The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked over from their house, a long distance off, to bring me flowers, and at the reading he introduced me. I had an excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained tremendously, and everybody had to walk because there were no horses. The professors called on me, also Newman Smith, now a settled minister here.
Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay made me promise that you and I should come and spend a week with them next summer. Mr. Howard, in Portland, called upon me to inquire for you, and everybody was so delighted to hear that you were getting better.
It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor, so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace car riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings with old acquaintance, would be well worth having, even though I had made nothing in a pecuniary sense. On the whole it is as easy a way of making money as I have ever tried, though no way of making money is perfectly easy,--there must be some disagreeables. The lonesomeness of being at a hotel in dull weather is one, and in Portland it seems there is nobody now to invite us to their homes. Our old friends there are among the past. They have gone on over the river. I send you a bit of poetry that pleases me. The love of the old for each other has its poetry. It is something sacred and full of riches. I long to be with you, and to have some more of our good long talks.
