Chapter II: Part 2

_Sunday._--I almost forgot that it was Sunday this morning and talked and laughed just as I do week days. Grandmother told me to write down this verse before I went to church so I would remember it: "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools." I will remember it now, sure. My feet are all right any way with my new patten leather shoes on but I shall have to look out for my head. Mr. Thomas Howell read a sermon to-day as Mr. Daggett is out of town. Grandmother always comes upstairs to get the candle and tuck us in before she goes to bed herself, and some nights we are sound asleep and do not hear her, but last night we only pretended to be asleep. She kneeled down by the bed and prayed aloud for us, that we might be good children and that she might have strength given to her from on high to guide us in the straight and narrow path which leads to life eternal. Those were her very words. After she had gone downstairs we sat up in bed and talked about it and promised each other to be good, and crossed our hearts and "hoped to die" if we broke our promise. Then Anna was afraid we would die, but I told her I didn't believe we would be as good as that, so we kissed each other and went to sleep.

_Monday._--"Old Alice" was at our house to-day and Grandmother gave her some flowers. She hid them in her apron for she said if she should meet any little children and they should ask for them she would have to let them go. Mrs. Gooding was at our house to-day and made a carpet. We went over to Aunt Mary Carr's this evening to see the gas and the new chandeliers. They are brontz.

_Tuesday._--My three chapters that I read this morning were about Josiah's zeal and reformation; 2nd, Jerusalem taken by Nebuchadnezzar; 3rd, Jerusalem besieged and taken. The reason that we always read the Bible the first thing in the morning is because it says in the Bible, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." Grandmother says she hopes we will treasure up all these things in our hearts and practice them in our lives. I hope so, too. This morning Anna got very mad at one of the girls and Grandmother told her she ought to return good for evil and heap coals of fire on her head. Anna said she wished she could and burn her all up, but I don't think she meant it.

_Wednesday._--I got up this morning at twenty minutes after five. I always brush my teeth every morning, but I forget to put it down here. I read my three chapters in Job and played in the garden and had time to read Grandmother a piece in the paper about some poor children in New York. Anna and I went over to Aunt Ann's before school and she gave us each two sticks of candy apiece. Part of it came from New York and part from Williamstown, Mass., where Henry goes to college. Ann Eliza is going down street with us this afternoon to buy us some new summer bonnets. They are to be trimmed with blue and white and are to come to five dollars. We are going to Mr. Stannard's store also, to buy us some stockings. I ought to buy me a new thimble and scissors for I carried my sewing to school to-day and they were inside of it very carelessly and dropped out and got lost. I ought to buy them with my own money, but I haven't got any, for I gave all I had (two shillings) to Anna to buy Louisa Field a cornelian ring. Perhaps Father will send me some money soon, but I hate to ask him for fear he will rob himself. I don't like to tell Grandfather how very careless I was, though I know he would say, "Accidents will happen."

_Thursday._--I was up early this morning because a dressmaker, Miss Willson, is coming to make me a new calico dress. It is white with pink spots in it and Grandfather bought it in New York. It is very nice indeed and I think Grandfather was very kind to get it for me. I had to stay at home from school to be fitted. I helped sew and run my dress skirt around the bottom and whipped it on the top. I went to school in the afternoon, but did not have my lessons very well. Miss Clark excused me because I was not there in the morning. Some girls got up on our fence to-day and walked clear across it, the whole length. It is iron and very high and has a stone foundation. Grandmother asked them to get down, but I think they thought it was more fun to walk up there than it was on the ground. The name of the little girl that got up first was Mary Lapham. She is Lottie Lapham's cousin. I made the pocket for my dress after I got home from school and then Grandfather said he would take us out to ride, so he took us way up to Thaddeus Chapin's on the hill. Julia Phelps was there, playing with Laura Chapin, for she is her cousin. Henry and Ann Eliza Field came over to call this evening. Henry has come home from Williams College on his vacation and he is a very pleasant young man, indeed. I am reading a continued story in _Harper's Magazine_. It is called Little Dorritt, by Charles Dickens, and is very interesting.

_Friday, May._--Miss Clark told us we could have a picnic down to Sucker Brook this afternoon and she told us to bring our rubbers and lunches by two o'clock; but Grandmother was not willing to let us go; not that she wished to deprive us of any pleasure for she said instead we could wear our new black silk basks and go with her to Preparatory lecture, so we did, but when we got there we found that Mr. Daggett was out of town so there was no meeting. Then she told us we could keep dressed up and go over to Aunt Mary Carr's and take her some apples, and afterwards Grandfather took us to ride to see old Mrs. Sanborn and old Mr. and Mrs. Atwater. He is ninety years old and blind and deaf, so we had quite a good time after all.

