Rowena, the younger, seventeen now, who wears hers with spirals, tells me that Cynthy keeps a diary, because she herself found it in the tool box. “And once,” says Rowena to me, “Cynthy, after coming into camp from a walk through the moonlit pines, wrote in her diary: 'August 12, 11 p. m. Trout for supper. Walked with —— toward the Hymen Terrace, just beyond Jupiter Hill, I think it is called. The moon wonderful what woman is there who has not at some time in her life longed to be swept off her feet by some Strong Man!'”
I copy this as Rowena did, punctuation and all. Rowena has not yet gone to Vassar.
Cynthy is the one who thinks the family ought to have a six-cylinder car next year, with seats that lie back, and air mattresses. Maw does not agree with her, and says that four cylinders are plenty hard enough for Paw to keep clean. By what marvel Cynthy is always so stunning; and Hattie so nurselike in denim and white; and Rowena always so neat in hers with spirals, which she bought ready made at the store for seven dollars and fifty-two cents—I cannot say; but when I see these marvels I renew my faith in my country and its people, even though I do wish that Paw would pause at some geyser and have a Sunday shave. He says he forgot his razor and left it home.
In the Grip of the Law
Speaking of room with bath, Maw solved the ablutionary problem for herself the other day at Old Faithful Ranger Station. The young men who make up the ranger force there have built a simple shanty over the river's brim, which they use as their own bathhouse. As there is no sentinel stationed there Maw thought it was public like everything else. She told me about it later.
“I went in,” said she, “and seen what it was. There was a long tub and a tin pail. There was a trapdoor in the floor that was right over the river. I reached down and drew up a pail of water, and it was right cold. Then I seen a turn faucet, end of a pipe that stuck out over the tub. It brought in some right hot water that come up within six feet of the door. It didn't take me long to figure that this was the hot-water faucet. So there was hot and cold water both right on the spot, and I reckon there ain't no such natural washtub as that in all Ioway. I got me a wash that will last me a long while. There wasn't no towels, and so I took my skirt. Now, Cynthy——”
But Cynthy was writing notes in her diary. All college girls write notes in diaries, and sometimes they take to free verse. Of course writing in a diary is only a form of egotism, precisely like writing on a geyser formation. They both ought to be illegal, and one is. Maw knows all about that. Sometimes, even now, she will tell me how she came to be fined by the United States commissioner at Mammoth Hot Springs.
“So Maw, dear, old, happy, innocent Maw, knelt down with her hatpin and wrote:”—p. 19