Later, I must write you all the things, or, anyway, almost all, which Mr. Denton said about you. For of course we had a little session behind closed doors, and I asked the poor man questions until his grey head rang. Aren't you curious? But before I repeat to you what was, of course, told to me in strictest confidence, I must ask you if those things are true.
Wigglesworth sends his love. He is beside my bed, this minute, on the floor, holding up one paw in greeting.
Very gratefully yours,
Wigglesworth's Slave
Green Hill
September 5
Dear Diary, I'm sorry that I neglect you so. But you see, with friends calling every day to behold me, royally at home out of doors, and with a week's preparation for my "Come one, come all" tea, which took place yesterday afternoon, and with almost daily letters from Richard Warren to answer—I've so many now that they make far too bulky a book of you and so I have them tied up with ribbon, under my pillow—and with Peter's recent heroic attempt to drink gasoline, and Wigglesworth's brilliant development as a bloodhound—well, I have had but little time for you, Blue Book.
Today, Father is out and Sarah busy below stairs. It is five o'clock of a golden September afternoon, and I am alone, and ready to record the events of the past week. Suppose we begin with Peter, who lives next door, as you very well know, and who is an active and ambitious and altogether charming seven-year old. It seems, Diary, that Peter has, during the summer, become hopelessly enamored of Jimmy Simpson, the ten-year old brother of Sammy, a feckless towhead, tanned as a saddle and twice as tough! From my windows, and more recently also from the nearer vantage point of my hammock, I have observed the progress of their friendship, dating from the early days of summer when Jimmy condescended to aid his older brother in the morning delivery of the Simpson milk. Lately, Jimmy has been seen displaying his ragged blue overalls about the lawn adjoining ours. I have heard, too, blood-curdling shrieks and dire groans which I take to portend that Peter has more than once inveigled Jimmy into his own favorite and histrionic pastime of "Injuns and Tigers." Once, Jimmy in his role of scalper became slightly too realistic, and Peter, bursting through the hedge which separates the Goodrich property from ours, fled to me for protection. With his curly head on my breast, I turned against the aggressor.
"Jimmy Simpson," I cried indignantly, "aren't you ashamed to frighten a boy younger than yourself? Don't you know that isn't manly?"
Jimmy, engaging, brazen, and blue-eyed, stubbed one bare toe against the grass.
"Honest, Miss Mavis," he defended himself firmly, "I didn't hurt him none. He's a baby, he is!" he concluded, with a positively vicious glance at the back of Peter's head.
"I'm not!" shouted the accused, rising up in honest wrath.