Rev. Mr. Dickey, of Rochester, agent for the Seaman's Friend Society, preached this morning about the poor little canal boy. His text was from the 107th Psalm, 23rd verse, "They that go down into the sea in ships." He has the queerest voice and stops off between his words. When we got home Anna said she would show us how he preached and she described what he said about a sailor in time of war. She said, "A ball came--and struck him there--another ball came--and struck him there--he raised his faithful sword--and went on--to victory--or death." I expected Grandfather would reprove her, but he just smiled a queer sort of smile and Grandmother put her handkerchief up to her face, as she always does when she is amused about anything. I never heard her laugh out loud, but I suppose she likes funny things as well as anybody. She did just the same, this morning, when Grandfather asked Anna where the sun rose, and she said "over by Gen. Granger's house and sets behind the Methodist church." She said she saw it herself and should never forget it when any one asked her which was east or west. I think she makes up more things than any one I know of.

_Sunday._--Rev. M. L. R. P. Thompson preached to-day. He used to be the minister of our church before Mr. Daggett came. Some people call him Rev. "Alphabet" Thompson, because he has so many letters in his name. He preached a very good sermon from the text, "Dearly beloved, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." I like to hear him preach, but not as well as I do Mr. Daggett. I suppose I am more used to him.

_Thursday._--Edward Everett, of Boston, lectured in our church this evening. They had a platform built even with the tops of the pews, so he did not have to go up into the pulpit. Crowds and crowds came to hear him from all over everywhere. Grandmother let me go. They say he is the most eloquent speaker in the U. S., but I have heard Mr. Daggett when I thought he was just as good.

_Sunday._--We went to church to-day and heard Rev. Mr. Stowe preach. His text was, "The poor ye have with you always and whensoever ye will ye may do them good." I never knew any one who liked to go to church as much as Grandmother does. She says she "would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of our God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." They don't have women doorkeepers, and I know she would not dwell a minute in a tent. Mr. Coburn is the doorkeeper in our church and he rings the bell every day at nine in the morning and at twelve and at nine in the evening, so Grandfather knows when it is time to cover up the fire in the fireplace and go to bed. I think if the President should come to call he would have to go home at nine o'clock. Grandfather's motto is:

"Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

_Tuesday._--Mrs. Greig and Miss Chapin called to see us to-day. Grandmother says that we can return the calls as she does not visit any more. We would like to, for we always enjoy dressing up and making calls. Anna and I received two black veils in a letter to-day from Aunt Caroline Dey. Just exactly what we had wanted for a long while. Uncle Edward sent us five dollars and Grandmother said we could buy just what we wanted, so we went down street to look at black silk mantillas. We went to Moore's store and to Richardson's and to Collier's, but they asked ten, fifteen or twenty dollars for them, so Anna said she resolved from now, henceforth and forever not to spend her money for black silk mantillas.

_Sunday._--Rev. Mr. Tousley preached to-day to the children and told us how many steps it took to be bad. I think he said lying was first, then disobedience to parents, breaking the Sabbath, swearing, stealing, drunkenness. I don't remember just the order they came. It was very interesting, for he told lots of stories and we sang a great many times. I should think Eddy Tousley would be an awful good boy with his father in the house with him all the while, but probably he has to be away part of the time preaching to other children.

_Sunday._--Uncle David Dudley Field and his daughter, Mrs. Brewer, of Stockbridge, Mass., are visiting us. Mrs. Brewer has a son, David Josiah, who is in Yale College. After he graduates he is going to be a lawyer and study in his Uncle David Dudley Field's office in New York. He was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, where his father and mother were missionaries to the Greeks, in 1837. Our Uncle David preached for Mr. Daggett this afternoon. He is a very old man and left his sermon at home and I had to go back after it. His brother, Timothy, was the first minister in our church, about fifty years ago. Grandmother says she came all the way from Connecticut with him on horseback on a pillion behind him. Rather a long ride, I should say. I heard her and Uncle David talking about their childhood and how they lived in Guilford, Conn., in a house that was built upon a rock. That was some time in the last century like the house that it tells about in the Bible that was built on a rock.

_Sunday, August 10, 1854._--Rev. Mr. Daggett's text this morning was, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Grandmother said she thought the sermon did not do us much good for she had to tell us several times this afternoon to stop laughing. Grandmother said we ought to be good Sundays if we want to go to heaven, for there it is one eternal Sabbath. Anna said she didn't want to be an angel just yet and I don't think there is the least danger of it, as far as I can judge. Grandmother said there was another verse, "If we do not have any pleasure on the Sabbath, or think any thoughts, we shall ride on the high places of the earth," and Anna said she liked that better, for she would rather ride than do anything else, so we both promised to be good. Grandfather told us they used to be more strict about Sunday than they are now. Then he told us a story, how he had to go to Geneva one Saturday morning in the stage and expected to come back in the evening, but there was an accident, so the stage did not come till Sunday morning. Church had begun and he told the stage driver to leave him right there, so he went in late and the stage drove on. The next day he heard that he was to come before the minister, Rev. Mr. Johns, and the deacons and explain why he had broken the fourth commandment. When he got into the meeting Mr. Johns asked him what he had to say, and he explained about the accident and asked them to read a verse from the 8th chapter of John, before they made up their minds what to do to him. The verse was, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone." Grandfather said they all smiled, and the minister said the meeting was out. Grandfather says that shows it is better to know plenty of Bible verses, for some time they may do you a great deal of good. We then recited the catechism and went to bed.

