Then there was the time that Weenie kept a diary.
Dolly and Phyl kept them, it goes without saying, but no one ever saw theirs, they kept them so carefully hidden away. Weenie’s of course flung about the house everywhere, and every one considered it “fair game.” The boys had many a shriek of laughter over it after she had gone to bed. The doctor made her a present of a proper Letts’s Diary with three days on each page, when he found she so ardently desired to do as Phyl and Dolly did. It cost Weenie real hard thinking, however, to find sufficient occurrences in ordinary daily life to fill the spaces for the one fortnight during which she wrote up the entries every night.
This was one of the mildest sheets that Clif read aloud one night.
“Monday.—Got up. Porridge, hot scones and marmerlade for breakfast. Agnes and Lottie Green always have butter as well as marmerlade, we can only have one. Went to school. Wore my brown dress. Got my sums wrong. Came home. Won [270] ]three connies off Freddie, only he would only give me two. Played cricket, bowled Dolly out first shot. Had dinner—mutton and things. Did lessons—went to bed.
“Tues.—Got up. Had a row with Dolly. She will sit on the chair and try to stop me coming in the room. Went after a snake with Richie going to school but we lost him. Had lunch,—mutton sandwiches, apple pasty and cake—only Phyl had made it and it wasn’t much good. Agnes and Lottie’s mother gives them sixpence each and they get the loveliest things, tarts and buns and things. Wish we were rich. Got a hole in my stocking,—well, I couldent help it so Phyl needent have grumbled so. There aren’t any places to kneel down when you’re playing marbles without stones.
“Wed.—Curry and potatoes and cauliflower and sago pudding and rhubarb pudding for dinner. Yesterday at Lottie and Agnes’ house they had roast ducks and peas and asparrowgas and jellies and French pudding with whiped cream. Won Dolly again, tipped her chair right up. Went to school. Didn’t get kept in to-day at least only half-an-hour.”
When Weenie at last discovered her precious diary had been in the unhallowed hands of the boys, and that all the family had been laughing at it, her wrath knew no bounds.
Dolly and Phyl had been among the laughers—she directed her anger against them.
[271]
]“All right,” she said, “just you wait. I’ll get your diaries and let the boys laugh at them. I’m sure you put far sillier things in yours.”
“I haven’t a single doubt of it,” said Clif.