MARIAN REMEMBERS HER DIARY
"OCTOBER 15.--You might as well keep a diary, especially in a school
where they have a silent hour. It is the queerest thing I ever heard of
but every night between seven and eight it is so still in this building
you don't dare sneeze. It isn't so bad when you have a roommate because
then you have to divide the hour with her. You stay alone half and then
you go to the reading-room or the library and read something and try
not to whisper to any of the girls, while your roommate stays alone her
half of the hour.
"Perhaps the reason I don't like silent hour is because I used to have
so many of them at home and now because I haven't any roommate I have
to stay alone the whole hour. I don't know what to do with myself and
that is why I am going to keep a diary again.
"There is a good reason why I haven't any roommate. When my aunt
brought me here the principal said they were expecting a little girl
just my age and they were going to put her in this room with me. It
isn't much fun to be a new girl in this kind of a school, especially
when most everybody is older than you are. When the girls saw my aunt
they stared, and they stared at me, too. It wasn't very nice and I felt
uncomfortable. As long as my aunt stayed I didn't get acquainted. I
didn't even dare say much to Miss Smith. I just moped around and wished
I was out in the country with the happy Goldings. They said here, 'Poor
little thing, she's homesick,' but I am sure I wasn't if that means I
wanted to go back home. My aunt stayed two days and one night. She said
she was waiting to see my roommate but at last she gave up and went
home and then I felt different. I began to wonder what kind of a girl
my roommate would be and when she came I was so happy I could scarcely
breathe because she was Dolly Russel. We thought we were going to have
such a good time, and we did for a few days until I was a big goose.
I wrote home and told my aunt who my roommate was and that ended it.
Aunt Amelia wrote to the principal and she wrote to me, and then Dolly
went to room with an old girl eighteen years old, from Kansas.
"Dolly says her new roommate is nice, but she's too old and besides
that she's engaged. Dolly told me all about it.
"My aunt wouldn't let me room with Dolly because she said we would play
all the time instead of studying our lessons. I guess she was afraid
we would have a little fun. She told me in a letter that if she had
known Dolly Russel was coming to this school she would have sent me
somewhere else or kept me at home, no matter what Uncle George and Miss
Smith said. I know why. Dolly has told the Kansas girl and some others
about my aunt already, how cross she is and such things. I don't mind
now what anybody says about Aunt Amelia since I have found out that she
isn't any relation to me. She is just my aunt by marriage and you can't
expect aunts by marriage to love you, and if your aunt doesn't love
you, what's the use of loving your aunt.
"If I hadn't passed the entrance examinations here I couldn't have
stayed. Dolly and a girl whose name is Janey somebody and I are the
only little girls here. Janey is tall and wears her hair in a long,
black braid. Mine's Dutch cut. Dolly Russel's is Dutch cut too. Janey
calls us little kids and she tags around after the big girls. We don't
care.
"October 16.--There's another girl coming from way out west. Her folks
are going to be in Chicago this winter and they want her in this
school. The Kansas girl told Dolly and me.
"October 17.--The new girl has come and they have put her with me.
She's homesick. Her father brought her and then went right away. I
didn't see him. I think I shall like the new girl. Her name is Florence
Weston and she has more clothes than the Queen of Sheba. Miss Smith
helped her unpack and I felt as if I would sink through to China when
the new girl looked in our closet. It is a big closet and the hooks
were nearly all empty because I haven't anything much to hang up. I'll
never forget how I felt when the new girl said to me, 'Where are your
dresses?' Before I could think of anything to say, Miss Smith sent me
for the tack hammer and I didn't have to answer.
"My room looked pretty lonesome after Dolly moved out, but now it is
the nicest room in school because Florence Weston has so many beautiful
things. She says this is horrid and I just ought to see her room at
home. She can't talk about her home without crying. I know I'd cry if I
had to go back to mine.
"October 20.--That Janey is a queer girl. She won't look at me and I
really think it is because I haven't any pretty dresses. She is in our
room half the time, too, visiting with Florence. They are great chums
and they lock arms and tell secrets and laugh and talk about what they
are going to do next summer and where they are going Christmas and
everything. I wish more than ever that I had Dolly for my roommate.
I wouldn't be surprised if her father is richer'n Florence Weston's
father.
"That Janey puts on airs. Her last name is Hopkins. She signs her name
'Janey C. Hopkins.' She never leaves out the 'C,' I wonder why.
"October 21.--I like Florence Weston. She is not a bit like that proud
Janey.
