April is nearly gone.  Tom has promised to come for me on Monday; I feel so happy to think I am going to be free once more.  I sat on my favorite seat in the window sill, looking at those poor men working on the grounds.  There were three; they did not look like lunatics, no overseer near them; they were shoveling or spading, and three ducks followed them.  Fed by the All-Father’s hand, they gather food for themselves; the men never disturb them; they cannot be violent.  Many a farmer would be willing to give one of those men a permanent home for his services.  The knowledge that this home is here for them to return to, would ensure them kind treatment at the hand of the farmer, and I am sure they would prefer life on a farm, with good palatable food and liberty, to being shut up here as prisoners and fed as paupers, as we in the ladies’ ward are, without one word or look of sympathy or respect extended to us.

One day this week, I had been watching one of the men working at the strawberry beds, thinking I would like to live on a farm now, that I might cultivate those lovely berries.  The Doctor came in to make his usual morning call, in the hall, with a book and pencil in his hand; that is all he ever does for us.  I thought I would make him think I thought him a gentleman, which he is not, and perhaps he would be more willing to let me go home.  It has taken effect.  I suppose he thinks I have forgotten all the doings of the past winter, and that I will not dare to say anything against such a mighty man as he is.  I am glad I have taken it down in black and white, so as not to forget the wrongs of the Province, and the wrongs of those poor neglected women, of whom I am one.  I ought not to write in this manner, but my indignation overcomes me sometimes, and I cannot help it.  He is a little more social now than usual, and I suggest that if he bring blackberry bushes from the field, and set them around the fence, keeping the ground irrigated round the roots, he might have as nice fruit as the cultivated.  He said yes, he would send some of his men out to his farm and get some, and he left as pleasant as he came.  That was the first time he ever left me without being driven away by my making some request, and being refused.

This reminds me of the day I begged so hard for a pot of Holloway’s Ointment.  I had asked my boys several times to bring it to me, and I thought they always forgot it.  I had used it many years, not constantly, only for a little rash on my face at times; it has annoyed me very much lately.  This day I had urged him all I could, and he left me, saying he had too much on his mind today.  I followed him to the door, saying, “I don’t want to think so ill of you, Doctor, as that you will not grant me so small a favor—­a twenty-five cent favor—­and I will pay for it myself.”