Preface
by Virginia Lawrence from notes by Tim Foote

The writer is Jessica Foote. The year is 1945, early spring to late fall. Bent over a cranky Remington portable, she is writing to her two sons, Peter and Tim – Peter, with an engineering and demolition team on New Guinea; Tim, on an aircraft carrier off Okinawa. The war had just ended in Europe , but savage fighting was expected to go on for a year at least in the Pacific.

In all she wrote 77 letters in that period, some of them two and three pages long, a few quite short. Though she often wrote every day her sons sometimes got these letters in clumps, sometimes singly with long gaps in between. The excerpts offered here are, as she says, full of Beaverkill: the sound of the river at night, the look of the valley in every weather and at every time of day, encounters with wild creatures, meetings with neighbors and townspeople who by then had known her for nearly 20 years. Among those most frequently mentioned are Miss Tobey and Bruce Lindsay. It was Marian Tobey, the owner of Clear Lake and its cottages, with whom she rolled up her sleeves to dismantle an illegal eel trap set in its overflow. Bruce Lindsay, on the other hand, is noted primarily for his many absences – he was Mrs. Foote's plumber.

For the first time in years, she was mostly living alone. And loving it. Gone were the cooks and caretakers she had been accustomed to, though for a brief period she did employ a maid (Mrs. Andrews) who had been with her in earlier summers. Trying to keep up her place, especially its large and hilly lawn, without help – except from a few teenage boys who had to be dragooned into working for her, and who (as old men) still have stories about what it was like to do so – she began a struggle that in one way or another would go on for the decades that followed.

Electric power did not reach Beaverkill until after the war, but she, like many others, had a Delco system to generate power for lights, irons and radios. By 1945, though, the Delco and her statuesque old Philco were beyond repair. Oil lamps were fine, but there was little news. That, and her pleasure at isolation may explain one of the major surprises that the letters offer – or rather don't. There is no direct mention of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9. It is not until August 15 that she speaks of the day when the Russians declared war and the Japanese asked for peace, stating “my heart leaped for joy.”

In 1945 she was only 51. Most of her life she had been reckoned a beauty. But she had already let her hair go greyish white, and seemed happy at becoming a notable Beaverkill presence. She was endowed with a theatrical flair and had been on the stage professionally. In fact, she met her husband, writer John Taintor Foote, while playing a beautiful ingenue in the Broadway production of his play, “Toby's Bow”. Mrs. Foote owned a 1928 La Salle convertible, which she drove with the top down in all weather. Not only did she not mind if she aroused “comments from the boys”; she clearly kept the top down for the panache and seemed to revel in her new role – that of “a local character!”

Her letters include a wide range of references to books and plays, a half-hearted war against legions of mice in the dressers in Beaverkill, a revulsion at snakes which she struggled to suppress, and the doings of one Madame Twitchett, a beautiful and dominating silver tabby cat, a much-loved family icon, whom she had brought home from Vancouver, B.C. in 1933, illegally smuggling her on ocean liners and Pan American Clippers. Twitty departed life in 1950 at age 19; a headstone just off the Foote lawn now marks her grave.

As summer gave way to fall, she spoke of having supper and doing her typing on a 40-year-old bridge table set up by the fire. And when the frost began to settle in and Bruce Lindsay, the plumber who had installed her coal furnace, still hadn't come to fix it, Mrs Andrews taught her how to keep warm at night. In Mrs. Foote's words: “Last night I slept with my head under the covers as it was so cold. Mrs. A. had heated sticks of wood for my bed and wrapped them in cloth so I was cosy. I have used heated flatirons but never heard of heating sticks before. They acquire a nice wood smell so I prefer them. [...] It was heavenly waking up and seeing the flurry of snow and being warm in bed. [...] Thus speaks an old country-woman!”

Jessica Foote's Letters to Her Sons 1945
by Jessica Foote
contributed by Tim Foote

Beaverkill , New York , May 28, 1945

Overhung by grapevines at the hall door

I arrived yesterday having had a pleasant trip on the train, believe it or not. It was a rainy day. I had a meal at the Keener Hotel. Although it cost $2.50 it was very indifferent with dabs of this and that circling around one's plate. However, I made a hearty meal, as they say in the old-fashioned books, and was on my way there in Wood's taxi. We tooted the horn as we passed the Burrows' and later on Mrs. Burrows came up and insisted that I spend the night with them until the house warmed up. When she came I already had the stove and fireplace going and the irons on the stove getting hot to warm up the bed in the yellow-room.

