Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

October 13, 1920 –The season has become warm dusty and dry – leaves are falling and are brittle – they crackle harshly – The air is too dry – the thinning trees make the world look impoverished. One of the “old” bachelors who lives in the three-part house in Albany went past the office the other day driving a coal wagon. The man, in a sense means nothing to me; I never speak to him and he probably is ignorant of my existence, even tho he has often observed me sketching his home. And yet his unexpected appearance in this neighborhood made him seem like an old friend to me. There came before my mind the old queer house he calls home, with the hot dusty road running in front of it, casting cold blue shadows on its weather-whitened boards; it is always black under the eaves, and it is one of these rare old houses that seem to bear resemblance to the human cou