Saturday.—Our brother John drove over from East Bloomfield to-day to see us and brought Julia Smedley with him, who is just my age. John lives at Mr. Ferdinand Beebe’s and goes to school and Julia is Mr. Beebe’s niece. They make quantities of maple sugar out there and they brought us a dozen little cakes. They were splendid. I offered John one and he said he would rather throw it over the fence than to eat it. I can’t understand that. Anna had the faceache to-day and I told her that I would be the doctor and make her a ginger poultice. I thought I did it exactly right but when I put it on her face she shivered and said: “Carrie, you make lovely poultices only they are so cold.” I suppose I ought to have warmed it.
Tuesday.—Grandfather took us to ride this afternoon and let us ask Bessie Seymour to go with us. We rode on the plank road to Chapinville and had to pay 2 cents at the toll gate, both ways. We met a good many people and Grandfather bowed to them and said, “How do you do, neighbor?”
We asked him what their names were and he said he did not know. We went to see Mr. Munson, who runs the mill at Chapinville. He took us through the mill and let us get weighed and took us over to his house and out into the barn-yard to see the pigs and chickens and we also saw a colt which was one day old. Anna just wrote in her journal that “it was a very amusing site.”
Sunday.—Rev. Mr. Kendall, of East Bloomfield, preached to-day. His text was from Job 26, 14: “Lo these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him.” I could not make out what he meant. He is James’ and John’s minister.
Wednesday.—Captain Menteith was at our house to dinner to-day and he tried to make Anna and me laugh by snapping his snuff-box under the table. He is a very jolly man, I think.
Thursday.—Father and Uncle Edward Richards came to see us yesterday and took us down to Mr. Corson’s store and told us we could have anything we wanted. So we asked for several kinds of candy, stick candy and lemon drops and bulls’ eyes, and then they got us two rubber balls and two jumping ropes with handles and two hoops and sticks to roll them with and two red carnelian rings and two bracelets. We enjoyed getting them very much, and expect to have lots of fun. They went out to East Bloomfield to see James and John, and father is going to take them to New Orleans. We hate to have them go.
Friday.—We asked Grandmother if we could have some hoop skirts like the seminary girls and she said no, we were not old enough. When we were downtown Anna bought a reed for 10 cents and ran it into the hem of her underskirt and says she is going to wear it to school to-morrow. I think Grandmother will laugh out loud for once, when she sees it, but I don’t think Anna will wear it to school or anywhere else. She wouldn’t want to if she knew how terrible it looked.
I threaded a dozen needles on a spool of thread for Grandmother, before I went to school, so that she could slip them along and use them as she needed them. She says it is a great help.
Grandmother says I will have a great deal to answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever I say is “gospel truth.” The other day the girls at school were disputing with her about something and she said, “It is so, if it ain’t so, for Calline said so.” I shall have to “toe the mark,” as Grandfather says, if she keeps watch of me all the time and walks in my footsteps.
We asked Grandmother this evening if we could sit out in the kitchen with Bridget and Hannah and the hired man, Thomas Holleran. She said we could take turns and each stay ten minutes by the clock. It gave us a little change. I read once that “variety is the spice of life.” They sit around the table and each one has a candle, and Thomas reads aloud to the girls while they sew. He and Bridget are Catholics, but Hannah is a member of our Church. The girls have lived here always, I think, but I don’t know for sure, as I have not lived here always myself, but we have to get a new hired man sometimes. Grandmother says if you are as good to your girls as you are to yourself they will stay a long time. I am sure that is Grandmother’s rule. Mrs. McCarty, who lives on Brook Street (some people call it Cat Alley but Grandmother says that is not proper), washes for us Mondays, and Grandmother always has a lunch for her at eleven o’clock and goes out herself to see that she sits down and eats it. Mrs. McCarty told us Monday that Mrs. Brockle’s niece was dead, who lives next door to her. Grandmother sent us over with some things for their comfort and told us to say that we were sorry they were in trouble. We went and when we came back Anna told Grandmother that I said, “Never mind, Mrs. Brockle, some day we will all be dead.” I am sure that I said something better than that.