me, as there are so many of those
grinding organs around with their monkeys.

* * * * *

Mrs. Carruthers was in yesterday afternoon, and she said the Peebles
were looking up the numbers on the doors to find the Wylies. They got
puzzled because the numbers go up one side of the street and down the
other, and they haven't but just been put on. And it seems that up in
the city they have them go across. It does appear to me shiftless in our
town officers, when they undertook to have the streets numbered as they
do elsewhere, that they didn't number them the same way. But I can't see
but our way is as good, and more sensible than having to cross a muddy
street to look up the next number.

* * * * *

Artemas has been gone a whole week. I told him I would put down the most
important things in a diary, and then he can look at it, if he has time,
when he comes home. He thinks it is a more sensible way than writing
letters every week.

He expects to be up and down in Texas, and perhaps across the mountains;
and in those lawless countries letters would not stand much
chance,--maybe they wouldn't ever reach him, after I'd had the trouble
of writing them. There's the expense of stamps too,--not so very much
for one letter, but it counts up.

Nothing worries me more than getting a letter, unless it's having a
telegraph come,--and that does give one a start. But even that's sooner
over and quicker read; while for a letter, it's long, and it takes a
good while to get to the end. I feel it might be a kind of waste of time
to write in my diary; but not more than writing letters, and it saves
the envelopes and hunting them up. I'm not likely to find much time for
either, for the boys are fairly through their winter suits; if I can
only keep them along while the spring hangs off so.

* * * * *

Mrs. Norris was in yesterday, just as I was writing about the boys'
suits, to know if I would let Martha off to work for her after the
washing is over. I told her I didn't like to disoblige, but I couldn't
see my way clear to get along without Martha. The boys ought to be
having their spring suits this very minute, and Martha was calculating
to make them this week; and they'd have to have their first wear of them
Sundays for a while before they start on them for school. I never was so
behindhand; but what with fitting off Artemas and the spring clea