Merry Christmas, From Sister.

Fannie M. Bromley Castleton Vermont

"Be brave and earnest and strong."


"The highest is only attained through the high"-
DIARY


[Calendar for the year 1874.]


[ Astronomical calculation in mean time, listing the ellipses of the Sun and Moon for the year. ]
[ Listing the dates when the planets will be brightest. ]
[ Listing when the four seasons begin for the year. ]


[Listing the morning start and the evening stars for the year]
[Listing "Church days" for the year, Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima Sunday, Quinquagesima Sunday, Ask
Wednesday, Quadragesima Sunday, Mid Lend, Palm, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Low Sunday, Low Sunday,
Rogation Sunday, Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, and Advent Sunday]


[A table listing the distances from different US places to New York City in miles and the time it takes to travel them by
the "usually travelled routes, generally by railroad". It also lists the population of those cities in 1870, and the time there
when it is noon in NY.]


[A table and rule for computing any interest on any sum and for any time.]


[Rates of postage page.]


[Stamp duties page.]


[Almanac for January 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for February 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for March 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for April 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for May 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for June 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for July 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]








[Almanac for September 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for October 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for November 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


[Almanac for December 1874, listing the moon phases for New York, Boston, and Chicago.]


Jan. Thursday 1. 1874
What we began with -
One wish makes us a little happy and an aggregation makes us a good deal happy - and we began our wishes. The
pancakes evinced a disposition to be of proper thickness and quality - which we also began on. There were tickles and
ripples all through the day - The shake of Col. Parker's hand in his New Year's call - (see how I was blessed-) will
vibrate through me for the first six months. I have reached a limit - I have written to Elizabeth [Stuard] Phelps - and
Isaiah still [dear] Isaiah --- "You should go out with joy and be led forth in peace"-



Jan. Friday 2. 1874

What was done - what to do- A glance told her both!

A storm is in prospect and I go to school without mittens - What if I had a lover and he should find my gloves - They are
not "always genteel."

My sister will be judged at the last for spoiling my digestion or else for having so little strength to resist fried oysters
and chicken gravy -

The days seem long when I stay up all day - and I mind it today. A petition goes forth from the ...- who sorrow not as
though who have not hope.

Gertie has her head tied up - indicative of all kind of ... terms which attend neuralgia headaches - Here a glance did not
tell me what to do - I know not


Jan. Saturday 3. 1874

What we felt like doing - some of the ills that flesh is heir to fell upon each of us to-day

Gertie's head is still tied up - Aggie has general debility - and I have general restlessness. But we all work - I have never
ceased to be thankful that on me has fallen a good share of this world's work to do. It spares me many many hours -

... and I ran away in a Greek lesson ... - My head is all wrong - and I suppose I've got to ... to right it.

I feel restless and I want to run - ...like ... - of the fact that somebody has better success teaching grammar than in ...
precious time . She enquires "How's that" -

And I echo -"How's that".


4
Jan. Sunday 4. 1874
What Mr. Ayers said
It has been good for me that I went to church to-day - good for me that I went to the brick church. It's a cheery sign
when I come home to think -

There's something impressive in the thought of that whole [armor] we ... to put on - that word whole [rivets] my
attention - And again I cannot escape from the other thought of Christ going from pew to pew to find this virtue and that
virtue - this grace and that grace What would Christ, the Lord, find in my pew?

Aggie begins to get her things together for a go -- I don't like to think about her going -

I'm afraid my ... plans for . . are on sandy foundations - It seems as if ...would call for her ... but I wait in ...


Jan. Monday 5. 1874

What I feel like - You will know just how when I tell you that in order to get my sister to that mournful train I closed not
my eyes- scarcely-

We went mournfully about a breakfast which nobody ate - and sat on a trunk nobody came for until I went and brought
the man that ... - A sleety, slippery, dismal, aquatic morning - O dear why must if fall to us to bid good bye to ours -
such times as this -

I feel like all tired ... stupid things, but there is a [next] for Hope. The first something - the ... of prayer was quiet and
soothing - Who of us did not feel like praying-
"Create in us a clean heart O God" - And O do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion.


Jan. Tuesday 6 1874

What the weather is attempting - When I find out I'll tell you such performances as it is guilty of is beyond all natural
and acquired knowledge of meteorology on the part of me -

The first that was ... of me was sitting before the creator - no morning Light and trying to transform inert matter into a
glorious world.