The plumbers did not arrive today as anticipated, I having phoned them Saturday from New York , so I carried water up the hill from the lake. Fortunately at the last minute, when I found that I could not get everything into my suitcases, I had packed a carton and flung in all the food in the icebox except milk so I was well supplied. I expect the Burrows will bring me a few things until I get in touch with Mr. Sipple, the grocer, who will send me supplies out by the mailman as he did last year. I shall drop him one of my penny postcards or perhaps go over later in the day and ask to use the Burrows' phone.

It is raining and I have all the fires going. There is plenty to do to keep me busy in the way of moving out the porch furniture which I placed in the living-room last fall, and bringing up more water from the lake.

May 29, 1945

1945:  Her overgrown lawn as hay field.  She herself is visible in the doorway.

When I was fixing up your room, I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and two nice mice crept slowly and trustfully from the heap of fishing socks in the back of the drawer. I closed it and left them in peace. I have always felt an interest in the doings of mice since reading “The Tailor of Gloucester.” Perhaps Miss Twitchett will catch them if I bring them to her attention. Not much of a mouser, you say. But in her young years she caught a rat and innumerable mice and squirrels and chipmunks, all to train her kittens in the art of hunting. And only three years ago, at the age of eleven, she caught a weasel, so I'll have no word said agin her.

There are lots of chipmunks about this year and the vines are filled with robins nests, and the robins are very, very busy. I think that the Blackburnian Warbler had her nest by the raftered room window. There seem to be no rabbits though. I wonder why.

June 1, 1945

On the spring lawn with flowers.  She had a great weakness for devil's paintbrushes, and wouldn't let anyone cut the lawn when they were thick.

You and Peter would understand my lack of method in getting the house in order (“setting the house to rights”, as the Scotsmen would say, or is it “redup”?). After getting here, the first thing I did was to put sprays of lilac in the jars and vases on mantels and tables, and then dusted and put out the ornaments and bric-a-brac. Eventually, I'll get to the floors. This afternoon was spent trimming the rose-bushes and the Virginia Creeper at the side of the house, and raking leaves at the back. Saw one snake, but was in no wise disturbed! A great conquest on my part!

High winds and scudding clouds today. The force of the winds in the trees made me think we were on the very edge of a large lake.

June 4, 1945

I got out the Remington with the idea of typing letters to you daily but the thing with the letters on it would not rise on the lever, so I'll have to wait until someone comes or until I read the directions more carefully!

Yesterday, I asked the plumbers – still Mr. Lindsay and his helper – if they knew anything about a typewriter, and also Mr. Burrows, but no luck. Believe me the legend of slow plumbers is no legend but the truth. There was a leak in the copper boiler in the kitchen so they brought up one from the basement. I shall shellac it and so keep it shining without further elbow grease.

June 5, 1945

I see by the papers that a hundred carriers supplied planes for attack on the Kamikaze or Divine Winds at the Jap base of Rhkushu. There was also news of the Fifth Fleet and the Third Fleet under Halsey. Your letter may have been sent from Guam , as that was the point from which the news came …

June 7, 1945

Last night, a thunderstorm came up, and before the storm broke, the clouds were black over the river. Kingfishers were zig-zagging over the water, the light striking their pale colored breasts. It was lovely and you have probably seen it often. Late at night, when the storm was over, a mist rolled up the valley and this place was enveloped by it.

With 8,000,000 boys under arms, it is interesting to see what branch of the service (and what a poor word that is to designate the giving of one's time and perhaps life to one's country!) the boys you know have entered. Did I tell you that Cameron Boyd is home after being wounded in the Battle of the Bulge? His group of boys being snatched as they were out of the STP to fill in suddenly after the German breakthrough got the worst break of all, except for those who went in 1941. Now things are speeding up so that I doubt if anyone gets any last leave before overseas.

How far you all are from the desired life of “Laotze Tao” whom I have been reading. Tao is the One; the beginning and the end. It embraces all things and to it all things return. – There exists, then, an ultimate Reality – without beginning, without end – which we cannot comprehend, and which therefore must be to us as nothing. “That which we are able to comprehend, which has for us a relative reality, is in truth only appearance” and again – “Plants come to blossom only to return to the root again. Returning to the root is like seeking tranquility; it is moving toward its destiny. To move toward Destiny is like eternity. To know eternity is enlightenment, and not to recognize eternity brings disorder and evil”.

Well disorder and evil are here, and it certainly seems undeniable that man, as a mass, has not recognized himself as made in God's image.