_August 21._--Anna says that Alice Jewett feels very proud because she has a little baby brother. They have named him John Harvey Jewett after his father, and Alice says when he is bigger she will let Anna help her take him out to ride in his baby-carriage. I suppose they will throw away their dolls now.

_Tuesday, September_ 1.--I am sewing a sheet over and over for Grandmother and she puts a pin in to show me my stint, before I can go out to play. I am always glad when I get to it. I am making a sampler, too, and have all the capital letters worked and now will make the small ones. It is done in cross stitch on canvas with different color silks. I am going to work my name, too. I am also knitting a tippet on some wooden needles that Henry Carr made for me. Grandmother has raveled it out several times because I dropped stitches. It is rather tedious, but she says, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Some military soldiers went by the house to-day and played some beautiful music. Grandfather has a teter and swing for us in the back yard and we enjoy them usually, but to-night Anna slid off the teter board when she was on the ground and I was in the air and I came down sooner than I expected. There was a hand organ and monkey going by and she was in a hurry to get to the street to see it. She got there a good while before I did. The other day we were swinging and Grandmother called us in to dinner, but Anna said we could not go until we "let the old cat die." Grandmother said it was more important that we should come when we are called.

_October._--Grandmother's name is Abigail, but she was always called "Nabby" at home. Some of the girls call me "Carrie," but Grandmother prefers "Caroline." She told us to-day, how when she was a little girl, down in Connecticut in 1794, she was on her way to school one morning and she saw an Indian coming and was so afraid, but did not dare run for fear he would chase her. So she thought of the word sago, which means "good morning," and when she got up close to him she dropped a curtesy and said "Sago," and he just went right along and never touched her at all. She says she hopes we will always be polite to every one, even to strangers.

_November._--Abbie Clark's father has been elected Governor and she is going to Albany to live, for a while. We all congratulated her when she came to school this morning, but I am sorry she is going away. We will write to each other every week. She wrote a prophecy and told the girls what they were going to be and said I should be mistress of the White House. I think it will happen, about the same time that Anna goes to be a missionary.

_December._--There was a moonlight sleigh-ride of boys and girls last night, but Grandfather did not want us to go, but to-night he said he was going to take us to one himself. So after supper he told Mr. Piser to harness the horse to the cutter and bring it around to the front gate. Mr. Piser takes care of our horse and the Methodist Church. He lives in the basement. Grandfather sometimes calls him Shakespeare to us, but I don't know why. He doesn't look as though he wrote poetry. Grandfather said he was going to take us out to Mr. Waterman Powers' in Farmington and he did. They were quite surprised to see us, but very glad and gave us apples and doughnuts and other good things. We saw Anne and Imogene and Morey and one little girl named Zimmie. They wanted us to stay all night, but Grandmother was expecting us. We got home safe about ten o'clock and had a very nice time. We never sat up so late before.

1855

_Wednesday, January_ 9.--I came downstairs this morning at ten minutes after seven, almost frozen. I never spent such a cold night before in all my life. It is almost impossible to get warm even in the dining-room. The thermometer is 10 deg. below zero. The schoolroom was so cold that I had to keep my cloak on. I spoke a piece this afternoon. It was "The Old Arm Chair," by Eliza Cook. It begins, "I love it, I love it, and who shall dare to chide me for loving that old arm chair?" I love it because it makes me think of Grandmother. After school to-night Anna and I went downtown to buy a writing book, but we were so cold we thought we would never get back. Anna said she knew her toes were frozen. We got as far as Mr. Taylor's gate and she said she could not get any farther; but I pulled her along, for I could not bear to have her perish in sight of home. We went to bed about eight o'clock and slept very nicely indeed, for Grandmother put a good many blankets on and we were warm.

_January_ 23.--This evening after reading one of Dickens' stories I knit awhile on my mittens. I have not had nice ones in a good while. Grandmother cut out the ones that I am wearing of white flannel, bound round the wrist with blue merino. They are not beautiful to be sure, but warm and will answer all purposes until I get some that are better. When I came home from school to-day Mrs. Taylor was here. She noticed how tall I was growing and said she hoped that I was as good as I was tall. A very good wish, I am sure.

