"Mes Larmes" would be even worse for a title than the one I have just mentioned. Some tears will, of course, be mixed in to make the rainbows of happiness shine through, but I fancy that mine will be principally a record of work and play. Work that is play and play that is work, mother says, as I sit on the shady porch in the mornings working flowers on my shirt-waist front, and spend the afternoons playing tennis in the hot sun. Work and play, then, for the present; later, maybe, smiles and sighs; while a long, long way in the future, perhaps on the last few pages, there may be—shall I say it? No, I am not well enough acquainted with you yet.
Although I have kept back this one little thought from you in the above, I promise that in the narration of all things which have actually happened this journal is going to be unexpurgated! First, I love truth; and I think that a whole truth is nearly always better than a half. For instance, d—n in print always looked worse to me than damn. Then, in the diaries and love-letters I have mentioned above, I have often found that at the very places where matters were getting so interesting you straighten up somewhat and begin to breathe very softly, the narrative breaks suddenly into a row of beastly little dots—and you are left to imagine what you will! Maybe the truth would not have been half so bad as your imaginings—maybe it would have been much worse. It all depends upon the condition of your circulation!
For my part, I like a book to tell the whole truth about what it starts out to tell; yet this does not mean that every detail is to be described, even to setting forth whether the heroine wears hose-supporters or round garters. Now, in case this journal should be secreted in the attic and found years hence by a mixed audience which is inclined to take offense at my mention of garters, I shall say simply, "Evil to him who evil thinketh."
So I am going to have you for my confidential friend and adviser. I say adviser advisedly, for I know of nothing which preaches a better sermon sometimes than for a person to look over certain back pages of his diary; especially her diary.
When I am wicked enough to make your leaves curl up in horror, all you can do is to listen to my story and not look at me as if you thought I needed the prayers of the congregation. People who pray don't talk about it anyway! And, if by chance, my right hand should do something handsome that it is fairly itching to tell about we can recite it all to you, knowing that you will never let it come to the ears of my left hand.
Good I may occasionally be; wicked I shall certainly be, for are not we all born in iniquity? But I hope that in after years when I read over these pages I shall not discover that it takes a sextant, a compass and an alarm clock to find out where my heart is!
CHAPTER II
THE NEW NEIGHBORS
"You mus' be mighty clean, or mighty dirty, one," Mammy Lou called out to me this morning as she looked up from the kitchen door and espied me at the bath-room window with my robe wrapped around me toga-fashion.