"November 1.--Sometimes I wish I had never come here to school. Once in
a while I feel more lonesome, almost--than I ever did at home. It is on
account of that Janey C. Hopkins. She wants to room with Florence and
she tried to get me to say I would move in with Laura Jones, the girl
she rooms with. Janey says she's going to the principal. Let her go.
Miss Smith told me not to worry, they won't let chums like Florence and
Janey room together because they won't study.
"November 2.--What did I tell you? I knew she'd be sorry. They won't
let Janey room with Florence. Florence says she's glad of it. I suppose
it is on account of hooks. Janey couldn't let her have more than half
the hooks in the closet.
"November 3.--It wasn't on account of hooks. Florence told me one of
Janey's secrets and I know now what the 'C' means in Janey's name and I
know who Janey C. Hopkins is, and I should think she would remember me,
but she doesn't. Janey told Florence that she is adopted and that her
new mother took her from the Little Pilgrims' home before they moved
out to Minnesota. I was so surprised I almost told Florence I came from
that same home, but I am glad I didn't.
"The only reason Florence doesn't want to room with Janey is because
she lived in an orphan's home. She says you never can tell about
adopted children and that maybe Janey's folks weren't nice, and anyway,
that if she ever lived in an orphan's home she would keep still about
it.
"I think I shall keep still, but I could tell Miss Florence Weston one
thing, my folks were nice if they did die. I could tell her what I read
in that newspaper in the sea-chest, how my father just would go to
South America with some men to make his fortune and how after a while
my mother thought he was dead and then she died suddenly and all about
how I happened to be taken to the Little Pilgrims' Home in the strange
city where my mother and I didn't know anybody and nobody knew us.
"I could tell Florence Weston I guess that my father left my mother
plenty of money and she wasn't poor, and after she died the folks she
boarded with stole it all and pretty near everything she had and then
packed up and went away and left me crying in the flat, and it just
happened that some folks on the next floor knew what my name was and a
few little things my mother told them.
"I won't speak of the Little Pilgrims' Home, though, because I can't
forget how Uncle George acted about it. It was a pleasant, happy home
just the same, and when I grow up and can do what I want to I am going
back and hunt for Mrs. Moore and I won't stop until I find her. I have
missed her all my life. You can't help wondering why some mothers live
and some mothers die, and why some children grow up in their own homes
and other children don't have anybody to love them.
"November 4.--Sunday. The queer things don't all happen in books. I am
glad I have a diary to put things in that I don't want to tell Miss
Smith nor Dolly. Just before dark I was in the back parlor with a lot
of girls singing. When we were tired of singing we told stories about
our first troubles. I kept still for once, I really couldn't think
what my first one was anyway. Two or three girls said that when their
mothers died, that was their first sorrow, but Florence Weston said
that her first one was funny. She couldn't remember when her own father
died so she can't count that. The father she has now is a step one.
"Florence says she was a little bit of a girl when her mother took her
one day to visit an orphan's home and she cried because she couldn't
stay and have dinner with the little orphans. She says she remembers
that one of the little girls wanted to go home with her and her mother
and when she cried that little orphan girl cried too. They all laughed
when Florence told her story, all but me. I knew then what my first
sorrow was. What would Florence think if she knew I was that little
orphan? I must never tell her though or she wouldn't room with me. I
should think Florence would be the happiest girl in the world. I should
be if I had her mother. I can see her now if I shut my eyes. Her hair
was shining gold and her eyes were like the sky when the orchard is
full of apple blossoms.
"November 25.--Florence has gone to Chicago to stay until Monday
morning because to-morrow is Thanksgiving day and her folks wanted to
see her. Florence has two baby brothers and one little sister.
"Dolly Russel's father and mother have come here to be with Dolly
to-morrow and they have invited me to have dinner with them down town.
I wonder what Aunt Amelia would say if she knew I am going to be with
the Russels all day to-morrow. Miss Smith got permission for me to go,
she knew what to say to the principal, and she kissed me too, right
before Mrs. Russel. I am already beginning to dread going home next
June.
"Janey C. Hopkins is going home this afternoon and the Kansas girl
is going with her. There will be ten girls all alone in the big
dining-room here to-morrow. I guess they will feel queer. I know one
thing, I would rather stay here with nobody but the matron Christmas,
than to go home, and I am glad Aunt Amelia says it would be foolish for
any one to take such a long journey so I could be home for the holidays.
"Mrs. Russel is going to dress me all up to-morrow in one of Dolly's
prettiest dresses. I do have some streaks of luck."