“The labors of this year are now closed, and this my first Journal is completed. Its pages bear witness to the different scenes through which I have passed, and show how I have spent this portion of my brief existence. But my object in keeping this record would not be fully realized, did I not now add a few statements which could not be embodied in the foregoing pages, and if I did not also gather up a few statistical facts, showing more plainly how I have passed my time.
“From the preceding pages it appears that I have attended one hundred and forty-three religious meetings; attended Sabbath school fifty-one times; attended singing school fifteen times; visited Charlestown seventy-one times; attended three temperance meetings, three lectures, five musical entertainments, one wedding, one comical entertainment, and the celebration of the Fourth of July.
“During the past year, I have written the following pieces of prose for my note-book: ‘The Sleigh-Ride;’ ‘The Rash Act;’ ‘Sketch of a Modern Anti-Slavery Convention;’ ‘Antiquity and Importance of the Mechanic Arts;’ ‘Improvement of the Mind.’
“I have also written the following pieces of poetry: ‘The Weary Wanderer;’ ‘The Slave’s Theme;’ ‘Hymns;’ ‘Patriotic Ode;’ ‘Sonnet;’ ‘The Pious Dead;’ ‘I’m Weary of Sinning;’ ‘A Riddle.’
“These articles occupy twenty-seven pages of my note-book. I have also copied twelve pages of other matter into my note-book.
“Besides this, I have written ‘The Pleasant Way,’ and four letters relating to it. In addition to this, I have written fifty pages letter-sheet, equal to about seventy printed pages like those of ‘The Pleasant Way,’ toward another book, and this journal of one hundred and thirty-two pages.
“During the past year I have read the following books: ‘Life of Nathaniel Bowditch;’ ‘Plutarch’s Lives;’ ‘History of Women,’ two volumes; ‘Auly Moore,’ two volumes; ‘Nelson on the Cause and Cure of Infidelity;’ ‘Memoir of Harlan Page;’ ‘Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I.’; ‘Malcom’s Travels,’ two volumes; ‘Architecture of the Heavens;’ and the Bible nearly twice through. Besides this, I have perused a great deal of miscellaneous reading.”
After this summary, follow three pages of accounts of receipts and expenditures for the year. By these it appears that his total receipts were fifty-one dollars and forty-seven cents, and his total expenditures fifty dollars and forty-seven cents, leaving a favorable balance of exactly one dollar. Of his expenditures, five dollars and eighty-two cents were for church and charity. He was not paid for “The Pleasant Way” until the next May.