Letter (continuation): Thomas's tenderness toward Tody; the coffin in the room
Book 1, Page 149 ·1874
Transcription
A handwritten letter, written in cursive ink across two facing leaves of the same sheet. The text continues from a previous page and runs onto the next.
Left leaf
Thomas has been so tender & sweet about it. He just watches Tody & seems to feel as if every thing like ^(tender) compensation ought to come to him — He said to me “It is awfully hard on Theodore, every thing he did centred in Mother, & now just as he has her so comfortably fixed in every way, in this house, & with his success in life, it must cut him up terribly to lose her” — Mother’s dear funeral, & burial, & every thing since has been without one moment of the almost inevitable gloominess connected with such times — You know how Thomas shrinks from all sadness, & he told Kate he had never believed that death & all the preparations for the last separation could be done so quietly & without one moment’s shuddering — & he said it must be because it was
Right leaf
Mother & that the influence of her life was going on through every thing — She was placed on the little bed she occupied always & it was rolled near the window where the air moved the mosquito net gently, & gave an appearance of motion, taking away from the stillness — The coffin was in the room all day, but the man told us we need not disturb her till the last, as she would be less likely to change — Little Tom went into the room & after looking at Mother, he went to the coffin, & touched it all about, & without thinking of it, as we would go in & out of the room, we would stand by it, & Wm called me to see that the engraving of her name was like one silver mark — As I write it all, I fear that I may fail to give you the right impression by my words — The day after Tom came to me asking for the head of his little walking stick — I told
AI Notes
A continuation page from the long handwritten letter in the 1874 Barker family death cluster, written in cursive across two facing leaves. The writer (most likely Susan Milliken Barker) describes the grieving household in the days following Mother’s (Ellen Milliken Barker, 1807-1874) death: Thomas’s tenderness toward Tody (Theodore Gaillard Barker) and his sense that ‘tender compensation’ was due him; Thomas’s surprised observation to Kate that death and the preparations for parting could be done so quietly, attributing it to Mother’s continuing influence; the body laid on the little bed Mother always occupied and rolled near the window; the coffin in the room all day; little Tom touching the coffin; William showing the writer that the silver engraving of Mother’s name looked like a single silver mark. ‘Wm’ uses the standard W^m abbreviation for William. The phrase ‘like tender compensation’ reflects an interlinear caret ‘^tender’ inserted above ‘compensation’.
Letter continues on next page.