Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 25, 1911

    This has been a wonderfully warm and springy day.  Not a cloud appeared all day and the sky was a very deep intense blue.  This morning was ideal; and the sun was so bright and warm.  As the day wore on from morning, to quiet non and afternoon, the air became dead and the sun almost hot.  The roads are getting dryer all the time and more solid.

     In the morning we worked down at Mullins, as usual.  Most of the time I was stamping envelopes to go out.  Bill make good him time; he sold thirteen fifty-cent tickets among the office-force and got six promised!  And I haven’t sold any yet!

    After dinner, just as I was getting ready to go down to the barber-shop, King called up and wanted to know what I was going to do this afternoon.  When I replied I had nothing on he asked Bill + I to come out.  So, I went over after Bill, who was also going down to a barber-shop, and together we went down town.  At G.P. Andrews studio entrance, we stopped, and I suddenly decided I might sell a couple tickets to the Professor himself, so up we went two steps at a time and entered the hall of his apartment.  Someone was washing dishes on in the kitchen; the study room door was open.  Suddenly someone began to inflict punishment on the piano.  We tip-toed to the door but the piano was surrounded by screens, so we went out and went down the stairs.  Just as we got to the bottom, someone hailed us at the top.  Turning around we saw Kinkie, our future host, in gala kitchen attire, with a towel in his hand.  We greeted him hilariously and asked him if the professor was at leisure.  When he saw he had a pupil, Bill suggested giving the tickets to Kinkie to sell so I gave him two and made him promise to buy his tickets from me if he went.  As we left, he told us to come out to-morrow at one o’clock.

     We proceeded on up the Main thoroughfare of the great city to our barber shops, which are on opposite sides of the street, opposite each other.  Here I noticed an odd thing.  There were five men ahead of me.  Three of them were old white-haired men, bald on the top of their heads.  The other two were young men, with long hair.  The first three, as it turned out, all got hair-cuts, while the last two merely purchased shaves!  As I was in the middle of a haircut, I saw Bill walking somewhere in the mirror. Presently he went out of the mirror and came in the door of the shop and waited for me. When I was finished, we went on out to King’s. On the way we decided to go for a walk tomorrow morning.  It had now become very warm and sultry. The air was so dead that we became very de­moralized and had no inclination to do anything. So, we slowly walked along, keeping up a half-hearted conversation. The only thing that really aroused any interest in me, was the whistle of a cardinal somewhere and the song of a song-sparrow. There is nothing in nature that will ever fail to interest me.

     As we came up King’s lawn, Waldo came around the corner, also looking very demoralized in an old Brown suit, and muddy boots. He informed us that he had been working in the garden.

     Bill and I sank down on the back porch in the hot sunshine, while King asked us again if we didn’t want to take a walk, to which we would make direful threats to his bodily safety. Presently Bill suggested we go out and look at the laboratory, so King went indoors to hunt the key, and we went over the laboratory - a little building that was once a chicken-coop. last summer King put much time and good money in the fitting out of this little hot stuffy place for a chemical laboratory. “Windy” Jengling was a partner in the deal and supplied a patent padlock (the key to which he kept awhile) and some odds and ends that he had “picked up” in the High School Laboratory (King, however, soon put a stop to this by telling him that he could keep his stolen goods to himself). Then he wound up by buying a lot of acids. - And I don’t believe he ever spent more than two or three hours in the place.

    We waited here a long time, but King didn’t reappear. Finally, I got disgusted and went back to the porch, and soon Bill came too.  When King came out with the key, Bill announced that “Ephraim had no chemical aspirations” so we sat on the porch and talked about the class play and ticket-selling. At least, the other two did; I just sat.  A butterfly darted past - a brown quick creature.  It was the first I had seen this spring, so I lazily followed after it to look at it. It had settled near some poplar logs in the side yard, but when I came up it whirled away.  I informed the other two that I had seen a butterfly, but they laughed at me, no matter how diligently I explained that certain butterflies hibernated. Now and then tiny winged creatures flew thru the air, one I captured and examined it and found it to be a little black beetle.

   Suddenly I suggested we play cards. So, King went in and got his crochino-board and a deck of cards and we started “500”

   We had not been playing long when “Windy” and “Cook” Yengling came in and watched us play. Bill and King were too conservative in their bids, so I made reckless bids, and usually got set. They couldn’t get over their seriousness in the game. As for me I didn’t care whether I won or not, so I bid away, and afforded them much joy when they set me. Presently “Cook” left, but Windy “stuck around”. After we had finished a couple games, Bill and I started to leave. This always occupies some time and did to-day. In King’s side yard are are - or were - some short thick poplar logs adaptable to rolling. We found this out and promptly rolled them down the bank, much to the “gentle Waldo’s” wrath. Thereupon we virtuously rolled them up to their proper places, but when King became satisfied, we promptly rolled them down again. However, I made a fatal mistake that proved vital for my general happiness. I had had a pair of Frances’ overshoes with me and left them upon the porch. Waldo now said that I couldn’t have the overshoes until I rolled the logs up!  For a moment I thought I was stung, until Bill suggested that I roll them up, get the overshoes and roll them down again. So, I set to work and rolled them up, lamenting my fate loudly (for effect) while Bill made fun of me (for more effect) and King gleefully applauded (without effect). When I had them up, I loudly demanded the overshoes. “Windy” had them and as he handed them to me, he whispered “Roll ‘em down again.” It seems we all conspired against King. As we went out again, we suddenly kicked two logs down the bank, rolling one of them clear to Ellsworth. The “gentle Waldo” pursued us, but we escaped in safety.

     As we went down Ellsworth, Bill said that he had changed his mind and wouldn’t go for a walk to-morrow. As both us had errands to do, we went around thru town, and after we had made our pur­chases we stopped at “Gu-raniums” to see if Kinkie had sold the tickets, but he wasn’t there so we came on home.

     Today as I was looking in the grape-arbor, I saw that the hypatica plants were pushing up little white fuzzy buds thru the earth.  I can hardly wait until they are in bloom. Ever since I have been seven or eight years old. I have planted a wild flower garden under the grape-arbor. Every year I would bring in new one as certain ones died out, and would guard them jealously from others.  I now have almost every kind of wild-flower planted here and every spring as they come up one by one, I stand for long periods and gaze down at them with a keen feeling of delight.

     Another thing that makes me feel Spring and stirs strange sensations within me in that Jim is beginning on the garden.  In the last week or so, he has been getting seeds from different compan­ies in great quantities; the very look of the bulky envelopes suggests Spring and the rattles of seeds sounds delightfully like Spring. Several days ago he planted all kinds of them - vegetable and flowers - in boxes and now some of them are pushing their green little heads up thru the black earth!

Charles E. Burchfield, Saturday March 25, 1911