“Poor Elder MacKay has the mumps.
“I was over sleeping with Ilse the other night because her father was away. Ilse says her prayers now and she said she’d bet me anything she could pray longer than me. I said she couldn’t and I prayed ever so long about everything I could think of and when I couldn’t think of anything more I thought at first I’d begin over again. Then I thought, “No, that would not be honerable. A Starr must be honerable.” So I got up and said “You win” and Ilse never answered. I went around the bed and there she was asleep on her knees. When I woke her up she said we’d have to call the bet off because she could have gone on praying for ever so long if she hadn’t fell asleep.
“After we got into bed I told her a lot of things I wished afterwards I hadn’t. Secrets.
“The other day in history class Miss Brownell read that Sir Walter Raleigh had to lie in the Tower for fourteen years. Perry said “Wouldn’t they let him get up sometimes?” Then Miss Brownell punished him for impertinence, but Perry was in earnest. Ilse was mad at Miss Brownell for whipping Perry and mad at Perry for asking such a fool question as if he didn’t know anything. But Perry says he is going to write a history book some day that won’t have such puzzling things in it.
“I am finishing the Disappointed House in my mind. I’m furnishing the rooms like flowers. I’ll have a rose room all pink and a lily room all white and silver and a pansy room, blue and gold. I wish the Disappointed House could have a Christmas. It never has any Christmasses.
“Oh, Father, I’ve just thought of something nice. When I grow up and write a great novel and make lots of money, I will buy the Disappointed House and finish it. Then it won’t be Disappointed any more.
“Ilse’s Sunday School teacher, Miss Willeson, gave her a Bible for learning 200 verses. But when she took it home her father laid it on the floor and kicked it out in the yard. Mrs. Simms says a judgment will come on him but nothing has happened yet. The poor man is warped. That is why he did such a wicked thing.
“Aunt Laura took me to old Mrs. Mason’s funeral last Wednesday. I like funerals. They are so dramatic.
“My pig died last week. It was a great finanshul loss to me. Aunt Elizabeth says Cousin Jimmy fed it too well. I suppose I should not have called it after Lofty John.