A LEAF FROM A LITTLE GIRL’S DIARY.
I am going to put some things about Effie in my diary; and this is
the reason why I am going to put them in: My mother says, when Effie
is a great girl she will like to read some of the things she did and
said when she was three years old. And so will the Jimmyjohns when
they grow up; and so I shall put in some of their things, too, when
I have done putting in some of Effie’s things. The Jimmyjohns are my
little brothers, both of them twins, just alike.
One time, Effie wanted to be dressed up in her best clothes to go up
in the tree and see the sun-birds. She thinks that the tops of the
trees are close up to the place where the sun is, and that makes her
call birds sun-birds. And she thinks the birds light up the stars
every night. My mother asked her, “What makes you think the birds
light up the stars every night?” and Effie said, “Because they have
some wings to fly high up.”
My father brought me home a pudding-pan to make little puddings in.
It doesn’t hold very much: it holds most a cupful. And Joey Moonbeam
is going to have a party; and, when she does, my mother is going to
show me how to make a pudding in it. Joey Moonbeam is my very great
rag-baby. She has got a new hat. I made it. Cousin Hiram says he is
going to draw a picture of it on Joey Moonbeam’s head in my diary
before she wears it all out. Betsey Ginger is going to have some
new clothes to wear to Joey Moonbeam’s party; and Dorothy Beeswax
is going to have one new arm sewed on. Susan Sugarspoon, and Eudora
N. Posy, and Jenny Popover, are not careful of their clothes, and
so they cannot have some new ones. N. stands for Nightingale. Dear
little Polly Cologne was the very smallest one of them all. She was
the baby rag-baby. She was just as cunning, and she had hair that
wasn’t ravellings. It was hair; and all the others have ravellings.
Her cheeks were painted pink. She had four bib-aprons, and she had
feet. We don’t know where she is. Rover—that little dog that we used
to have—carried her off in his mouth, and now she is lost. Rover went
away to find her when I told him to, and he did not come back. We
don’t know where Rover is. We think somebody stole him, or else he
would be heard of. We feel very sorry. He was a good little dog. My
father says he was only playing when he carried her off.
[Illustration: Joey Moonbeam’s New Hat]
I love all my rag-babies. I love Snip, but not so much as I do Rover.
I love dear little baby-brother. I love the Jimmies, both of them.
I love Effie, and I love my mother, and my father, and grandma
Plummer. I don’t love aunt Bethiah. Aunt Bethiah does not love little
girls. When little girls have a pudding-pan, aunt Bethiah says it
is all nonsense for them to have them. My mother said I might have
raisins in my pudding. I like to pick over raisins. Sometimes my
mother lets me eat six when I pick them over, and sometimes she lets
me eat eight. Then I shut up my eyes, and pick all the rest over with
them shut up, because then I cannot see how good they look. Grandma
Plummer told me this way to do. Effie is not big enough. She would
put them in her arm-basket. She puts every thing in her arm-basket.
She carries it on her arm all the time, and carries it to the table,
and up to bed. My mother hangs it on the post of her crib. When she
sits up to the table, she hangs it on her chair.
One time, when the Jimmies were very little boys, they picked up two
apples that did not belong to them under Mr. Spencer’s apple-tree,
and ate a part. Then, when they were eating them, a woman came to the
door, and said, “Didn’t you know that you mustn’t pick up apples that
are not your own?” After she went in, the Jimmies carried them back,
and put them down under the tree in the same place again.
I am going to tell what Effie puts in her arm-basket. Two
curtain-rings, one steel pen she found, some spools, some strings,
one bottle (it used to be a smelling-bottle), my father’s letter when
he was gone away, a little basket that Hiram made of a nutshell,
a head of one little china doll, Betsey Beeswax sometimes, and
sometimes one of the other ones, a peach-stone to plant, a glass eye
of a bird that was not a live one, and a pill-box, and a piece of
red glass, and pink calico, and an inkstand, and her beads, and a
foot of a doll. One time it got tipped over when we played “Siren.”
Mr. Tompkins was in here when we played “Siren.” He looked funny with
the things on. Cousin Floy told us how to play it. The one that is
the siren has to put on a woman’s bonnet and a shawl, and then go
under the table, and then sing under there, and catch the ones that
come close up when they run by. I caught Hiram’s foot. Hiram was so
tall, he could not get all under. Cousin Floy stood up in a chair to
put the bonnet on him. My father did not sing a good tune: it was not
any tune, but a noise. My mother did, and cousin Floy did too. Mr.
Tompkins squealed. Mr. Tompkins could get way under. The one that is
caught has to be the siren. Soon as the siren begins to sing, then
the others go that way to listen, and go by as fast as they can. The
siren jumps out and catches them. My father got caught. He did not
want to put on the bonnet; but he did. He did not sing a bad tune
like Hiram’s, but a pretty bad one. He made it up himself. My mother
told Hiram that sirens did not howl. When Johnny was caught, Jimmy
went under there too, and had another bonnet; and they both jumped
out together to catch. The tune the Jimmies sung was,—
“Toodle-doo was a dandy cock-robin:
He tied up his tail with a piece of blue bobbin.”
Effie was afraid to go under. Her arm-basket got upset, and made her
cry. Snip flew at Hiram when Hiram caught Johnny. He went under, too,
when they went under, and barked most all the time. I was the one
that got caught the most times, and so then I had to be judged; and I
chose cousin Floy for my judge, and she judged me to tell a story.
We are going to have pumpkin for dinner. Joey Moonbeam’s party is
going to be a soap-bubble party. When Clarence was the siren, he
sang,—
“Hop, hop, hop!
Go, and never stop.”
Sometimes Clarence stops to play with us when he comes here. My
mother says he is a very good boy. His father is dead: his mother is
sick; so is his little brother. He has got two little brothers and
two little sisters. They do not have enough to eat. He comes here to
get the cold victuals my mother has done using.