true follower of Christ.
I stayed 3 weeks at Hop improving slowly but daily. The second week, my husband came & spent some nights on his way home from Wapole -- Bellows Falls -- Mt. Tom & Holyoak [sic] and a visit to his particular friends in Amherst.
Rev. Knapp went round with him etc. etc.
I staid in Hop over the 4th to avoid confusion &c & returned 6th July. I had a great many things to see to & to put in order, parlor carpets to have up, and the fruit & garden to look after so that I well might get used up again, but the weather was not favorable and "some circumstances more so" and by the help of divine aid I was enabled to keep up.
C.W.W. staid over two weeks with Mary [in] Prov. in my absence, and they both arrived in Brookline same day I did.
Frid. 8th July [1853]
Mary & I went to Boston, she to the Navy Yard, and I to the dentist.
Sat.
A picnic at Hammonds Pond
Sund.
We went to church & after Mary took tea at the Heaths.
Mond.
Mary went to Prov. The course of the week I cut out nankeen pants for Dr. and did a variety of mending & other work -- put new sleeves to my striped silk. I had some frames made, and I covered with gauze my self. finished off the Dr.'s pants, bound a vest with rib.
Had some fruit picked for market, but poor season for fruit except raspberries -- I sent in 8 boxes.
Mond. July 16th
I was fatigued - and perhaps took some cold sitting waiting for Dr. at the bridge he was visiting a sick woman, but next day I rode to Cambridge -- and coughed up small quantity of blood & phlegm. yellow mucus. I kept more quiet the rest of the week, and Sund. 24th felt well enough to go to church all day. A good sermon from Rev'd. Knapp in the morn. Read H. Bellows in the afternoon, upon the grass of the field, &c very practical & splendid
Mond. eve.
We went to hear the Germanias on the hill back of Fair mount. Watty's vacation [vocation?] at C. -- good boy he is trying to help his father about his books. Dr. Wild is sick & E.A.W. works for him. Charly went to Laura's Thurs. 21st no [SOMETHING ABOVE LINE] Today is Tues 26th and I hope to see Laura with Charly. The first week in July.
Mary has underlined the phrase "particular friends" leading to speculation that she knew or suspected that he was having an affair.
Nankeen is "a kind of pale yellowish cloth originally made in Nanjing, China from a yellow variety of cotton, but subsequently manufactured from ordinary cotton that is then dyed" (Wikipedia)
This is almost certainly the clergyman Henry Whitney Bellows, although the source of the reference to "the grass of the field" is unknown.
The Germania Musical Society gave a concert on Fairmount Hill, overlooking the Brookline Reservoir and Boylston Street. See the note on p17 for more on the Germania Musical Society
