lot. The autumn color is coming on but I have often seen it more advanced on the first of October than it is today, the 15th. John & Nannie, Fred Norton and Annie were here at tea and spent the evening as well as Girard and Mary. Pa built a fire in the hall stove today for the first. It has been a cool, brilliant day. Mrs. Taylor wrote to me a week or so ago for Bayards letter and I have been reading them over again today, going back over my life for twenty years past until the present seemed less real than the days, and the friends who are gone. Our barn has been pulled down since I went away and the new stable is occupied. There were many associations with the old barn in which all the children have played but it is better that it is gone having seen its day.
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