June 9, 1945

Yesterday, I went to the Manor with Miss Tobey (this typewriter isn't really working yet) and got a number of things done. The best part of the trip was seeing Mr. Morrisey. He asked after you boys. He was quite a picture. His heavy, short-legged figure was clothed in the green of the Forest Rangers; he stood with his legs apart, his hands shoved into his front pockets, his shoulders bent. And he peered out from under the brim of his large Ranger hat, smiling a toothless smile and chewing that stub of cigar. I cleverly suggested to Mr. Morrisey that the lawn has become a fire hazard since I've let it go to hay. He said he would send someone up to mow it during June. I have just thought that Mr. Kinch may want the hay for his cows. (Mr. Ackerly always used to take it but he died last December). By the way, after Mr. Ackerly died, the two men who were supposed to milk the cows went on a drunken spree and neglected the poor beasts. Schwartz in the Manor got wind of it and knowing that Mrs. Ackerly would have to get rid of them instantly, offered her $50 a head instead of their proper value of $200!

June 14, 1945

There is no Mr. Ackerly anymore to deliver milk and news every morning (did I tell you that he died around Christmas) I'll never know what, if anything, happened.

I miss him very much – I miss his rosy cheeks and white hair and cheery ways and overlarge old clothes and bright good morning and patient willingness to try to fix anything that's out of order. Thinking of him reminds me of all the characters who have died in this valley in the last fifteen years – Mr. Tobey, aged ninety-four, picturesque in his ear-muffed cap and heavy, short, bright blue coat and mittens and bright red handkerchief. He used to come into the kitchen on a cold Winter's day, his blue eyes sparkling and his cheeks rosy, and chat awhile with me when I called on Old Mrs. Tobey. Then, there was Miss Farrar – a little bird of a woman with her high collar, sitting erect with her hands crossed on her lap, for all the world a lady out of “ Cranford ”. And dear old Mrs. Tobey, with her decided manners and ways, lame, yet game to the last ninety-sixth year of her life and with a clear mind until then. The last to go was Miss Syms, so fluttering and ingratiating, living alone the year round, bringing in wood, pumping water, attending to the furnace, yet keeping up with her former world of music, art, and drama. At the last there were six men to see her driven off to the hospital – dear Miss Syms who had a very natural shyness of men all her life.

June 15, 1945

Now that hardly anyone comes here, and because there is only me and an old cat, more and more birds and animals live close to the house. Some catbirds have their nest in the barberry bush by the three straight maple trees where the hammock hangs. Some canaries have theirs in the hemlock at the front. A woodpecker keeps noisily busy somewhere around the ice-house. He rattles away so loudly that he must be a descendant of the one you threw a stone at while he was tapping on our eaves – and hit by some miracle! Yesterday a sparrow carried off some of Miss Twitchett's fur which I had combed from her coat, to line a nest, no doubt.

I suppose it is “mete and right” to grow closer to nature as one grows older, and I am so glad that I spent the time of your growing years here in the country, deep in the woods. Today I worked hard, ending up by trimming the lilacs under the studio window of the living room. The muscles of my arms are developing rapidly! I also pulled away some of the Boston ivy which was encroaching on the narrow window over the book-shelves in the study. Later, Mrs. Burrows came over, we had a nice talk and I sent her home with her arms full of oriental poppies and lupin. During her stay, I showed her, with pride, the cellar-way, which I had so laboriously cleaned and prepared for food, as Perry DeWitt is not delivering ice this year – much to everyone's consternation except mine.

June 26, 1945

I had a carpenter up to fix the roof and do the odd jobs that should have been done four or five years ago. How nice it is to be able to open and close the door by the radio with no trouble now, and to see the new garage doors properly secure, to have a thorough coating of roofing cement about the chimneys – and to be able to lock the door into the basement (it only needed the lock lowered).

The carpenter was quite a character. His false teeth were beyond description. Like all country men, he had a knowledge of herbal remedies. One, by the name of cohash, a powder brewed as a tea, and mixed with apple-jack (I notice all these remedies are laced with liquor!) would cure sciatica. Something in it that nourished the nerves I fancy. Another remedy for gout or “crick-in-the-back” was composed of one ounce rhubarb powder, one ounce sulphur, one ounce cream of tartar, all mixed in a therapeutic pint of gin. The last one of which he told me was a wonder cure for dysentery – the dried dust of a puff-ball sprinkled on milk.

July 1, 1945

Walked down the road to see Mr. Warren, or rather to take to him some linen NO TRESPASSING notices which I found in the garage. I thought that they might be useful now during the paper shortage. His vegetable garden is in fine shape and he gave me a beautiful head of lettuce and offered me petunia plants when he thinned his out. I shall be glad of them for the front part of the side garden. I in turn promised him forget-me-not seed and iris roots, the former having run completely wild in the garden as well as around the verandah steps. We discussed, in a very bucolic fashion, the merits of manure as against chemical fertilizer, and agreed that the latter made the vegetables large but tasteless. This opinion I have held for years, but it never got me anywhere in my garden with a gardener.

