On the contrary, the summer has been lost time to me. I spent several weeks in the dental chair, coming down from the hill every day for the purpose; then I made a daily trip during several more weeks to a doctor to be treated for catarrh & have my palate burnt off. The resmnant of the season I wasted in e ineffectual efforts to work. I haven’t a paragraph to show for my summer.

I sent for the bicycle & mounted it once; got a hard fall, & have never tried since; mainly because I had no company. But anyway there is no chance here for the ar◊t ;—the hills are long & steep, & one would have to walk back after riding down.

Livy is just getting about from an exhausting spell of sickness; so I don’t believe she will be strong enough to travel for at least a week yet. I am down town today, & she is on the hill or she would give me a date & some messages for you.

Gerhardt came here & made an excellent bust of me (that occupied some portrion of my time every day for four weeks), then he ruined it in cas attempting to cast it in plaster; but went to work & made a new one, & just as good, in five days, & has gone to Philadelphia to cast it in bronze. We must find somebody in Hartford or South Manchester who wants a bust made. Gerhardt can do it. I will send you a photograph from the plaster cast, & you can “leg” for him.

I am powerful glad you are all home again, & shall be gladder when we join you, & can talk. Mother was well when I saw her last—which was yesterday—& indeed all the tribes are the same—meaning the three families. We shall begin to ship the live stock (cats & dogs), about a week hence, & we shall shortly follow. Consider that all of us are sending to you & all of you a power of love, & that I am