Van Buren Life]]> Last winter and the winter before I always had water hauled for me. This winter, also, I intended to do it, but it all came about in this manner: Mr. Jackway was busy fishing and couldn't do it for weeks. So I went to Mine Chousine and offered to pay him the usual price of 25¢ per barrel. But he, while not absolutely refusing, didn't seem to be breaking his heart at the prospect of losing it. So in disgust I went home and lugged about 20 pails of water up the cliff. This filled one barrel.

The next morning I filled the other in the same manner. When fresh snow falls I fill a barrel with that as fast as I remove the water, and so the one in the kitchen is constantly full. Those outside catch the rain and melting snow from the roof, and when a cold wave comes and they begin to freeze solid, I empty them to keep them from bursting. At other times I merely chip a hole in the ice every morning, and so keep them from bursting. It isn't much work, and yet all these little things help to fill my days to the brim.

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You may remember that the day we had our talk on the road to FredoniaI spoke of having two men at work cutting wood. Well, they loafed and fooled over the job in spite of my constantly urging them to hurry. The best wood was at the other end of the Van Buren woods near Days' cottage. There was only one way to get it out when cut, and that was by a road that had been used so long that it was constantly soft, even in the driest weather. The first rain would make it impassable. After I had endured the men's fooling for one week and saw that they didn't intend to hurry, I paid them and dismissed them with the remark that I could do it faster myself.

That was on Monday morning. Monday afternoon I went at it with ax and saw and Tuesday morning and afternoon also. Wednesday morning I got Nell and the wagon and worked from about ten until five. During that time I hauled seven loads, big ones. Five loads were cut wood, logs and limb wood, and two were planks for kindling. The logs were anywhere from six to ten feet long, and from four to ten inches in diameter.

I was pretty hot and tired when I drove Nell home and went for the milk after dark. But the sight of that wood pile more than repaid me. It was the next evening, I think, that I was sitting by the lamp reading. I happened to scratch my neck just by the trapezius muscle when, to my horror, I discovered a large lump there. I worried over it for about a week and then, drawing a sketch of the muscles of the neck and indicating the location of the lump by a dot, I sent that and a description to Mama and asked her to see a doctor for me. To my great relief, Dr. Moore said it was nothing but an enlargement of a minor tendon caused by over-straining and a too rapid chilling after some exertion. It must have happened the day I drew the wood, for the logs were - several of them at least - very heavy, and as I lifted most of them in the middle and then with a swing of the other hand on the end, threw them several feet to the wood pile, the strain was rather severe.

But that wasn't the end of it by any means. Mama became worried and told Dr. Dods about it and that she hadn't heard from me for a long time (it was really three days and I was too busy to write then) so he promised to drive out and see whether I was a corpse or a kicker. So one evening about six I heard sleigh bells and upon going to the door saw an unknown man step out of the dusk and roar, Well you're a nice young lady, you are, scaring your mother half to death! It was Dr. Dods and after assuring himself that I was really alive and only suffering (!) from an enlarged tendon, he took his departure.

A day or so ago, Mr. Jackway came over with Nell and together we hauled four more loads of planking, and now I believe I am fixed for the winter. I am as far as wood and food are concerned, anyway. Today (January 4th) I finished papering the sitting room, and tomorrow I hope to do the dining room also, and cut a lot of kindling and wood for the sitting room stove. That one is a small chunk stove and has to have very small pieces of wood as the firepot is only 1 foot long. The wood that I hauled was over half a cord - what I'd cut by myself.

The wood cut by the men, I helped a farmer haul. He overcharged me, so I bounced him also.

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Van Buren Life]]>
Dear Joe, Today I made a pie. It was a wond'rous pie! (Now you must take my word for it, It really is no lie). The filling first I stirred around, With sugar and with spice. (The recipe it called for milk, I substituted ice). Cloves, cinnamon and salt I put In it, and allspice too, If I'd had more I'd added them, For those I had seemed few. Of crusts I'm always scary, But I tackled it with vim, And stirred and prodded, Rolled and cut it in a pancake thin. I pulled it out so brown and crisp And nibbled up the filling. The cats they nibbled down the crust (It really was most thrilling!) Though all the stuff I dumped in it Were wond'rous quite b'gosh, Yet it was good, most passing good, this pumpkin pie - of squash! No, dear, I must plead not guilty, my Lord to the charge of composing The Canadian Twilight. I found the poem in a newspaper lying on the beach one summer, I think it was 1895. I at first intended to illustrate it and copy the music also. In fact I had most of the illustrations and cover done, and then, growing dissatisfied with my work, sent you only the words. The music is in minor and I think you would like it. You like minor, don't you? I don't know who wrote it, as the author's name was not given.

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Chapter IX, "Ends and Odds", Van Buren Life

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I will leave here in May. If what I really believe is true, this place will be one that no decent, self-respecting person will even enter, by the first of July. Isn't it pitiful ­ horrible! I love this old place more than any other spot on Earth, and no one can feel as I do, for it has been my home, virtually, for the past ten years. Year after year I have returned to it, year after year I have seen my work improve here, and year after year I have sold my pictures of Van Buren. Is it any wonder, then, that I love the place as no one else can? And can any one else feel the horror as deeply as I, the awful, sickening horror of seeing a beautiful home turned into a sinkhole of iniquity? For such I believe it will become by the end of July. Its end will probably be a grazing ground for cattle and live­stock. Better that at once than what threatens, for as a Scotchwoman friend of mine tersely puts it, Beasts, aye, worse than beasts, for the beasts of the field are as God made them, but the mon is as he has made himsel'.

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Chapter X, "Odds", Van Buren Life

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Chapter X, "Odds", Van Buren Life

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Illustration from the end of Chapter XI of Van Buren Life

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Smith, Anna Clift. Chapter XI, "Finis", Van Buren Life

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