The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up to the
school house like Elijah in the chariot and come in to hear us read.
There is a good deal of sickness among us. Some of the boys are not able
to come to school just now, but hope to be about again by Monday, when
Dr. Moses goes away to a convention. It is a very hard composition to
write, somehow. Last night I dreamed that the river was ink and I kept
dipping into it and writing with a penstalk made of a young pine tree. I
sliced great slabs of marble off the side of one of the White Mountains,
the one you see when going to meeting, and wrote on those. Then I threw
them all into the falls, not being good enough for Dr. Moses.
Dick Carter had a splendid boy to stay over Sunday. He makes the real
newspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. He
says when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself “we,” and
it sounds much more like print, besides conscealing him more.
Example: Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches
since last time.... We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much...
Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we
have been able to remove with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat came
out with the spot.
I shall try it in my composition sometime, for of course I shall write
for the Pilot when I go to Wareham Seminary. Uncle Jerry Cobb says that
I shall, and thinks that in four years I might rise to be editor if they
ever have girls.
I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myself
steady, even to asking Aunt Miranda kindly to offer me a company jelly
tart, not because I was hungry, but for an experement I was trying, and
would explain to her sometime.
She said she never thought it was wise to experement with your stomach,
and I said, with a queer thrilling look, it was not my stomach but my
soul, that was being tried. Then she gave me the tart and walked away
all puzzled and nervous.
The new minister has asked me to come and see him any Saturday afternoon
as he writes poetry himself, but I would rather not ask him about this
composition.
Ministers never believe in rewards, and it is useless to hope that they
will. We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer,
but God cannot be angry all the time,--nobody could, especially in
summer; Mr. Baxter is different and calls his wife dear which is lovely
and the first time I ever heard it in Riverboro. Mrs. Baxter is another
kind of people too, from those that live in Temperance. I like to
watch her in meeting and see her listen to her husband who is young and
handsome for a minister; it gives me very queer and uncommon feelings,
when they look at each other, which they always do when not otherwise
engaged.
She has different clothes from anybody else. Aunt Miranda says you must
think only of two things: will your dress keep you warm and will it wear
well and there is nobody in the world to know how I love pink and red
and how I hate drab and green and how I never wear my hat with the
black and yellow porkupine quills without wishing it would blow into the
river.
Whene'er I take my walks abroad
How many quills I see.
But as they are not porkupines
They never come to me.