When I arrived home I brought in three wheel-barrows-full of kitchen wood, more than ever before. I used the tin wheel-barrow and started bringing just a few sticks in one load, but now I fill it up and don't notice the weight or the distance. I should say it was about forty yards to the wood-house, wouldn't you? The three loads will last me about two days in the kitchen stove. It is mostly beech and ironwood and it burns slowly at the start but gives good heat.

July 3, 1945

You wrote that you had been at Ulithi, so of course I got out my magnifying glass and found Ulithi Island on the map. I have an excellent map which shows the “island hopping” campaign. I've intended sending it to one or other of you boys. Your description of the resort for Navy Personnel was perfect. “Bereft of nut brown maidens, full of empty beer bottles.”

July 5, 1945

I got up at five this morning. The river and valley were hidden in mist. But, by the time I had built the fire, made my coffee and toast and carried it out to the verandah, the mist was beginning to drift away. First the tall hemlocks showed at the right of the “ski-run”, then a glint of the pool at the foot of the bank, then the young willows on the gravel at the left; next I could make out the tops of the towering maples on the golf-course and then those at Trout Valley Farm. Finally the road up past Kinch's place cleared and on the hill back of it the trees looked like a cluster of cottages against the sky. I do like getting up early, and always plan to do it regularly – and then don't.

July 9, 1945

Have just returned from the Manor where I went with the Hartwells in their car to take Mr. H. to the 7:30 am New York bus. We waited for the stores to open and then did a bit of marketing. While waiting I sat in the car which was parked near the railway, and presently the most unearthly noise, like some prehistoric monster, rose in the air. It seemed worse because of the complete quiet at home. Shortly one of those new locomotives hove in sight leading many freight cars. On warm days, I have since heard it from here, seven miles away, when the wind is right.

I put some iris in the ground by Grannie's headstone, so next spring purple and yellow blooms will glimmer among the ever-growing pines. I'd like to be buried among those pines. But I believe a private burial ground is no longer permitted in these United States . A great pity for the custom had reserve and dignity.

Her La Salle was no respecter of grass

Yesterday, after having received my six-month's car license in the rural mail, I went to Roscoe to have the La Salle greased. By great good fortune I ran the car out of the garage and left it in the sun to warm up, as I had not taken it out of the garage since last December. When I got out, I saw mice scampering out of it in all directions! They did look funny, but I was mighty glad that I had not set out directly. Imagine having a troop of frightened mice running around your feet! It reminded me of a story someone told, probably Mr. Crump, of how a mouse ran up his trouser leg while he was driving and he jumped out in the road and took his trousers off there and then!!

July 16, 1945

Beside Clear Lake

Mr. Pelsang, the locksmith, lives in Liberty “this side” of Ferndale , and he turned out to be a gentle, courteous and kindly old man with blue eyes and a nice face. He could have stepped out of an old locksmith shop in Switzerland , and his little workroom was equally antique.

He advised me to get a push-button starter from the big garage in Liberty run by Mr. Howland. He was too busy, but sent me up a side street to a mechanic who had a French name and who fixed it right away. So I now pull out a button, press the foot starter and I am on my way. Should have been done years ago.

July 31, 1945

Last evening, just after dusk, I was on the driveway toward the Glen brook standing by the old stepping-block looking to see if the ditches were all right after the heavy rains, when a dark shape glided across the foot of the driveway. It was bigger than a cat and was not a dog so I took it for a fox, as I've heard them barking at night. (Bear tracks, too, have been seen down at Craigie Claire). For some reason or other I hastened across the lawn into the house and brought Twitchett with me!

August 15, 1945

I know that under your English master's influence, you minimize the heart value of tried and true expressions, calling them trite. But no other could express my feeling when I heard about Russia declaring war and Japan asking for peace, than “my heart leaped for joy.” And I could not say that I have ever had that same feeling before. Similarly I learned the exactitude of the phrase, “my heart is heavy” when Peter and then you, went into the war.

I went swimming this afternoon, then had supper of my favorite food – boiled eggs, tea and toast; then cut the lawn and the dead sweet William – saving the seed. The hollyhocks are practically over now, and some of them tower up to the tops of the windows.

September 17, 1945

I am sitting beside the first fire I have had since the end of May. Cold weather since Sunday with rains and winds; we are apparently receiving the tail-end of the terrific storms in Florida . The temperature has stood at fifty but the cold has penetrated the house and I shall sleep tonight in the raftered-room where the kitchen chimney keeps it warm, as I slept between the blankets with my bathrobe on and the windows closed last night. How you in the tropics must long for just such cold.

