Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, December 21, 1942

A Dream:

Bertha Art and I out in the country – an unknown valley to the Southeast – It is Mid-December but without any snow – We are driving south in the car, and have just came to a Y in the road. The right fork leads up over a hill and back home – the left runs S.E. around the edge the northern end of a long lake – After discussing which turn we take, I suggest we go around the lake and southward, as it may be the last trip we may take for a long time. Our road after changing to the lake shore for a piece, veers to the left and enters a woods. It is twilight, and everything is very obscure. There are signs of a recent heavy rain, and the road is covered under silt and sand which had been washed down from the low-lying hills to the east.

We had not driven far when we sighted an old cabin, a light shining from its door, facing us. We drove, without ceremony, right into the middle of the cabin’s main room, and stopped. As usually happens in dreams, the cabin’s occupant, an old bearded man sitting in a chair was not the least surprised or put out by our intrusion. As we got out of the car, he greeted us, and said that he assumed we had come to buy wheat and oats, and directed our gaze, by a wave of his hand, to burlap bags, which were standing in the doorway to, and inside an adjourning room. The bags, we discovered, were filled with all manner of grain and other dried vegetables – wheat, oats, barley, and peas and beans – black beans, white with black-eyes, white speckled with red etc. While we were looking at them, I awoke.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, December 21, 1942