_Sunday, January_ 29.--Mr. Daggett preached this morning from the text, Deut. 8: 2: "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee." It is ten years to-day since Mr. Daggett came to our church, and he told how many deaths there had been, and how many baptisms, and how many members had been added to the church. It was a very interesting sermon, and everybody hoped Mr. Daggett would stay here ten years more, or twenty, or thirty, or always. He is the only minister that I ever had, and I don't ever want any other. We never could have any one with such a voice as Mr. Daggett's, or such beautiful eyes. Then he has such good sermons, and always selects the hymns we like best, and reads them in such a way. This morning they sang: "Thus far the Lord has led me on, thus far His power prolongs my days." After he has been away on a vacation he always has for the first hymn, and we always turn to it before he gives it out:

"Upward I lift mine eyes,
From God is all my aid;
The God that built the skies,
And earth and nature made.

"God is the tower
To which I fly
His grace is nigh
In every hour."

He always prays for the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

_January,_ 1855.--Johnny Lyon is dead. Georgia Wilkinson cried awfully in school because she said she was engaged to him.

_April._--Grandmother received a letter from Connecticut to-day telling of the death of her only sister. She was knitting before she got it and she laid it down a few moments and looked quite sad and said, "So sister Anna is dead." Then after a little she went on with her work. Anna watched her and when we were alone she said to me, "Caroline, some day when you are about ninety you may be eating an apple or reading or doing something and you will get a letter telling of my decease and after you have read it you will go on as usual and just say, 'So sister Anna is dead.'" I told her that I knew if I lived to be a hundred and heard that she was dead I should cry my eyes out, if I had any.

_May._--Father has sent us a box of fruit from New Orleans. Prunes, figs, dates and oranges, and one or two pomegranates. We never saw any of the latter before. They are full of cells with jelly in, very nice. He also sent some seeds of sensitive plant, which we have sown in our garden.

This evening I wrote a letter to John and a little "poetry" to Father, but it did not amount to much. I am going to write some a great deal better some day. Grandfather had some letters to write this morning, and got up before three o'clock to write them! He slept about three-quarters of an hour to-night in his chair.

_Sunday._--There was a stranger preached for Dr. Daggett this morning and his text was, "Man looketh upon the outward appearance but the Lord looketh on the heart." When we got home Anna said the minister looked as though he had been sick from birth and his forehead stretched from his nose to the back of his neck, he was so bald. Grandmother told her she ought to have been more interested in his words than in his looks, and that she must have very good eyes if she could see all that from our pew, which is the furthest from the pulpit of any in church, except Mr. Gibson's, which is just the same. Anna said she couldn't help seeing it unless she shut her eyes, and then every one would think she had gone to sleep. We can see the Academy boys from our pew, too.

Mr. Lathrop, of the seminary, is superintendent of the Sunday School now and he had a present to-day from Miss Betsey Chapin, and several visitors came in to see it presented: Dr. Daggett, Mr. and Mrs. Alex. Howell, Mr. Tousley, Mr. Stowe, Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Granger and several others. The present was a certificate of life membership to something; I did not hear what. It was just a large piece of parchment, but they said it cost $25. Miss Lizzie Bull is my Sunday School teacher now. She asked us last Sunday to look up a place in the Bible where the trees held a consultation together, to see which one should reign over them. I did not remember any such thing, but I looked it up in the concordance and found it in Judges 9: 8. I found the meaning of it in Scott's Commentary and wrote it down and she was very much pleased, and told us next Sunday to find out all about Absalom.

_July._--Our sensitive plant is growing nicely and it is quite a curiosity. It has fern-like leaves and when we touch them, they close, but soon come out again. Anna and I keep them performing.

_September_ 1.--Anna and I go to the seminary now. Mr. Richards and Mr. Tyler are the principals. Anna fell down and sprained her ankle to-day at the seminary, and had to be carried into Mrs. Richards' library. She was sliding down the bannisters with little Annie Richards. I wonder what she will do next. She has good luck in the gymnasium and can beat Emma Wheeler and Jennie Ruckle swinging on the pole and climbing the rope ladder, although they and Sarah Antes are about as spry as squirrels and they are all good at ten pins. Susie Daggett and Lucilla Field have gone to Farmington, Conn., to school.

_Monday._--I received a letter from my brother John in New Orleans, and his ambrotype. He has grown amazingly. He also sent me a N. O. paper and it gave an account of the public exercises in the school, and said John spoke a piece called "The Baron's Last Banquet," and had great applause and it said he was "a chip off the old block." He is a very nice boy, I know that. James is sixteen years old now and is in Princeton College. He is studying German and says he thinks he will go to Germany some day and finish his education, but I guess in that respect he will be very much disappointed. Germany is a great ways off and none of our relations that I ever heard of have ever been there and it is not at all likely that any of them ever will. Grandfather says, though, it is better to aim too high than not high enough. James is a great boy to study. They had their pictures taken together once and John was holding some flowers and James a book and I guess he has held on to it ever since.