September 18, 1945

Had supper by the fire and felt like typing again, so got a lamp and put it beside the typewriter on the apple-green wooden bridge-table which must be at least forty years old. It belonged to the Smiths before it belonged to us. I wished that you had been here to have supper with me as you both like it by the fire. It was nice coming into the light and warmth of it after getting wood this afternoon in the rain. Mrs. A. came out with me and we browsed around the garage and the tool house. She was raised on a farm and knew what all the different things were for, including a deluxe seeder on a wheel with all sorts of gadgets attached. When we arrived back at the house, we found that old Mr. Tobey, Miss Tobey's father, who had been over this morning to get my axes to grind, had come with them and gone again. He chopped down a few trees, too. I am just learning how a neighbor will help you, this year while alone, and I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity before. I am hoping that Ike Kinch will put in that wood, (which was cut and never stacked) on the verandah where it will be handy for me to use in the fire-place.

September 19, 1945

I write these letters to both of you as they are mostly about Beaverkill, and the thoughts and memories that so many years spent here have brought to my mind. Beaverkill was in a sense bought for you, and furnished in an old-fashioned way – the lampshades with Turner-like ships on them in soft autumn colours, the screen with red ships, the tapestries of hunting and of fighting scenes of olden days. Though the Delco has been out for some years now and there is no electricity, I can still see the room at evening with the two fireplaces lighted and softly-glowing lamps throwing into relief the copper and the brass, the many books and pictures, the refectory tables, the oak beams, the grandfather clock.

September 20, 1945

Miss Tobey came over the other day with the man whom she had hired to bring back the oak Mission furniture which I loaned her so long ago for Grove Cottage, which she is putting into the hands of a wrecker. Lumber is scarce, as I believe Russia is having enormous shipments from America . Miss Tobey has a number of people looking at her place but so far none of them has had her asking price in their pockets. She was talking to me of the place and mentioned that an agent in Elmira had told her that an order of priests were interested but she has not communicated with them. I was intrigued and reminded her that our property once belonged to the Catholic Church and that it seemed right to me that the neighboring property should come into their hands.

My interest in the Catholic orders may stem from the time when I visited an Aunt whose garden was adjacent to the Priest's garden which I looked out on from my bedroom window. One day a handsome dark-haired young priest whom I had often noticed, happened to look up and our eyes exchanged glances. I do know that I was at the impressionable age of sixteen and I wrote a love-story about it called “The Silver Cross” for an English assignment that fall at college and the English professor read it aloud in class and poked fun at the romantic young lady who wrote it and I wanted to sink through the floor.

In her Chinese red canoe

Together Miss Tobey and I read the plaque on our living room wall, over which Leslie Crump hung the Greek Cross bought at auction sale, and found that the Franciscan monks at Callicoon had driven over here in 1865 to conduct services in the little frame church then standing on this ground. When the tannery, by the covered bridge, was abandoned because of lack of hemlock, religious services were discontinued. The church remained standing until 1880 when it burned down. Then, in 1907, Mr. Frank Smith, of the Bell Telephone Company, bought it from Archbishop John Farley and built the poured-concrete bungalow we bought in 1925 and changed to a year-round dwelling in 1927. I would like nothing better than to have the monks on Clear Lake property. It would mean complete privacy which is what you'll need in this coming age.

September 26, 1945

Yesterday, Miss Tobey and I followed down the outlet of the lake to remove an eel-trap which some intruder had put there. She first noticed the trap a few days ago when she was clearing the old path down to old Mrs. Tobey's house. The trap was about half-way between Miss Julie's house and the Roscoe road, and it was a most ingenious device, consisting of three separate arrangements, “which”, said Miss Tobey, “were to confuse the eel”! On the lowest level in the stream bed were two crates with sides made of slats and covered over with the branches of a small hemlock which grew close to the water. We tore those crates out with an ax and then, immediately upstream, found a layer of boards covered over with stones and silt; extending upstream from these boards were more slats also covered by dirt and stones; and then, on another level, right above, was the same arrangement repeated. It was a long and arduous task to remove it, yet Miss Tobey continued moving debris and opening the stream until there was no trace of it left. If I had been Miss Tobey, I would have phoned the police (it is unlawful to have an eel-trap on the premises she said) and had them find the trappers and get them to take it out. The story goes that that is exactly what they did about another trap, telling the fellows to get it out within a certain time or they would be arrested! All in the family, so to speak.

