“Well, I hardly know where to begin. I thought I would make a resumé of some of the events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, but still I did a great many things that might be of interest to me in my declining years when I look back into the annals of this book. To begin with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very different to be a sophomore. I can hardly believe that I was once a shivering looking little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very frightened, but did not think I showed it.

“‘Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us.’

160

“Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet’s life is usually sad anyhow—full of disappointment and pain—but I digress.

“I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings’ instead of one the way we planned. I haven’t written in my Private Diary since the night of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I’ll never catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on Long Island with her sister, and her sister’s boy, who has grown up to be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can’t think of words to express it. ‘Oh! rare pale Margaret,’ as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. 161

“I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while I was there my grandmother died. I can’t write about that in this diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds you up in trouble.

“The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for my sake.

“That Christmas vacation the ‘We Are Sevens’ went up the Hudson to the Bollings’ again, but that was the last time they ever went there. Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark complexioned with burning 162 eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese something like Zaidee.

“Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded blonde. Then it was Uncle David’s turn to get angry, and I have never seen any one get any angrier, and he told about the vow of celibacy, and how instead of having designs on him the whole crowd would back him up in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful row. I told Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot of lovely children. I can’t imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she might have boys that looked like Uncle David.

“Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes 163 of ‘grub’ is better than having only two. Some of the girls are rather selfish about the eats, and come in and help themselves boldly when you are out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over the candy box: ‘Closed for Repairs,’ or ‘No Trespassing by Order of the Board of Health,’ but they don’t pay much attention. Well, last summer vacation I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn’t tell this, but I reformed him. I made him sign the pledge. I don’t know what pledge it was because I didn’t read it, but he said he was addicted to something worse than anything I could think of, and if somebody didn’t pull him up, he wouldn’t answer for the consequences. I asked him why he didn’t choose Aunt Gertrude to do it, and he groaned only. So I said to write out a pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. We were at a hotel with his brother’s family. It isn’t proper any more for me to go around with my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle says that I oughtn’t even to go down-town alone with them but, of course, that is French etiquette, and not American. Well, there were lots of pretty girls at this hotel, all wearing white 164 and pink dresses, and carrying big bell shaped parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, like so many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about hated the sight of them. He said they were not girls at all, but just pink and white devices of the devil. On the whole he didn’t act much like my merry uncle, but we had good times together playing tennis and golf, and going on parties with his brother’s family, all mere children but the mother and father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to go and get his mail all summer, although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper scented with Roger et Gallet’s violet, and Hudnut’s carnation. We used to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight of girls so much. Once I asked him if he had ever had an unhappy love-affair, just to see what he would say, but he replied ‘no, they had all been happy ones,’ and groaned and groaned.