[CHAPTER III.—EXTRACTS FROM DAISY'S JOURNAL.]
Elmwood, September 20th, 18—.
Daisy McDonald Thornton's journal,—presented by my husband, Mr. Guy Thornton, who wishes me to write something in it every day; and who, when I asked him what I should write, said: "Your thoughts, and opinions, and experiences. It will be pleasant for you sometime to look back upon your early married life and see what progress you have made since then, and will help you to recall incidents you would otherwise forget. A journal fixes things in your mind, and I know you will enjoy it, especially as no one is to see it, and you can talk to it freely as to a friend."
That is what Guy said, and I wrote it right down to copy into the book as a kind of preface or introduction. I am not much pleased with having to keep a journal, and maybe I shall coax Zillah to keep it for me. I don't care to fix things in my mind. I don't like things fixed, anyway. I'd rather they would lie round loose, as they surely would, if I had not Zillah to pick them up. She is a treasure, and it is almost worth being married to have a waiting-maid,—and that reminds me that I may as well begin back at the time when I was not married, and did not want to be either, if we had not been so poor, and obliged to make so many shifts to keep up appearances and seem richer than we were.
My maiden name was Margaret McDonald, and I am seventeen next New Year's Day. My father is of Scotch descent, and a lawyer; and mother was a Barnard, from New Orleans, and has some very good blood in her veins. I am an only child, and very handsome,—so everybody says; and I should know it if they did not say it, for can't I see myself in the glass? And still I really do not care so much for my good looks except as they serve to attain the end for which father says I was born.
Almost the first thing I can remember is of his telling me that I must marry young and marry rich, and I promised him I would, provided I could stay at home with mother just the same after I was married. Another thing I remember, which made a lasting impression, and that is the beating father gave me for asking before some grand people staying at our house, "Why we did not always have beefsteak and hot muffins for breakfast, instead of baked potatoes and bread and butter?"
I must learn to keep my mouth shut, he said, and not tell all I knew; and I profited by the lesson, and that is one reason, I suppose, why I so rarely say what I think or express an opinion either favorable or otherwise.
I do not believe I am deceitful, though all my life I have seen my parents try to seem what they are not; that is, try to seem like rich people, when sometimes father's practice brought him only a few hundreds a year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is my cousin,—Tom McDonald—who lived with us and fell in love with me, though I never tried to make him. But I liked him ever so much, even if he did use to tease me horridly, and put horn-bugs in my shoes, and worms on my neck, and jack-o'lanterns in my room, and tip me off his sled into the snow; for with all his teasing, he had a great, kind, unselfish heart, and I shall never forget that look on his face when I told him I could not be his wife. I did not like him as he liked me, and I did not want to be married any way. I could not bear the thought of being tied up to some man, and if I did marry it must be to somebody who was rich. That was in Chicago, and the night before Tom started for South America, where he was going to make his fortune, and he wanted me to promise to wait for him, and said no one would ever love me as well as he did.
I could not promise, because, even if he had all the gold mines in Peru, I did not care to spend my days with him,—to see him morning, noon and night, and all the time. It is a good deal to ask of a woman, and I told him so, and he cried so hard,—not loud, but in a pitiful kind of way, which hurt me cruelly. I hear that sobbing sometimes now in my sleep, and it's like the moan of the wind round that house on the prairie where Tom's mother died. Poor Tom! I gave him a lock of my hair and let him kiss me twice, and then he went away, and after that old Judge Burton offered himself and his million to me; but I could not endure his bald head a week, I should hate him awfully and I told him no; and when father seemed sorry and said I missed it, I told him I would not sell myself for gold alone,—I'd run away first and go after Tom, who was young and just bearable. Then Guy Thornton came, and—and—well, he took me by storm, and I liked him better than any one I had ever seen, though I would rather have him for my friend,—my beau, whom I could order around and get rid of when I pleased, but I married him. Everybody said he was rich, and father was satisfied and gave his consent, and bought me a most elaborate trousseau. I wondered then where the money came from. Now, I know that Tom sent it. He has been very successful with his mine, and in a letter to father sent me a check for fifteen hundred dollars. Father would not tell me that, but mother did, and I felt worse, I think, than when I heard the sobbing. Poor Tom! I never wear one of the dresses now without thinking who paid for it and wrote in his letter, "I am working like an ox for Daisy." Poor Tom!
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