_Sunday._--Polly Peck looked so funny on the front seat of the gallery. She had on one of Mrs. Greig's bonnets and her lace collar and cape and mitts. She used to be a milliner so she knows how to get herself up in style. The ministers have appointed a day of fasting and prayer and Anna asked Grandmother if it meant to eat as fast as you can. Grandmother was very much surprised.

_November_ 25.--I helped Grandmother get ready for Thanksgiving Day by stoning some raisins and pounding some cloves and cinnamon in the mortar pestle pounder. It is quite a job. I have been writing with a quill pen but I don't like it because it squeaks so. Grandfather made us some to-day and also bought us some wafers to seal our letters with, and some sealing wax and a stamp with "R" on it. He always uses the seal on his watch fob with "B." He got some sand, too. Our inkstand is double and has one bottle for ink and the other for sand to dry the writing.

_December_ 20, 1855.--Susan B. Anthony is in town and spoke in Bemis Hall this afternoon. She made a special request that all the seminary girls should come to hear her as well as all the women and girls in town. She had a large audience and she talked very plainly about our rights and how we ought to stand up for them, and said the world would never go right until the women had just as much right to vote and rule as the men. She asked us all to come up and sign our names who would promise to do all in our power to bring about that glad day when equal rights should be the law of the land. A whole lot of us went up and signed the paper. When I told Grandmother about it she said she guessed Susan B. Anthony had forgotten that St. Paul said the women should keep silence. I told her, no, she didn't for she spoke particularly about St. Paul and said if he had lived in these times, instead of 1800 years ago, he would have been as anxious to have the women at the head of the government as she was. I could not make Grandmother agree with her at all and she said we might better all of us stayed at home. We went to prayer meeting this evening and a woman got up and talked. Her name was Mrs. Sands. We hurried home and told Grandmother and she said she probably meant all right and she hoped we did not laugh.

_Monday._--I told Grandfather if he would bring me some sheets of foolscap paper I would begin to write a book. So he put a pin on his sleeve to remind him of it and to-night he brought me a whole lot of it. I shall begin it to-morrow. This evening I helped Anna do her Arithmetic examples, and read her Sunday School book. The name of it is "Watch and Pray." My book is the second volume of "Stories on the Shorter Catechism."

_Tuesday._--I decided to copy a lot of choice stories and have them printed and say they were "compiled by Caroline Cowles Richards," it is so much easier than making them up. I spent three hours to-day copying one and am so tired I think I shall give it up. When I told Grandmother she looked disappointed and said my ambition was like "the morning cloud and the early dew," for it soon vanished away. Anna said it might spring up again and bear fruit a hundredfold. Grandfather wants us to amount to something and he buys us good books whenever he has a chance. He bought me Miss Caroline Chesebro's book, "The Children of Light," and Alice and Phoebe Cary's _Poems_. He is always reading Channing's memoirs and sermons and Grandmother keeps "Lady Huntington and Her Friends," next to "Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises" and her Testament. Anna told Grandmother that she saw Mrs. George Willson looking very steadily at us in prayer meeting the other night and she thought she might be planning to "write us up." Grandmother said she did not think Mrs. Willson was so short of material as that would imply, and she feared she had some other reason for looking at us. I think dear Grandmother has a little grain of sarcasm in her nature, but she only uses it on extra occasions. Anna said, "Oh, no; she wrote the lives of the three Mrs. Judsons and I thought she might like for a change to write the biographies of the 'two Miss Richards.'" Anna has what might be called a vivid imagination.

1856

_January_ 23.--This is the third morning that I have come down stairs at exactly twenty minutes to seven. I went to school all day. Mary Paul and Fannie Palmer read "_The Snow Bird_" to-day. There were some funny things in it. One was: "Why is a lady's hair like the latest news? Because in the morning we always find it in the papers." Another was: "One rod makes an acher, as the boy said when the schoolmaster flogged him."

This is Allie Field's birthday. He got a pair of slippers from Mary with the soles all on; a pair of mittens from Miss Eliza Chapin, and Miss Rebecca Gorham is going to give him a pair of stockings when she gets them done.

_January_ 30.--I came home from school at eleven o'clock this morning and learned a piece to speak this afternoon, but when I got up to school I forgot it, so I thought of another one. Mr. Richards said that he must give me the praise of being the best speaker that spoke in the afternoon. Ahem!

