Monday
Dec 13th I have been to work for OAA again to
day as I suppose I shall as long as he stays
as I cannot set myself about any thing
else It is town meeting day and they
have come home not feeling very well satisfied
I have my clothes in the valise so that
I can go to New York with them if I wish
when the time comes but now feel undecided
As the clock ticked down, Evelina was in a quandary. Should she go with her husband Oakes to New York to see their eldest son sail off to Cuba? Distinctly “undecided,” she nonetheless packed a valise. She’d be ready just in case, but right now she couldn’t concentrate on “any thing else” except last minute details for Oakes Angier. He would be leaving tomorrow.
The men, meanwhile, seemed calm. Old Oliver reported on the weather, of course: “[I]t was fair this morning but clouded up about noon and there was about an inch of snow fell in the afternoon wind south west but pritty chilly.”* Chilly or not, Oakes and his sons, probably, attended a town meeting. Evelina doesn’t share the reason for the meeting, only that things didn’t go the way her family members had hoped.
*Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection
evelinaames 