Feb. 17, 1924
     By train to Gowanda to paint.  I had hoped for a clear, cold day, but already when halfway down we met the beginning of a calm steady fall of fine dry snow which, except for a brief interlude when I made a study, kept on all day long.
     It was a perfect winter day, beautiful beyond description.  The hills covered with round domes of snow, the sky a smooth flat expanse of gray and the fine slanting snow; at times the sun showing a pale blue disc which illuminated the white air and earth with a blinding white glow so that it was hard to tell the hill tops from the sky – the absolute silence was impressive – it was like a vast tomb – even the calls of the chickadees and kinglets or the falling of snow from dead oak leaves only emphasized the silence – Everything had a still, far-off look.  Farmhouses seemed remote and lifeless- no activity was apparent – the windows looking stupefied at the ground.  I met some farmers occasionally in sleighs or afoot, but they only seemed wayfarers like myself and not as if they belonged in the vicinity.  It was winter complete – vast, silent and white.
     The snow fell preventing me from painting, I walked down to the bridge in the valley spanning the Cattaraugus Creek where