_February_ 6.--We were awakened very early this morning by the cry of fire and the ringing of bells and could see the sky red with flames and knew it was the stores and we thought they were all burning up. Pretty soon we heard our big brass door knocker being pounded fast and Grandfather said, "Who's there?" "Melville Arnold for the bank keys," we heard. Grandfather handed them out and dressed as fast as he could and went down, while Anna and I just lay there and watched the flames and shook. He was gone two or three hours and when he came back he said that Mr. Palmer's hat store, Mr. Underhill's book store, Mr. Shafer's tailor shop, Mrs. Smith's millinery, Pratt & Smith's drug store, Mr. Mitchell's dry goods store, two printing offices and a saloon were burned. It was a very handsome block. The bank escaped fire, but the wall of the next building fell on it and crushed it. After school to-night Grandmother let us go down to see how the fire looked. It looked very sad indeed. Judge Taylor offered Grandfather one of the wings of his house for the bank for the present but he has secured a place in Mr. Buhre's store in the Franklin Block.

_Thursday, February_ 7.--Dr. and Aunt Mary Carr and Uncle Field and Aunt Ann were over at our house to dinner to-day and we had a fine fish dinner, not one of Gabriel's (the man who blows such a blast through the street, they call him Gabriel), but one that Mr. Francis Granger sent to us. It was elegant. Such a large one it covered a big platter. This evening General Granger came in and brought a gentleman with him whose name was Mr. Skinner. They asked Grandfather, as one of the trustees of the church, if he had any objection to a deaf and dumb exhibition there to-morrow night. He had no objection, so they will have it and we will go.

_Friday_.--We went and liked it very much. The man with them could talk and he interpreted it. There were two deaf and dumb women and three children. They performed very prettily, but the smartest boy did the most. He acted out David killing Goliath and the story of the boy stealing apples and how the old man tried to get him down by throwing grass at him, but finding that would not do, he threw stones which brought the boy down pretty quick. Then he acted a boy going fishing and a man being shaved in a barber shop and several other things. I laughed out loud in school to-day and made some pictures on my slate and showed them to Clara Willson and made her laugh, and then we both had to stay after school. Anna was at Aunt Ann's to supper to-night to meet a little girl named Helen Bristol, of Rochester. Ritie Tyler was there, too, and they had a lovely time.

_February_ 8.--I have not written in my journal for several days, because I never like to write things down if they don't go right. Anna and I were invited to go on a sleigh-ride, Tuesday night, and Grandfather said he did not want us to go. We asked him if we could spend the evening with Frankie Richardson and he said yes, so we went down there and when the load stopped for her, we went too, but we did not enjoy ourselves at all and did not join in the singing. I had no idea that sleigh-rides could make any one feel so bad. It was not very cold, but I just shivered all the time. When the nine o'clock bell rang we were up by the "Northern Retreat," and I was so glad when we got near home so we could get out. Grandfather and Grandmother asked us if we had a nice time, but we got to bed as quick as we could. The next day Grandfather went into Mr. Richardson's store and told him he was glad he did not let Frankie go on the sleigh-ride, and Mr. Richardson said he did let her go and we went too. We knew how it was when we got home from school, because they acted so sober, and, after a while, Grandmother talked with us about it. We told her we were sorry and we did not have a bit good time and would never do it again. When she prayed with us the next morning, as she always does before we go to school, she said, "Prepare us, Lord, for what thou art preparing for us," and it seemed as though she was discouraged, but she said she forgave us. I know one thing, we will never run away to any more sleigh-rides.

_February_ 20.--Mr. Worden, Mrs. Henry Chesebro's father, was buried to-day, and Aunt Ann let Allie stay with us while she went to the funeral. I am going to Fannie Gaylord's party to-morrow night.

I went to school this afternoon and kept the rules, so to-night I had the satisfaction of saying "perfect" when called upon, and if I did not like to keep the rules, it is some pleasure to say that.

_February_ 21.--We had a very nice time at Fannie Gaylord's party and a splendid supper. Lucilla Field laughed herself almost to pieces when she found on going home that she had worn her leggins all the evening. We had a pleasant walk home but did not stay till it was out. Some one asked me if I danced every set and I told them no, I set every dance. I told Grandmother and she was very much pleased. Some one told us that Grandfather and Grandmother first met at a ball in the early settlement of Canandaigua. I asked her if it was so and she said she never had danced since she became a professing Christian and that was more than fifty years ago.

Grandfather heard to-day of the death of his sister, Lydia, who was Mrs. Lyman Beecher. She was Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher's third wife. Grandmother says that they visited her once and she was quite nervous thinking about having such a great man as Dr. Lyman Beecher for her guest, as he was considered one of the greatest men of his day, but she said she soon got over this feeling, for he was so genial and pleasant and she noticed particularly how he ran up and down stairs like a boy. I think that is very apt to be the way for "men are only boys grown tall."

There was a Know Nothing convention in town to-day. They don't want any one but Americans to hold office, but I guess they will find that foreigners will get in. Our hired man is an Irishman and I think he would just as soon be "Prisidint" as not.

