Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Mar. 30 – 1929

 With S – to his country home in Cowlesville I had a fine day & evening – full of impressions.
Even our start-off was good – we ate lunch at a Deco wagon (sic) – the very rough-and-ready primitiveness of the place appealed to me – outside it was raining – a spring rain that recalled to me some episodes from my boyhood – of wandering along the hills east of the Little Beaver, and lumber mills in the woods – wet sawdust—
I was taken with the little continence for frying eggs on the flat steel plate—
Home to change clothes – then on – Stopping at the lumber camp – the rich smell of fresh sawn wood – the uncouth workmen who seemed so wholesome – the back covered slats that come off first – the buzz of the saw – Ducks on the water – males fighting – a great surge of homesickness comes over me; an overwhelming hatred of my job closes down over me and I almost reel.
Cowlesville a little village set down in a little valley – old houses – most of them brown & black with weather – S’s house a small one but quaint & he has been busy with it, working with boyish ambition & gusto – put on a back-porch – knocked out partitions & put up new ones, painted & plastered & has new changes contemplated – There was a stream that ran at the back and side of the lot – a shallow stream with a bed of round