Watson to show her diary because she has not a sacred plan and this is the way it goes, for she reads it out loud to us:
“Arose at six this morning—(you always arise in a diary but you say get up when you talk about it). Ate breakfast at half past six. Had soda biscuits, coffee, fish hash and doughnuts. Wiped the dishes, fed the hens and made my bed before school. Had a good arithmetic lesson, but went down two in spelling. At half past four played hide and coop in the Sawyer pasture. Fed hens and went to bed at eight.”
She says she can’t put in what doesn’t happen, but as I don’t think her diary is interesting she will ask her mother to have meat hash instead of fish, with pie when the doughnuts give out, and she will feed the hens before breakfast to make a change. We are all going now to try and make something happen every single day so the diaries won’t be so dull and the footprints so common.
AN UNCOMMON THOUGHT
July 187—
We dug up our rosecakes today, and that gave me a good Remerniscence. The way you make rose cakes is, you take the leaves of full blown roses and mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they will give you, which is never half enough except Persis Watson, whose affectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then you do up little bits like sedlitz powders, first in soft paper and then in brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you possibly can hold out; then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane and I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date we buried them and when they’ll be done enough to dig up, but we can never wait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for children to learn,—not to be impatient,—so when I went to the barn chamber I made a poem.
IMPATIENCE
We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon. Twas in the orchard just at noon. Twas in a bright July forenoon. Twas in the sunny afternoon. Twas underneath the harvest moon.
It was not that way at all; it was a foggy morning before school, and I should think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard to stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks it is nobody’s business when we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line about the harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and characters to the people that read my Thoughts, for they would think we were up late nights, so I have fixed it like this:
IMPATIENCE
We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon,
We thought their sweetness would be such a boon.
We ne’er suspicioned they would not be done
After three days of autumn wind and sun.
Why did we from the earth our treasures draw?
Twas not for fear that rat or mole might naw,
An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason,
She says that youth is ever out of season.
That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave me the thought for the poem which is rather uncommon.
A DREADFUL QUESTION
September, 187—
WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST BENEFERCENT INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER—PUNISHMENT OR REWARD?
This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited school today. He is a School Committee; not a whole one but I do not know the singular number of him. He told us we could ask our families what they thought, though he would rather we wouldn’t, but we must write our own words and he would hear them next week.
After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged in gloom and you could have heard a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried and borrowed my handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse had been struck by lightning. The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn, who will lose her place if she does not make us better scholars soon, for Dr. Moses has a daughter all ready to put right in to the school and she can board at home and save all her wages. Libby Moses is her name.
Miss Dearborn stared out the window, and her mouth and chin shook like Alice Robinson’s, for she knew, ah! all to well, what the coming week would bring forth.
Then I raised my hand for permission to speak, and stood up and said: “Miss Dearborn, don’t you mind! Just explain to us what benefercent’ means and we’ll write something real interesting; for all of us know what punishment is, and have seen others get rewards, and it is not so bad a subject as some.” And Dick Carter whispered, “GOOD ON YOUR HEAD, REBECCA!” which mean he was sorry for her too, and would try his best, but has no words.
Then teacher smiled and said benefercent meant good or healthy for anybody, and would all rise who thought punishment made the best scholars and men and women; and everybody sat stock still.
And then she asked all to stand who believed that rewards produced the finest results, and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of waters, but really was our feet scraping the floor, and the scholars stood up, and it looked like an army, though it was only nineteen, because of the strong belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearborn laughed and said she was thankful for every whipping she had when she was a child, and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn’t got to the thankful age, or perhaps her father hadn’t used a strap, and she said oh! no, it was her mother with the open hand; and Dick Carter said he wouldn’t call that punishment, and Sam Simpson said so too.
I am going to write about the subject in my Thought Book first, and when I make it into a composition, I can leave out anything about the family or not genteel, as there is much to relate about punishment not pleasant or nice and hardly polite.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * PUNISHMENT
Punishment is a very puzzly thing, but I believe in it when really deserved, only when I punish myself it does not always turn out well. When I leaned over the new bridge, and got my dress all paint, and Aunt Sarah Cobb couldn’t get it out, I had to wear it spotted for six months which hurt my pride, but was right. I stayed at home from Alice Robinson’s birthday party for a punishment, and went to the circus next day instead, but Alice’s parties are very cold and stiff, as Mrs. Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the door, and the blinds are always shut, and Mrs. Robinson tells me how bad her liver complaint is this year. So I thought, to pay for the circus and a few other things, I ought to get more punishment, and I threw my pink parasol down the well, as the mothers in the missionary books throw their infants to the crocodiles in the Ganges river. But it got stuck in the chain that holds the bucket, and Aunt Miranda had to get Abijah Flagg to take out all the broken bits before we could ring up water.
I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said that unless I improved I would be nothing but a Burden and a Blight.
There was an old man used to go by our farm carrying a lot of broken chairs to bottom, and mother used to say—“Poor man! His back is too weak for such a burden!” and I used to take him out a doughnut, and this is the part I want to go into the Remerniscences. Once I told him we were sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said THEY DIDN’T SEEM SO HEAVY WHEN HE HAD ET THE DOUGHNUT. This does not mean that the doughnut was heavier than the chairs which is what brother John said, but it is a beautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy, and help bear burdens.
I know about a
