I hesitated no longer and rapped on the door of the flat from which the commotion came. A pale and emaciated woman opened the door for me. “Here is your dollar,” I said; “I found it in the hallway.” The woman snatched the bill out of my hand without even looking at me, let alone thanking me.... And to this very day I don’t know whether she acted that way out of embittered feeling or out of ill-manners.
One thing I know: I was more hungry and thirsty that night than at any other time—the bill had so increased my appetite that I could have swallowed that woman and her boy together....
I think I should add that I am now married to a very dear man and have three precious little children, and we make a fine living.[[37]]
The following passages picture the life of a young American girl of the middle of the last century where the whole community is coöperating with the family to standardize her. Her parents are dead but the influences are complete without them. She is met at every turn with definitions of the situation which in this case are rigid but of the most genial and affectionate character. She does not lose her personality because that is in her nature; she is alert and witty, like her grandmother. If there were no disturbance of the situation she would become such an old woman as her grandmother is. The outside world is, however, beginning to press in. The situation has already been defined to her in terms of “woman’s rights.”
36. November 21, 1852.—I am ten years old today, and I will write a journal and tell who I am and what I am doing. I have lived with my Grandfather and Grandmother Beals ever since I was seven years old, and Anna, too, since she was four. Our brothers, James and John, came too, but they are at East Bloomfield at Mr. Stephen Clark’s Academy. Miss Laura Clark of Naples is their teacher.
Anna and I go to school at District No. 11. Mr. James C. Cross is our teacher, and some of the scholars say he is cross by name and cross by nature, but I like him. He gave me a book by the name of “Noble Deeds of American Women”, for reward of merit, in my reading class.
Friday.—Grandmother says I will have a great deal to answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever I say is “gospel truth.” The other day the girls at school were disputing with her about something and she said, “It is so, if it ain’t so, for Calline said so.” I shall have to “toe the mark”, as Grandfather says, if she keeps watch of me all the time and walks in my footsteps.
April 1, 1853.—Before I go to school every morning I read three chapters in the Bible. I read three every day and five on Sunday and that takes me through the Bible in a year. Those I read this morning were the first, second, and third chapters of Job. The first was about Eliphaz reproveth Job; second, benefit of God’s correction; third, Job justifieth his complaint. I then learned a text to say at school. I went to school at quarter to nine and recited my text and we had prayers and then proceeded with the business of the day. Just before school was out, we recited in “Science of Things Familiar”, and in Dictionary, and then we had calisthenics.
July.—Hiram Goodrich, who lives at Mr. Myron H. Clark’s, and George and Wirt Wheeler ran away on Sunday to seek their fortunes. When they did not come back every one was frightened and started out to find them. They set out right after Sunday school, taking their pennies which had been given them for the contribution, and were gone several days. They were finally found at Palmyra. When asked why they had run away, one replied that he thought it was about time they saw something of the world. We heard that Mr. Clark had a few moments’ private conversation with Hiram in the barn and Mr. Wheeler the same with his boys and we do not think they will go traveling on their own hook again right off. Miss Upham lives right across the street from them and she was telling little Morris Bates that he must fight the good fight of faith and he asked her if that was the fight that Wirt Wheeler fit. She probably had to make her instructions plainer after that.
1854, Sunday.—Mr. Daggett’s text this morning was the twenty-second chapter of Revelation, sixteenth verse, “I am the root and offspring of David and the bright and morning star.” Mrs. Judge Taylor taught our Sunday-school class today and she said we ought not to read our Sunday-school books on Sunday. I always do. Mine today was entitled, “Cheap Repository Tracts” by Hannah More, and it did not seem unreligious at all.