As I record this awfull day, dear Dairy, there comes again into my mind the thought that I do not belong here. I am not like them. I do not even resemble them in features. And, if I belonged to them, would they not treat me with more consideration and less disipline? Who, in the Familey, has my noze?
It is all well enough for Hannah to observe that I was a pretty baby with fat cheaks. May not Hannah herself, for some hiden reason, have brought me here, taking away the real I to perhaps languish unseen and “waste my sweetness on the dessert air”? But that way lies madness. Life must be made the best of as it is, and not as it might be or indeed ought to be.
Father promised before he left that I was not to be scolded, as I felt far from well, and was drinking water about every minute.
“I just want to lie here and think about things,” I said, when he was going. “I seem to have so many thoughts. And father——”
“Yes, chicken.”
“If I need any help to carry out a plan I have, will you give it to me, or will I have to go to totle strangers?”
“Good gracious, Bab!” he exclaimed. “Come to me, of course.”
“And you’ll do what you’re told?”
He looked out into the hall to see if mother was near. Then, dear Dairy, he turned to me and said:
“I always have, Bab. I guess I’ll run true to form.”