Delaware Water Gap

Sept                

Sunday

 

My dear Mother

                        You will see by my date we are really embarked upon our journey and have arrived at the first stage of it we have thus far been especially fortunate in the weather & have enjoyed a very great deal we arrived here on Friday noon & contrary to our expectations & preparations found it more than warm even hot & sultry we have today a total change & from thin dresses have gone into merino wrappers & knit shawls & sit by a bright wood fire the pure mountain air suits us wonderfully well & yesterday we spent a great part of the afternoon rowing on the river we went down the Gap itself where the river has forced its channel between two mountains so high that the large pine hemlock & forest trees look like fern leaves thickly sprinkled over / the sides the walks & drives in the neighborhood are almost innumerable each having high sounding names like Anns Bath Rebeccas Bath Caldens Falls Shawmut Hill & the like we confine ourselves to a portion only this time as we leave here on Wednesday for Mauch Chunk where we shall take Lillie Bache around the mountain on the switch back as it is called here to you the term will have no meaning unless you can imagine a little by my telling you we go around the mountain by switching backwards down hill a little which send you forward with great velocity in the opposite direction there is no steam power whatever but the car is managed by a brake in the hand of the conductor from Mauch Chunk we go to Bethlehem where George will leave us & go home for a few days & paint up a little on the shutters front door & it is thought best to do it whilst I am away and as Bethlehem has been done up brown by him two summers since he does / not find himself with the strong inclination to remain there that we ladies do who enjoy so much in a quiet way. Em has brought her school books with her & she learns her lessons every day & recites her French to Lillie Bache. You ask me about my cold it is an obstinate though not at all dangerous form of cold & simply very annoying as I am deprived entirely of smell & for a great measure of taste and cough a little not very often that is but it is hard when I do cough & I am glad it comes so seldom I contracted the cold last March I believe now I was very imprudent at the time & I had a constant headache day & night for ten days when the pain left me it left me deaf entirely with the left ear without smell & taste & otherwise very owlish as people always are with a bad cold in the head after waiting until the last of June & finding the deafness still continued D^r Norris by some operation on the ear enabled me to hear perfectly in the course of twelve hours / it was not like Emmas an accumulation of cerum it was perfectly white & more like congestion since that time I have found wax in the ear before that for three months there was never the smallest particle for one week at old oak I recovered my sense of smell & it was quite a luxury but it departed & that with a renewal of my cough started the plan to take mountain air before winter set in my hearing is quite perfect & for that I am truly grateful having poor dear grandmother before my mind the loss even for a time of that sense depressed me greatly I was so deaf for three months as not to hear common conversation across the table I feel much better & stronger now than when I left home & I am sure the mountain air is doing well for me so do not feel anxious about my cold if we do not meet with the autumnal equinox here we shall consider ourselves fortunate as it is time to expect it the simple cold weather we shall rejoice in as it gives an opportunity for out of door exercise Emma & George have walked to church this morning. it is not far from here & if it proves pleasant this afternoon Lillie & I will go but it threatens rain again it rained hard last evening when the cool change came. I feel so sorry for Eddys sickness it strikes me from what you mention of his symptoms he has been visited either with rheumatic fever or acute rheumatism one of Ems schoolmates a fat healthy girl got hers from sitting on the ground one afternoon playing with some young friends. she is suffering dreadfully  whilst her cousin a thin wirey child who did the very same thing has not been at all affected I wish I knew what he most fancies. I wrote to sister Mary to screw it out of him in my letter to her of a week or ten days since. I hope & trust we are not to have an engagement at Washington until we reach home We are so far from news it seems to me. Katie Wild writes me Edward she hears is the most popular man in the regiment & as brave & courageous as he is honourable this is high praise & I know he deserves it you must /

 

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be proud to be the mother of a son like that I am sure I am glad to be his sister

Give my love to all

particularly to Walter

if he is at home I

was glad he was to

visit Laura she

will be enchanted

to see him again

poor fellow he has

been sick enough I

am afraid I was too

sorry he should have

been so visited for

his bravery &

duty to his country

best love to

yourself from

                        Susan

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