Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

98.                     August 31 – 1935-

     In the night I lay awake going over ceaselessly like a squirrel in a cage, my various problems, harried by the precarious state of our finances. The night seemed endless. Presently a soft rain began to fall; what a comforting sound – I grew ashamed of my worrying.   

     At such a time as this, the thing to do, is to be bold – Like Rossicky (sic)(from "Neighbour Rosicky" by Willa Cather) with his party when all his crops were ruined, I should make the gesture of freedom, and be as impractical as possible; the kind of impracticalness I mean, consistent with free creativeness – I spent the day in carving a frame for the Gowanda Hills, a picture in our living room – an “unprofitable” activity, but one I thoroughly enjoyed.

September 1, 1935 – Sunday-

     7:00 a.m. For walk- the usual route. At the end of the village, on Clinton street, I watched a flock of birds in a ragged erratic flight over the rail-road – They were like a flexible net of some kind, now expanding, and now contracting, and always changing shape, but held together by invisible strands of some sort that never broke. As they turned, one side of the “net” would become suddenly dense