desert her when she had been so lovely to me all summer. That seemed to satisfy my mother.
Then I wrote my sister Elizabeth that I did not think it at all necessary for her to come on, entailing an unnecessary expense, and gave her as nearly as possible the date of my confinement. This I did also with Mr. Harding, so they both knew exactly where I would be and when I expected to be confined.
Mr. Harding wrote immediately and asked me to please write him a love-letter before I would be in such position (in bed) that I couldn't write him for some time. I remember well the tone of that letter from him. I knew he was homesick to see me, and it reacted to make me more impatient for the day to come which would give me our baby so that I could begin to plan to see him again. I went over to Dr. Ackerman and asked him when he thought I would have the baby. My hands were somewhat swollen, I complained, and I was getting uncomfortable generally. He assured me I was in excellent shape and that I would soon have my baby. Somewhat mollified, but still irritable, I walked down to the post office. I found another letter from my sweetheart and devoured it as I walked back home. I think that was Saturday, perhaps Friday.
On Sunday afternoon, a gorgeously brilliant autumn day, I went over to the woods to my three-cornered seat, which was a board nailed to three trees. I sat there for a couple of hours and wrote to my darling. I remember I wanted to cry my eyes out that afternoon, I was so homesick to see him, and very likely this longing was written vividly into the letter which I mailed at the post office late that afternoon. Incidentally, I used to take his letters to various towns all along the shore just to avoid sending too many from one post office. As though they would have noticed to whom the letters were addressed! But it was just another of those precautions which were responsible for the absolute safeguarding of our secret from the world.
On Monday I walked most of the day, anxiously. Tuesday evening I found a letter from Mr. Harding, telling me he had never in his life received from me a love-letter equal to the one I had
