Part 4 (2/2)

At the ti letter ritten, Father spent much of his time at Slabsides and his interest in both the celery and lettuce grown there, as well as the grapes at Riverby, was ed and brought home; it was excessively wild until we put it with the tame ducks, whereupon, as Father expressed it, ”He took his cue from them and became tamer than the tame ones”

Slabsides, July 13, '97

MY DEAR JULIAN,

I enclose a circular froe that came to you yesterday

You would doubtless do as well or better at one of the ses as you would at Harvard The instruction is quite as good It is not the college that o to Columbia this fall You would be nearer home and have just as able instructors as at Harvard Harvard has no first class men now But if you have set your heart on Harvard, you would of course do just as well as a special student as if ade You would miss only non-essentials

Their sheep skin you do not want; all you want is what they can teach you

It has rained hereto rot and if this rain and heat continues we o I shall not have o away this year

Another duck was killed Saturday night, one of the last brood It looked like the work of a coon and I and Hira caht as we know of

Let me knohat you hear froht It is still raining and at four o'clock the sky looks as thick and nasty as ever It threatens to be like eight years ago when you and I were in the old house Tell o to Gilders the last of the week

Your affectionate father, JOHN BURROUGHS

Your black duck is getting tame and does not hide at all

It is hard for the present generation to realize what a shadow, or rather influence, the Civil War cast over the days of Father's generation War veterans, parades, pensions, stories of the war--it coloured much of the life, civil, social, political, and even the literature of the day Some have spoken of it, in architecture, as the General Grant Period The ”panora one with Father--you went into a building and up a flight of stairs and came out on a balcony, a round balcony in the centre, and all around was a picture of one of the battlefields of the war, bursting shells, s, sreat impression on ether we read the impressions of his friend, Charles Benton, ”As Seen from the Ranks,” and he kept up the friendshi+ps he had ton, D C,

Mch 2nd {1897}

DEAR JULIAN,

I caht, left N Y at 3:30 and was here at 8:45, round trip 8, ticket good till next Monday I had a nice tih I was much broken of my sleep I stayed with Hamlin Garland at the hotel New A on here I was out to dinner and to lunch every day The _Century_ paid s I wrote it the week before , warm and soft like April, the roads dusty Baker's people are all well and very kind to e house on Meridian Hill where it was all wild land when I lived here I shall stay here until next Monday Write o and how your mother is Tell Hira father,

JOHN BURROUGHS

When I went away to college in the fall of 1897 I was able to see our hole, as one et a clear perspective of a place And it being my first time away from home Father wrote more frequently, and he dropped the formality of his earlier letters

West Park, N Y, Oct 11 {1897}

MY DEAR JULIAN,

Your letter was here Monday e to your mother in it You kno quick she is to take offence

Why not hereafter address your letters to us both--thus ”Dear Father and Mother” But write to her alone next tiht you were going to take that? I had rather you take that than any course in English Coet a chance Read Elish Traits” and his ”Representative Men”