September 29, 1945

Just suited up for fishing

I was told about a young man, a returned soldier, who is caretaker of the Woelfle place for the winter. He receives no pay but has the house and whatever he can make “off'n” the place. He drives the milk-collecting truck for one thing and wants to do odd jobs for another. He has a young baby of five months and a young wife (I suppose I should reverse the order). So one day enroute to Roscoe for groceries I met his red truck and tooted at him to stop, which he did. I told him that I had heard that he wanted some work, and he countered with, “what kind of work do you want done?” There was a twinkle in his eye and that made me smile. The upshot of our conversation in mid-road was that he came over the next drizzly day, having to get in his hay on the sunny ones. He brought over the fireplace wood that had been standing out ever since Mr. Hornbeck didn't put it in that last winter he was here. He parked his truck to unload the wood at the stepping block on the left hand drive-way, where he would be near to the verandah on which I wanted the wood placed. He accomplished the transfer of wood in short order – one hour and 45 minutes, for which he charged me 40 cents an hour. Having paid 12-year-old Jack Hartwell 35 cents an hour in the summer and Jack having done about one-fiftieth of the work, I was at a loss as to what to do, so gave him a woolen baby-blanket for his baby, which pleased him mightily.

The story I am gradually getting to is that when he tried to back out he was stuck, and apparently not being used to the soft earth at the side of driveways, he proceeded to try over and over again, without putting stones completely under the wheels to form a hard runway. The result was that his front wheel sank deeper and deeper and when I did go out to help him with the stone suggestion, which he good-naturedly followed; it was of no use; so he went for the horses which Neal Gray had loaned him to take in his hay. As he was so agreeable and had answered my old-lady questions with such courtesy, I drove him there.

Later he returned in a rig, his wife sitting beside him. She had left the baby alone to come to drive the horses and rig back. This disturbed Mrs. Andrews no end and she had to come into the house to pray about it. Watching from the verandah, I noticed that the chains he attached to the truck kept breaking and that the horses didn't “Gee” together and I was being bated by Mrs. Andrews, who said the poor horses were starved and that it was making her nervous just to watch them. The young man kept his temper and I, having only seen short and searing tempers in this neighborhood in the past, was greatly impressed, so I went out to offer to drive the truck, in reverse, no less, when the horses hauled. I think he was dubious when I said I had never driven one. Nevertheless he told me what to do (the foot-brake didn't work and that was why he had gone over to the side of the drive to have the stepping-block hold the trunk). The soft-spoken little wife gave me the signal; he hawed or geed the horses, I gave the truck full gas measure and out we came. But I kept going, having automatically used the foot-brake! And my consternation mounted in that second when I realized that I was still going full speed reverse and would run tilt into the horses! Fortunately I unfroze in time to shut off the gas!

I then offered to drive his wife home or to follow them with the car in order to bring him back, as it turned out that his wife had never before driven a horse (he kept teasing her about being a Westerner). She did not complain, and he said that she should be all right, as he was driving her down our hill, and then she was to wait on this side of the covered bridge until he got there to take the horses over the bridge and up that mean hill on the other side. So away they went in the rig, his arm over her shoulder in true pioneer spirit.

He told me he had been wounded in Holland and that he had been in an English hospital nine months with his leg wound. He was not in the big D Day push nor in the Battle of the Bulge. He said also that the government was very generous. He had been born in Long Island and had been in the mountains since he was ten. I congratulated him on being so sensible and deciding to go to the country instead of huddling in the city. “Well”, he said “I wouldn't bring up children in the city”. When I told him he'd never get rich at 40 cents an hour, he said, “Maybe not, but I'll have friends.”

The young man's name is Sandy May.

Sunday Morning, September 30, 1945

Temperature down to 42 degrees when I woke up at 7:30 , a drop of 28 degrees since yesterday morning. A brisk wind blew all day and in the late afternoon the weather was distinctly on the cold side. Walking around the lake was pleasant, scuffing the leaves under my feet. It was cloudy with occasional bursts of sunshine which made the mountainside glow with colour. One group of hard maples across the lake over by the spring were still green.

October 2, 1945

Miss Tobey had to have her car fixed by Cliff Stewart in Lew Beach , so I drove over behind her to bring her back home. As we returned by the graveyard, I said that I always had intended to go in to see it and she said that I was expressing her immediate wish – only she didn't say it in so few words – you know Miss Tobey! So we backed up and got out of the car and went in. It was well kept and that made us comment on the over-grown appearance of the little Beaverkill Churchyard; and we decided to go with a sickle and a scythe (she can scythe, having been brought up on a farm) and fix up the Tobey Grave on the first fine day, not only as an act of remembrance but as an example to the others whose loved ones are there. That was the school-teacher angle.

It started to rain while we were looking at the older stones, some going back as far as 1800, but we took no notice. I had come on the family of Joscelyn whose name has always intrigued me ever since the red-headed Joscelyn, who cut down our trees and hauled them to the wood-house with a pair of oxen, made me a set of wooden knitting-needles.

