The last day I can stretch my miserable pittance to is the first of February.
December 25th.
Christmas Day—and I have no news, except that I am hungry, and that I am sitting in my room with a blanket around me, and with a miserable cold in my head.
It is the agony of an unheated room, an old acquaintance of mine, that comes with each bitter winter. I live in a house full of noisy people and foul odors; and so I keep my door shut while I try to read, and so my room is like a barn.
I could not accomplish anything to-day—I could not read. I felt like a little child. I wanted nothing but to hide my head on some one's shoulder and sob out all my misery.
I am nothing but a forlorn child, anyway, lost in this great, cruel city.
—I am not much at pathos; but it was Christmas night, and I had one kind of cold in my head, and another kind in my feet.