Somewhere in the early fall, about the time for green tomatoes to be made up into pickle, there is the excitement of seeing the new public school teachers file into town, and if you happen to be buying a hat at the millinery store any time within the next few weeks you can hear a complete description of each teacher. One paints her face until it's mottled, you are told; another has blond hair and brunette eyebrows, so she must have been on the stage; a third evidently has seen "better days," for she wears a diamond ring on her little finger! There is only one more astonishing thing than the way the women of the village talk about these teachers, and that is the way the men marry them!
Again I find that I have anticipated and reached the autumn before I have finished with the summer, in the very hottest part of which, usually August, comes an "evangelist" to hold a protracted meeting. The sound of words always meant so much to me when I was a child, and when I first heard that word, evangelist, I pictured a great, radiant figure, with spreading white wings growing out from a somber suit of black clothes, and holding to his lips a long, graceful trumpet. Naturally, this was some time ago, when I was quite young, and wanted to be good, so that when I died I could go to heaven, where my chief delight was going to be tending a garden full of silver bells and cockle-shells and pretty maids all in a row. Oh, those silver bells! In point of beauty they had no rivals in my childish imagination, except Cinderella's glass slippers and Aaron's golden calf! A lovely heaven it was going to be, of light pastel shades, and a great way off from God! You see I was brought up in such an orthodox atmosphere that I imagined God was like the principal of a school I once attended, always looking out for offenders with a rod up his sleeve.
It was a distinct disappointment to me when I found that an evangelist is like any ordinary preacher, except that he perspires more. Sometimes he is sensational and preaches about lace yokes and dancing; and on Sunday afternoon holds a meeting for men only, where he tells them what a terribly bad man he used to be! Again he is "burdened" with the souls of the whole congregation and preaches hell and damnation in a voice that sounds like pitchforks clanging against iron chains. Now, city preachers seldom do anything like this. In the city pulpits, of recent years, hell is like smallpox; it is still there, but in a much milder form.
During the revivals there are always one or more abusive sermons directed at the other churches of the town, and, of course, the Episcopalians are ever in a class with "the Turk and the comet." Catholics are unmentionable.
This usually causes much "hard feeling" among the good wives of the town, at an inconvenient time, too, for the season for swapping sweet peach pickle recipes is close at hand. The only people who can maintain a placid spirit during these revivals are those who stay away, and I usually try this plan, unless the evangelist happens to be young and good-looking.
Young and good-looking, ay, there's the rub! Herein is my lack of material for an interesting journal, so long as I stay here at home. Notwithstanding these barriers, Cousin Eunice, who was the instigator of my childhood's diary, has again suggested that I keep a book here by me to "tell off" to occasionally when I feel the need of a mental clearing-house. She says a journal has two points of advantage over the bosom friend a girl of my age usually has; one is, that you can shut it up when you want to go to sleep at night, and the other is that you can burn it when you grow ashamed of the secrets it contains, neither of which you can do to your bosom friend, no matter how badly you may wish to.
The diary which I kept for several years while I was at the gawky age was intended to be secreted between two pieces of board in the attic and discovered by my grandchildren amid tumultuous applause, years hence. But I am far too grown-up for these grandchildren now. The knowledge of my years is ever with me, a sort of binding torment, like an armhole that is too tight, so I shall have to leave the little dears behind, with the fairies and the freckles that I have long since outgrown. They, or the thought of them, used to make me feel that I was on actual speaking terms with my other diary, but perhaps after a while, I may feel on the same terms with you, even without their presence.
In the first place, as a reason for this book's being, I have always liked the notion of keeping a written account of my thoughts and feelings, especially of my feelings, for they are usually all jumbled up in my mind, like ribbons on a remnant counter, but after I have set them down in black and white where I can stand off and look at them they are no more complicated than sardines in a box. Another reason is that in the diaries, correspondence and love-letters of interesting people (great people, I mean) which I have read, I have found there is a sort of interest which is lacking in their stiff-standing-collar and high-heeled-shoes productions. In this class I have read Amiel and Sam Pepys, and the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea, poor dear! How her portrait must have lied! No woman with that much fat on her neck could really love! I adore Amiel and am fond of Pepys, although I wish he had left out about a ton of that venison pasty which his "she-cozen" was usually preparing for his entertainment. It always gets in your line of vision, somehow, whenever you are craning your neck to catch a glimpse of that naughty but nice Charlie Stuart!
Then there was a girl in Pendennis who kept a book of heart-outpourings and called it "Mes Larmes." And my Lord Byron's dear friend, Lady Blessington, called hers "My Night Book."
Well, mine is not going to be a night book, for that is not my favorite time for mental surveying. I am still a regular lizard in my love for the sunshine, and, if the prospect sounds alluring, I'll promise that much of this book shall be written in the clear light of day. A good part of my other diary was written up in the old pear tree by the orchard gate, but now I am grown up, so, of course—