In the yard lay buried another family with odd first names such as Wakeman, Aseneth, Jerushia. The surname was Mackey. But we got no farther. It started to pour and we bundled up in hats and raincoats to drive home in the open car (Miss Tobey is quite a sport when you get her away from school-children and home!)

October 3, 1945

A wild night last night with the wind blowing a gale and the thermometer dropping to 34 degrees, where it still is at this hour – 9 o'clock . But the sun has come out and that is a change from the all-day rain yesterday. It was a day when I did odds and ends – getting everything in its proper place and then not being able to find them! I also spent about an hour in the tool-room with Mrs. A., who identified tools by name – to wit, brace and bit, vise, file, hasp, tin-snips, spud, pipe-wrench, wire-cutters, flat trowel, handsome pliers and a lovely level with a glass water tube with a bubble of air in it to show when it is exactly level. My acquaintance with tools, I realize, really came through that patience-developing game, Jack-straws. The straws in our set were made of wood in the shapes of tools.

Last night I slept with my head under the covers as it was so cold. Mrs. A. had heated sticks of wood for my bed and wrapped them in cloth so I was cosy. I have used heated flatirons but never heard of heating sticks before. They acquire a nice wood smell so I prefer them. I expect all this talk of cold makes you blister! But it was heavenly waking up and seeing the flurry of snow and being warm in bed. There is no getting away from the fact that in a temperate climate the weather is God's greatest blessing to man and is man's most common topic of conversation. Thus speaks an old country-woman!

The wind had whistled through the vines at the window and had sounded through the trees down the slope to the Glen brook all night and so there was an undercurrent of sound in my sleep which turned into the magnificent music of “The Magnificat” just before I woke.

October 4, 1945

There is something exciting about the first frost, as you well know. The valley was beautiful – mountains blue and the Trout Valley Farm meadows white, the river below a battleship grey and the frost-covered trees sparkling in the sun. Mr. Kinch's column of blue smoke was rising in the still air when I got up – but he is not always first to build his fire – sometimes I am, and nearly always first in the summer! I wonder if he looks this way and says to his wife, “Mrs. Foote is up early”!

October 17, 1945

Before Sandy left, he set two mousetraps for me, which apparently went off of their own accord – not a mouse was harmed, anyway. He also removed the screens and put in the glass in the French doors. In Roscoe, I went into Gottfried Schirer's shoe-mending shop. An old fashioned German cobbler he is, to be sure, and he seems to keep his little square shop in a state that will remind him of Germany, where he was born in 1851. Boots and shoes are on the floor and on the shelves; old-fashioned calendars hang on the wall. Boxes are piled high in the corners. A glass show-case holds bars of candy and shoelaces. Everything is lettered over with the dust of ages. I have gone so often to have the same walking shoes mended in these last ten years that he calls me by name and always chats. This time, he told me about being in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870!

As I stood at the door of the shoemaker's shop watching, the leaves were being whirled down the street in great eddys. Once, so many went flying by at one time that the street was blurred. I wonder if memories are swept away like the leaves or if somewhere they are stored in another mind of the future, or if they form a subconscious stratum in one's next incarnation, making a foundation for one's likes and dislikes.

October 21, 1945

I came out early this morning to sit in the sun at the back, not wishing to lose a minute of it. Twitchett was lying on her back under the delicate frond-like bush at the corner of the nursery. She too was making the most of these sunny fall days. I was reading bits in “Star of Satan”, which can stand careful re-reading, and I turned my face toward the bush and there was a small fox coming round it. He turned then and went toward the study and disappeared from sight.

A breeze stirred that air just as I am writing and down came a shower of leaves from the big beech at the head of the garden path. – Such a fine dry rustling sound. No wonder the beech, along with the ash, are mystic trees.

I have just come out of the kitchen and, while I was standing there, the little fox came back through the gate and played around in the longer grass, catching grasshoppers, I think. Anyway, I could see him chewing but hardly chewing long enough to be eating a mole or field-mouse. He trotted from spot to spot coming as far as the grape trellis and wandering out into the lawn again and around the corner of the house, where I could see him quite plainly. He is a darling; so nonchalant and easy-going.

October 24, 1945

I drove in the rain to Roscoe for supplies yesterday and then went over to say hello to Mr. Burrows while I was on the way to meet the postman, going that way instead of down the hill to the low road. We had a long talk, mostly about Miss Tobey's idiosyncrasies, and about the property around the Lake and the laws regarding private thoroughfares. I always enjoy my conversations with him. He was funny about his wife who wants to come back to Beaverkill, having gone to New York during those heavenly days here. He wants to close up without her but I really think he is “handling” her, so that she will finally appreciate Beaverkill and not always be wanting to get away. I fancy it is hard for her to be a housewife after being a business woman all her life. I like them both and wish them all happiness in their late marriage. I am sorry that they are leaving so soon. That leaves me on the hill and lake alone.

