Saturday.—Grandfather took us down street to be measured for some new patten leather shoes at Mr. Ambler’s. They are going to be very nice ones for best. We got our new summer hats from Mrs. Freshour’s millinery and we wore them over to show to Aunt Ann and she said they were the very handsomest bonnets she had seen this year.
Tuesday.—When we were on our way to school this morning we met a lot of people and girls and boys going to a picnic up the lake. They asked us to go, too, but we said we were afraid we could not. Mr. Alex. Howell said, “Tell your Grandfather I will bring you back safe and sound unless the boat goes to the bottom with all of us.” So we went home and told Grandfather and much to our surprise he said we could go. We had never been on a boat or on the lake before. We went up to the head on the steamer “Joseph Wood” and got off at Maxwell’s Point. They had a picnic dinner and lots of good things to eat. Then we all went into the glen and climbed up through it. Mr. Alex. Howell and Mrs. Wheeler got to the top first and everybody gave three cheers. We had a lovely time riding back on the boat and told Grandmother we had the very best time we ever had in our whole lives.
May 26.—There was an eclipse of the sun to-day and we were very much excited looking at it. General Granger came over and gave us some pieces of smoked glass. Miss Clark wanted us to write compositions about it so Anna wrote, “About eleven o’clock we went out to see if it had come yet, but it hadn’t come yet, so we waited awhile and then looked again and it had come, and there was a piece of it cut out of it.” Miss Clark said it was a very good description and she knew Anna wrote it all herself.
I handed in a composition, too, about the eclipse, but I don’t think Miss Clark liked it as well as she did Anna’s, because it had something in it about “the beggarly elements of the world.” She asked me where I got it and I told her that it was in a nice story book that Grandmother gave me to read entitled “Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, and other sketches,” by Samuel Irenaeus Prime. This was one of the other sketches: It commenced by telling how the moon came between the sun and the earth, and then went on about the beggarly elements. Miss Clark asked me if I knew what they meant and I told her no, but I thought they sounded good. She just smiled and never scolded me at all. I suppose next time I must make it all up myself.
There is a Mr. Packer in town, who teaches all the children to sing. He had a concert in Bemis Hall last night and he put Anna on the top row of the pyramid of beauty and about one hundred children in rows below. She ought to have worn a white dress as the others did but Grandmother said her new pink barège would do. I curled her hair all around in about thirty curls and she looked very nice. She waved the flag in the shape of the letter S and sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” and all the others joined in the chorus. It was perfectly grand.
Monday.—When we were on our way to school this morning we saw General Granger coming, and Anna had on such a homely sunbonnet she took it off and hid it behind her till he had gone by. When we told Grandmother she said, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” I never heard of any one who knew so many Bible verses as Grandmother. Anna thought she would be sorry for her and get her a new sunbonnet, but she didn’t.
Sunday.—We have Sunday School at nine o’clock in the morning now. Grandfather loves to watch us when we walk off together down the street, so he walks back and forth on the front walk till we come out, and gives us our money for the contribution. This morning we had on our new white dresses that Miss Rosewarne made and new summer hats and new patten leather shoes and our mitts. When he had looked us all over he said, with a smile, “The Bible says, let your garments be always white.” After we had gone on a little ways, Anna said: “If Grandmother had thought of that verse I wouldn’t have had to wear my pink barège dress to the concert.” I told her she need not feel bad about that now, for she sang as well as any of them and looked just as good. She always believes everything I say, although she does not always do what I tell her to. Mr. Noah T. Clarke told us in Sunday School last Sunday that if we wanted to take shares in the missionary ship, Morning Star, we could buy them at 10 cents apiece, and Grandmother gave us $1 to-day so we could have ten shares. We got the certificate with a picture of the ship on it, and we are going to keep it always. Anna says if we pay the money, we don’t have to go.
Sunday.—I almost forgot that it was Sunday this morning and talked and laughed just as I do week days. Grandmother told me to write down this verse before I went to church so I would remember it: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools.” I will remember it now, sure. My feet are all right any way with my new patten leather shoes on but I shall have to look out for my head. Mr. Thomas Howell read a sermon to-day as Mr. Daggett is out of town. Grandmother always comes upstairs to get the candle and tuck us in before she goes to bed herself, and some nights we are sound asleep and do not hear her, but last night we only pretended to be asleep. She kneeled down by the bed and prayed aloud for us, that we might be good children and that she might have strength given to her from on high to guide us in the straight and narrow path which leads to life eternal. Those were her very words. After she had gone downstairs we sat up in bed and talked about it and promised each other to be good, and crossed our hearts and “hoped to die” if we broke our promise. Then Anna was afraid we would die, but I told her I didn’t believe we would be as good as that, so we kissed each other and went to sleep.
| Mr. Noah T. Clarke | Miss Upham |
Monday.—“Old Alice” was at our house to-day and Grandmother gave her some flowers. She hid them in her apron for she said if she should meet any little children and they should ask for them she would have to let them go. Mrs. Gooding was at our house to-day and made a carpet. We went over to Aunt Mary Carr’s this evening to see the gas and the new chandeliers. They are brontz.