How Father would have shouted over a page like this! I would not have supposed even Rosa could have spurred me into such an attempt at philosophy, and I hardly believed I knew so many long words. After all I doubt if Rosa and I are so far apart in our instincts; only she has the coolness to put them into words I only imitate, and cannot pretend to rival.
September 24. It is delightful to see how really fond Tom is becoming of baby. I came home from a walk this afternoon, and there in the parlor was Tom down on the floor with Tomine, shaking his head at her like a bear, and making her laugh. Rosa beamed from the background with the most complete approval. He sprang up when I appeared, but I ignored all the strangeness, and only said how glad I was to see him. I think he liked my taking as a matter of course his being there, and very likely this was what made him confess he had been in two or three times to play with baby when he knew that I was not at home.
"I saw you going down the other side of the river," he said, "so I came to keep Thomasine from being lonesome."
I returned that it was not very complimentary to tell me he had tried to avoid me, but that I appreciated how much more fascinating baby was than I, so he need not apologize; and the end of it was that after this nonsense had broken the ice we sat on the floor together to entertain her ladyship. She was pleased to be in the most sunny mood imaginable, and responded to our fooling most graciously. With truly feminine preference, however, she bestowed most of her attention upon the man. She is a more entrancing creature every day; and she certainly has her father's eyes. I compared them this afternoon.
September 26. The reading-room seems really at last to be coming into being. I have found a place for it. It is a kind of square box over the post-office, but with furniture and pictures it can be made rather attractive. I have made out a list of periodicals, and sent to Boston for framed photographs for the walls. To-day I went to talk over the plan with Deacon Richards.
The mill was fragrant with its sweet mealy smell, and Deacon Daniel was as dusty as a moth-miller. As I stood in the doorway waiting for him to come down from the wheel, where he was doing something or other about the hopper, I fell to humming the old rhyme we sang as children when we went by the mill:—
"'Miller, miller, musty-poll,
How many bags of wheat you stole?'
'One of wheat and one of rye.'
'You naughty miller, you must die!'"
"That isn't very polite," Deacon Daniel said, coming up behind me before I knew he had left his perch.