October 26, 1945

A bad day and so I did not motor to New York to be part of the Navy Day Celebration. How wonderful it will be, weather taken into account, with all those battleships and smaller craft anchored in the Hudson while the thousand planes fly overhead. I would love to see every kind of ship and the planes cruising overhead – probably something I shall never have the opportunity of seeing again. I remember when the hundred planes of the Russians flew over New York City in the early thirties. It was a great sight.

This morning, when bringing in wood from the pile at the kitchen door, a great wind came along the mountain side from the end of the lake and the trees were buffeted and the few leaves left on the trees came swirling down along with some sleet. It was like the roaring of the sea in the distance.

The little foxes were here again yesterday, playing on the lawn.

October 28, 1945

The sky has lately been studded with stars, and the last quarter of the moon had not risen when I went to sleep. I often think of you at night and wonder if your post is where you get a sense of the mystery of the sea, of the stars circling in their courses in the darkness, and feeling of space and distance, which only seems to come aboard ship.

I have arrived at the Psalms in the Old Testament which I am reading and found in the Sixth Psalm the word “circuit” in the following quotations: “his going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it.” Science has arrived only at the beginning of the knowledge that is in the universe and which must have been known by ancient civilizations. Whether this civilization will again be destroyed before full knowledge comes to man is a mystery.

November 15, 1945

The deer shooting started today. Already at dawn, though it was misty and drizzly, shots rang out over the valley. I have always disliked this season, and will try to stay indoors while it lasts. I had to go to town for supplies and I saw at least a dozen cars parked at different spots, obviously belonging to hunters. I thought of that lovely Christmas carol which Peter would sing when he was home for Christmas holidays – “O the rising of the sun and the running of the deer.” And of Bambi, and of Mukerji's books, and wished that I had left Beaverkill for the season. But here I am and it is cold and damp and we have had a couple of mornings of heavy frost.

At night, I put four heated irons and the hot water bottle in my bed and the forty degree temperature does not affect me, what with a nightcap and bed socks! When it is too cold, I find that I wake up with my head tucked under the covers. Am still using the open car and have resurrected the old moleskin cap with ear tabs to wear, and Peter's big blue overcoat and so am comfortable driving even if I do arouse comments from the boys en route; I am becoming quite a local character!

The partridge have kept close in and I don't think many have been shot. As I came back from town, I drove up the tennis court side and at its corner, a bird rose straight up like a wood-cock. He was apparently well acquainted with the wire of the court as he rose the full height before flying. I was so surprised I drove right onto the lawn!

In the cold I have been leaving the light in the bathroom downstairs going all night – that little oil lamp with the green shade – and it has behaved perfectly. But the other morning, I came into the bathroom and backed out again. It was jet black from ceiling to floor! I have not gone near it since, hoping that some kind fairy will turn up and clean it. I'll go at it some fine day when I am in a mood such as made the setting of mouse-traps imperative, and then the task will be an easy one in which I shall take pride of accomplishment, as I did in cleaning the kitchen stove with Dutch cleanser.

November 20, 1945

Today, I received your very funny letter on weevils and the deplorable Navy! The weevils are right along my line these days as I have been struggling with the mice that have invaded the house in tens, and I might say twenties, for twenty is the number of mice that I – yes I, who at one time could not set a mouse-trap or look at a dead mouse –, caught this past week.

Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1945

Sandy came over yesterday to attend to the furnace. But Mr. Lindsay had not come to turn it on. So Sandy stayed and dug the little drain near the garage doors and put up a lattice for the roses, and then up and invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. He had bought a fourteen-pound turkey, expecting his family to come from Long Island , but they could not come. I went over at 2:30 and came back about 5 o'clock , before dark, after having had a pleasant time.

A fearful wind and rain storm from the East took away the cold snap that had congealed the Valley and it was lovely today, so I did some outdoor oddments around the house – fed the birds, threw away the caught mice – the total is now 26.

Late November

1920s: Main room of Foote house before additions

Well, it is sunny out, so I think that I shall take a stroll around the house and then wash the smoked-up lamp-chimneys. Having struggled in the orthodox way for some weeks, I finally hit on the method of washing them with soap and water, using a small mop on a stick, rinsing them and then rinsing them again in cold water and letting them stand till dry, without using any cloth which always meant long polishing and lint. It is a perfect method. Bear it in mind for camping, some day!!