Donald is living and farming with his bachelor uncle Alex Sutherland. While Alex travels to Woodstock, Tavistock, Toronto, and London to conduct business, Donald does more of the heavy physical or mundane work, such as cutting firewood, hauling manure, and doing the dishes. Occasionally he returns to his parents’ home to visit or party. His entries, written in a beautiful hand, are sporadic and brief. Farm work is interspersed with accounts of hired men and passages he copies about “A Cure for Love,” “Why Marriages Prove a Failure,” and “Christian Teaching in the Home.”