uthers wanted me to
finish them off with a frill; lucky I didn't, it would have been up to
her ears this summer. As for the boys, I can take them in turn,--last
year's clothes for the next boy all the way down, and Cyrus can have his
father's. But it seems harder to fit out Lavinia. The ruby cashmere is
as good for me as new; it is dipped.

* * * * *

I'm real sorry about the Jones's losing their cow; it comes hard for
them. It's better for our potato patch, particularly if they do not have
another. Cyrus ought to fence it in.

Sam came in last night. He had heard that Larkin Prince was summoned off
by a company out West, for work that would pay, and would set him up for
years, and he had a free pass, and old Wylie had given his consent to
his marrying Clara. Some people, he said, had luck come to them without
trying for it, just standing round. There was he himself had been
looking for just such work last year, and nobody had thought of him.

* * * * *

I hope I wasn't hard on Sam. I couldn't help telling him if he'd gone up
to the schools, as Larkin Prince did, and he might have done, he could
have made himself fit for an engineer or a chemical agent. Well, it took
him kind of surprised, and I agreed to go round this evening, when
father is at home, and talk to father and mother about Sam's going to
some of them schools. At least he might try; and, anyhow, it would get
him out of the kind of company he's taken a fancy to.

I must say I didn't think of how he'd feel about Clara Wylie; but, of
course, her father would never have given Sam any encouragement more
than Larkin. And as for Clara Wylie--well, I saw her look at Larkin
that night.

* * * * *

I don't know but I made a mistake in sending so many of his woollen
socks to Artemas by Larkin Prince. Perhaps I had better have sent more
of the cotton ones. Larkin said he would tell him we were all well, and
how he found us. Lavinia had gone up to bed, and was hollering to me
to come up to her, and Cyrus slung Silas's cap into the window, and it
most hit Larkin; Silas came in after it through the window, and the rest
of the boys were pounding on the barn door, where they were having a
militia meeting, or some kind of a parade, with half the boys in town.
So Artemas will know things goes on about as usual.

* * * * *

An excellent sermon