_February_ 22.--This is such a beautiful day, the girls wanted a holiday, but Mr. Richards would not grant it. We told him it was Washington's birthday and we felt very patriotic, but he was inexorable. We had a musical review and literary exercises instead in the afternoon and I put on my blue merino dress and my other shoes. Anna dressed up, too, and I curled her hair. The Primary scholars sit upstairs this term and do not have to pay any more. Anna and Emma Wheeler like it very much, but they do not sit together. We are seated alphabetically, and I sit with Mary Reznor and Anna with Mittie Smith. They thought she would behave better, I suppose, if they put her with one of the older girls, but I do not know as it will have the "desired effect," as Grandmother says. Miss Mary Howell and Miss Carrie Hart and Miss Lizzie and Miss Mollie Bull were visitors this afternoon. Gertrude Monier played and sang. Mrs. Anderson is the singing teacher. Marion Maddox and Pussie Harris and Mary Daniels played on the piano. Mr. Hardick is the teacher, and he played too. You would think he was trying to pound the piano all to pieces but he is a good player. We have two papers kept up at school, _The Snow Bird_ and _The Waif_--one for the younger and the other for the older girls. Miss Jones, the composition teacher, corrects them both. Kate Buell and Anna Maria Chapin read _The Waif_ to-day and Gusta Buell and I read _The Snow Bird_. She has beautiful curls and has two nice brothers also, Albert and Arthur, and the girls all like them. They have not lived in town very long.

_February_ 25.--I guess I won't fill up my journal any more by saying I arose this morning at the usual time, for I don't think it is a matter of life or death whether I get up at the usual time or a few minutes later and when I am older and read over the account of the manner in which I occupied my time in my younger days I don't think it will add particularly to the interest to know whether I used to get up at 7 or at a quarter before. I think Miss Sprague, our schoolroom teacher, would have been glad if none of us had got up at all this morning for we acted so in school. She does not want any noise during the three minute recess, but there has been a good deal all day. In singing class they disturbed Mr. Kimball by blowing through combs. We took off our round combs and put paper over them and then blew--Mary Wheeler and Lottie Lapham and Anna sat nearest me and we all tried to do it, but Lottie was the only one who could make it go. He thought we all did, so he made us come up and sit by him. I did not want to a bit. He told Miss Sprague of us and she told the whole school if there was as much noise another day she would keep every one of us an hour after half-past 4. As soon as she said this they all began to groan. She said "Silence." I only made the least speck of a noise that no one heard.

_February_ 26.--To-night, after singing class, Mr. Richards asked all who blew through combs to rise. I did not, because I could not make it go, but when he said all who groaned could rise, I did, and some others, but not half who did it. He kept us very late and we all had to sign an apology to Miss Sprague.

Grandfather made me a present of a beautiful blue stone to-day called Malachite. Anna said she always thought Malachite was one of the prophets.

_March_ 3, 1856.--Elizabeth Spencer sits with me in school now. She is full of fun but always manages to look very sober when Miss Chesebro looks up to see who is making the noise over our way. I never seem to have that knack. Anna had to stay after school last night and she wrote in her journal that the reason was because "nature will out" and because "she whispered and didn't have her lessons, etc., etc., etc." Mr. Richards has allowed us to bring our sewing to school but now he says we cannot any more. I am sorry for I have some embroidery and I could get one pantalette done in a week, but now it will take me longer. Grandmother has offered me one dollar if I will stitch a linen shirt bosom and wrist bands for Grandfather and make the sleeves. I have commenced but, Oh my! it is an undertaking. I have to pull the threads out and then take up two threads and leave three. It is very particular work and Anna says the stitches must not be visible to the naked eye. I have to fell the sleeves with the tiniest seams and stroke all the gathers and put a stitch on each gather. Minnie Bellows is the best one in school with her needle and is a dabster at patching. She cut a piece right out of her new calico dress and matched a new piece in and none of us could tell where it was. I am sure it would not be safe for me to try that. Grandmother let me ask three of the girls to dinner Saturday, Abbie Clark, Mary Wheeler and Mary Field. We had a big roast turkey and everything else to match. Good enough for Queen Victoria. That reminds me of a conundrum we had in _The Snow Bird:_ What does Queen Victoria take her pills in? In cider. (Inside her.)

_March_ 7.--The reports were read at school to-day and mine was, Attendance 10, Deportment 8, Scholarship 7 1/2, and Anna's 10, 10 and 7. I think they got it turned around, for Anna has not behaved anything uncommon lately.

_March_ 10.--My teacher Miss Sprague kept me after school to-night for whispering, and after all the others were gone she came to my seat and put her arm around me and kissed me and said she loved me very much and hoped I would not whisper in school any more. This made me feel very sorry and I told her I would try my best, but it seemed as though it whispered itself sometimes. I think she is just as nice as she can be and I shall tell the other girls so. Her home is in Glens Falls.

