Bridge. To-day I
found nothing in the post-office but Mr. Emerson. He walked along with
me and said he had a letter from Mr. Synge [whom Hawthorne met, later,
in England], an attache of the British Legation, asking for an
autograph of Mr. Hawthorne. Grandpapa, baby, and I sat in the parlor
in the afternoon, and baby was in the highest spirits, and conversed
for the first time in the most facetious manner, casting side glances,
and laughing with a great pretense of being vastly amused, and of
superior insight into the bearing of things.
April 19. The great day of the Concord fight. I was awakened by
cannon and the ringing of bells. The cannon thundered all around the
welkin, in a very grand, stately, and leisurely manner. I read the
history of the day to the children. What made the morning beautiful
and springlike to me was a letter which Julian brought from my
husband.
April 21. A day like a dulcimer. It was so charming to rake and plant
and prune that I remained out a long time, and tore my hands nicely.
Julian requested to go and take a quiet walk in the woods, and
returned just as I was becoming anxious about him, shouting, with a
sweet-brier bush which he had pulled up by the roots in the wood. I
took a spade, and dug a great cave, and planted it beneath his western
window; and I am sure it must grow for him, for he sent sunshine down
into the earth from his eyes upon the roots while I was setting it
out.
The stage-coach drove up and brought me Mrs.
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