CHAPTER XII
MARIAN'S DIARY
"June 20.—It is hard to begin a diary. You don't know what to say first. Bernice Jones says a diary is a book to put the weather in. She ought to know on account of her grandmother keeping one. Leonore Whiting, the girl that sits behind me and wears the prettiest ribbons in school, says a diary is to put your feelings in. Leonore thinks she ought to know because her sister is a poetry writer.
"When I asked Uncle George for an empty diary and what you write in it, he laughed and said he would give me all the paper I wanted to write things in and I had better put down everything. He said it would be a good thing for me to write more and talk less, so I guess I will have the fullest diary of any of the Diary Club. That's our name. Maud Brown was the one that got up the name. She says everybody belongs to a Club. Her mother does and her father and her brothers too. Maud says she has got to be in a Club or she never will be happy. She is only going to keep weather because she doesn't like to write. Leonore and a lot of the other girls are just going to keep a few feelings, but I am going to write down weather and feelings and everything.
"The weather is all right to-day.
"It is too bad about vacation. It is almost here and then I won't have anybody to play with. Uncle George says he never saw a little girl like to go to school as well as I do. It really isn't school I like to go to, it is recesses. I guess he had some other boys to play with when he was little or he would know. I would like to play with Dolly Russel but my aunt never will let me go over there and she tells Dolly's mother 'No,' about everything she wants me to do. She did let Ella go, only they don't invite Ella any more. I wonder if she talked too much, or broke anything, or why? Lala works over there now, but my aunt told me not to talk to Lala so I don't dare.
"I found out something to-day at school. The children that live in houses don't all go to bed in the dark. I cried and cried when I first had to go to bed in the dark because where I used to live, we didn't have to. I wish I could sit up late at night.
"Another thing about a diary is how nice it will be for your grandchildren to know what you used to think about and what you used to do. I can hardly believe that I am the grandmother of my own grandchildren, but of course it is so.