Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

To Miss Lucy Osgood.

I wish I had known when your eightieth birthday was. I would have made a fuss on the occasion, I assure you. I have often been tempted to ask when your birthday was, but I always remembered what were your sister's first words when I called to see her after she had her fall: “Now don't go to muching me! I don't like to be muched.” I had an idea that you shared her aversion to being “muched,” and so I concluded to let your birthday slide. I dare say, after all, that you were rather pleased with having [212] the anniversary marked by so many kindly memorials. For my part I am delighted to find a few flowers on the mile-stones as I pass along. No matter how simple they are; a buttercup is as good as a japonica; somebody placed it there who remembered I was going by, and that is sufficient.

What a blessing it was for that dear good man, S. J. May, to pass away in the full possession of his faculties, and surrounded by such an atmosphere of love and blessing. Friend Whittier, writing to me the other day, says: “How many sweet and precious memories I have of my intercourse with him! Where is he now? What is he doing and thinking? Ah me! we beat in vain against the doors of that secret of God! But I am so certain of God's infinite goodness and love, that I think I can trust myself, and all I hold dear, to his love and care.”