Anna jumped the rope two hundred times to-day without stopping, and I told her that I read of a girl who did that and then fell right down stone dead. I don't believe Anna will do it again. If she does I shall tell Grandmother.

_April_ 5.--I walked down town with Grandfather this morning and it is such a beautiful day I felt glad that I was alive. The air was full of tiny little flies, buzzing around and going in circles and semicircles as though they were practising calisthenics or dancing a quadrille. I think they were glad they were alive, too. I stepped on a big bug crawling on the walk and Grandfather said I ought to have brushed it aside instead of killing it. I asked him why and he said, "Shakespeare says, 'The beetle that we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a giant dies.'"

A man came to our door the other day and asked if "Deacon" Beals was at home. I asked Grandmother afterwards if Grandfather was a Deacon and she said no and never had been, that people gave him the name when he was a young man because he was so staid and sober in his appearance. Some one told me once that I would not know my Grandfather if I should meet him outside the Corporation. I asked why and he said because he was so genial and told such good stories. I told him that was just the way he always is at home. I do not know any one who appreciates real wit more than he does. He is quite strong in his likes and dislikes, however. I have heard him say,

"I do not like you, Dr. Fell,
The reason why, I cannot tell;
But this one thing I know full well,
I do not like you, Dr. Fell."

Bessie Seymour wore a beautiful gold chain to school this morning and I told Grandmother that I wanted one just like it. She said that outward adornments were not of as much value as inward graces and the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, in the sight of the Lord, was of great price. I know it is very becoming to Grandmother and she wears it all the time but I wish I had a gold chain just the same.

Aunt Ann received a letter to-day from Lucilla, who is at Miss Porter's school at Farmington, Connecticut. She feels as if she were a Christian and that she has experienced religion.

Grandfather noticed how bright and smart Bentley Murray was, on the street, and what a business way he had, so he applied for a place for him as page in the Legislature at Albany and got it. He is always noticing young people and says, "As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined." He says we may be teachers yet if we are studious now. Anna says, "Excuse me, please."

Grandmother knows the Bible from Genesis to Revelation excepting the "begats" and the hard names, but Anna told her a new verse this morning, "At Parbar westward, four at the causeway and two at Parbar." Grandmother put her spectacles up on her forehead and just looked at Anna as though she had been talking in Chinese. She finally said, "Anna, I do not think that is in the Bible." She said, "Yes, it is; I found it in 1 Chron. 26: 18." Grandmother found it and then she said Anna had better spend her time looking up more helpful texts. Anna then asked her if she knew who was the shortest man mentioned in the Bible and Grandmother said "Zaccheus." Anna said that she just read in the newspaper, that one said "Nehimiah was" and another said "Bildad the Shuhite" and another said "Tohi." Grandmother said it was very wicked to pervert the Scripture so, and she did not approve of it at all. I don't think Anna will give Grandmother any more Bible conundrums.

_April_ 12.--We went down town this morning and bought us some shaker bonnets to wear to school. They cost $1 apiece and we got some green silk for capes to put on them. We fixed them ourselves and wore them to school and some of the girls liked them and some did not, but it makes no difference to me what they like, for I shall wear mine till it is worn out. Grandmother says that if we try to please everybody we please nobody. The girls are all having mystic books at school now and they are very interesting to have. They are blank books and we ask the girls and boys to write in them and then they fold the page twice over and seal it with wafers or wax and then write on it what day it is to be opened. Some of them say, "Not to be opened for a year," and that is a long time to wait. If we cannot wait we can open them and seal them up again. I think Anna did look to see what Eugene Stone wrote in hers, for it does not look as smooth as it did at first. We have autograph albums too and Horace Finley gave us lots of small photographs. We paste them in the books and then ask the people to write their names. We have got Miss Upham's picture and Dr. and Mrs. Daggett, General Granger's and Hon. Francis Granger's and Mrs. Adele Granger Thayer and Friend Burling, Dr. Jewett, Dr. Cheney, Deacon Andrews and Dr. Carr, and Johnnie Thompson's, Mr. Noah T. Clarke, Mr. E. M. Morse, Mrs. George Willson, Theodore Barnum, Jim Paton's and Will Schley, Merritt Wilcox, Tom Raines, Ed. Williams, Gus Coleman's, W. P. Fisk and lots of the girls' pictures besides. Eugene Stone and Tom Eddy had their ambrotypes taken together, in a handsome case, and gave it to Anna. We are going to keep them always.

_April_.--The Siamese twins are in town and a lot of the girls went to see them in Bemis Hall this afternoon. It costs 10 cents. Grandmother let us go. Their names are Eng and Chang and they are not very handsome. They are two men joined together. I hope they like each other but I don't envy them any way. If one wanted to go somewhere and the other one didn't I don't see how they would manage it. One would have to give up, that's certain. Perhaps they are both Christians.