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[Penciled at top of page, in a different hand] Monhegan

447 Marlboro St March 16/30

Dear Mrs. Eckstorm,

How good to hear from you. For the last month we two have done nothing at names! They have gone flat! may or not brighten up again.

The root of that olsiman [sic? one underlined in pencil] word is used about as widely as any I think of! average meaning is to gather up, take up or away - berries, eggs, anything. You skim cream, grease off the pot. I should doubt its application in the Monhegan Island instance.

These mon-meanings [underlined in pencil] takes five or six directions. I can't always tell which is which, after fussing 10 years with them.

My first idea of the Monhegan meaning was just the digging [one underlined] one you suggest: It certainly fits, though I don't remember Indian use of the mun-form exactly where the digging was done by personal, or perhaps creature, agency. If Monhegan [two underlined in pencil] was the Indian name of the island the dry our idea would be rather hard for me to wholly abandon, but my information is that Monhegan was the passage [one underlined] along the mainland, opposite the island- the Indians' canoe passage. Your Kynagook [sic?] explanation goes with this. My case rests