From W. E. Darwin to Emma Darwin 4 November [1878]

My dear Mother

This is poor Sara's last week, but she has had a very happy visit, especially having found Aunt Anne so well, and having escaped being tired herself.

I came back last Monday from my visit at Gardiner in Maine, where I enjoyed my 2 days very much. I came back in the charge of a Miss Howe, she is the daughter of a certain M^rs Julia Ward Howe, who is a celebrated Woman's Rights &c, and whose second daughter is the wife of M^r Richard's brother, so we were on easy terms, and as she was handsome & pleasant I enjoyed the journey.

This last week I have been making P.P.C. calls and dining out once or twice, and tomorrow S. & I dine at her friends M^rs Cleveland, on Tuesday Theo & I go to the Theatre to see Rip Van Winkle, in fact my last week is very crowded.

The weather now has become really cold & we shall soon begin furnaces; in some shops & houses the furnaces begin too soon; and it is quite suffocating going into them and frightfully unwholesome. The furnaces not properly managed are the death of women & childrens in great numbers, especially where from economy they have no open fireplaces, a D^r here calls them "Hell pots".

On Tuesday we have the excitement of the annual elections for Governors and Congressmen; there is a most wonderful change in the Direction of Civil service reform, it is becoming the cry on all the platforms; if it can be carried in a few years, it will be another wonderful proof, just like the war, of how when an abuse gets up to a certain pitch the people rise in a mass & put it down; the [death] of [illeg] has been the great stimulus.

I was much amused at Gardiner at the way they take of themselves in earnest now & then.

There is a stupid D^r there who did not recognize small pox in a family he was attending, and brought it home & gave it his own child, and was likely to spread it through the town; so the Mayor gave orders to seize the D^r and shut him up in his house with his sick child and a sentinel was put day & night at the doors and not a soul was allowed in or out, the mother was allowed to come & talk thro' the window to her husband the D^r. He used to pass his time sitting in an armchair in the coach house grumpily smoking his pipe with the sentinel marching up and down in front of him, and so he was kept till there was no chance of infection from his child. I was amused by another little thing at Beverley, of a different kind. The whistle of the train is usually a tremendous deep roar like a bull which they give out a stations, but one day I heard a continuous yelling on a high note just like a cow in agonies, so M^r Morse said "oh it's only the wild Train"

It seems that whenever they have a train not on the tables either a special or to carry workmen, no particular notice is given, but it comes along yelling in this frightful manner and goes by the name of a "wild cat train"—"wild train" being the short name. It is pretty well happy-go lucky whether they run over people at the crossing as there no gates as a rule but I fancy people have learned not to be often crushed (which is good wish)   I must now go and ask [illeg] Asa Gray . . .