"O we are little sunbeams -

Could I get to the prayer meeting and be Mr. Maynard's disciple this evening too? It was possible. By bringing out...
skill she did both -

The meeting fills me with thoughts - its [sic] so grand to think of that mustard seed which in very deed was the least of
all seeds!-


Jan. Wednesday 7. 1874

What befell some people and how some people fell -

Libbie Whitlock's example in Compound Preposition came out a horse and a
quarter yesterday - Today she said she'd found the other three quarters -

The walking never was worse - Castelton is a sea of glass - ... said there was one thing she wanted to see - Mr.[Hoodley]
go by on the ice - coming home from church her unlawful prayer was granted - for by ... side Mr. [Hoodley] fell
heroically

The prayers to-night were for families - sick ones and schools - What came forth from the hearts of the fathers - was the
holy place in the meeting - I cannot help thinking what beautiful [ever] sacred things might be those that should come
from the hearts of others


April, Saturday 18. 1874

In which its something else I'm up to - Upon me has fallen a conscious weight - I am almost to the depot - in the bend
this side of it - before I wake up fully to the sense of it - Upon me has fallen the responsibility of the much talked about
class-rings! Very truly! Also the responsibility of a box to be sent to Dan! I live through them both - I sit for a picture
and almost make the man not live through it - At the latest both are alive and may recover!

I am in my parent's arms - and my salary is a comfort to other people


Jan. Friday 9. 1874
What [time] we live to -
Sister Nichols and Sister Croft are making their crown more brilliant by adding to their faith, virtue and to virtue,
knowledge - and to knowledge a firsthand ... We hear that mostly -

The smiling face of Providence is not [hid].. - We are blessed with a mild, benign temperature and to folks whose
mothers are gone and to whom the Morning Light is sovereign it is a blessed thing -

After school it is so pleasant that Gertie and I walk. In the happy manner of Geoffrey Chaucer I give ... a Canterbury
Tale - Subject of the prayer meeting - The missionary, the Sabbath School teacher and the minister

It seems blessed to a heart bare - heart hungry to close these days with a prayer meeting


What wa -

I live too fast - So much is most certain I am a little busy and a good deal byusy and so it keeps on. To sit down and
not think of anything in particular to be done would be a day of days to a head that swims -

I write Greek exercizes and I get girls ready for examination and I answer the door bell - After my hands at last drop and
the light is out I want to think of our absent boy and pray and pray and pray for him but I am too tired to lift my heart to
the heavenly hills.

This is not the way I was made to live and my release seems far off - The prayers are solemn and the Spirit [draws] nigh
-

Righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost


Jan. Sunday 11. 1874
What ever shall be
"Their echoes roll from soul to soul and grow forever and forever." There are a few such echoes - and they roll up from
a tragic three years - O God give me the life thou didn't give thy Son.

I am glad of the Sundays - glad to see with my eyes shut a man on a cross - glad to be more and more ashamed to speak
of burdens to that man on the cross-

And home - all of it makes me sorry - Where is the blessedness I knew - And Gertie will surely get homesick and tired -
Poor child.


Jan. Monday 12. 1874

What Miss Ryan's latest excuse is - It has grown to be a wonder with me what that young lady will present or produce
next in extenuation of absences from Sunday School exercises. Her cousins have all died one by one making her
presence each time necessary, Michael or something or Timothy or something has made her folks a visit which also
demanded her presence. The lady where she boards got sick and died and her aunt has fallen down stairs!

What is there left for one to do but go to bed?

All things of to day are willing to be put away - it is growing cold We are beginning to pay for April weather. A man
comes seeking board. I give him [hopes]


Jan, Tuesday 13. 1874
What I do mostly
It begins to be rather doubtful who shall cut and run and at the same time - it begins to be pretty well known who must
be green

I [bear] more and have my being in preparing for examination - Not a very gay life to lead you think! One thought
propels all things - "Be ye also ready."

Gertie is tired tonight - Poor child it worries me to see her do so much - Think of her stirring in the kitchen, carrying up
coal - lifting cinders.

I never felt so much as if I wanted to ...
A call from Mrs.Samuel [Wilhams].


Jan. Wednesday 14 1874
What of Betsy ...
I a genteel lady always genteel have to inform you that this is the fourteenth that it heralds the last week that it sends us
dreams of the 21st -

The graduates are in the key of very flat - the music of which they fondly dreamed will not be - and the ... rests in the
soul of the principal. He is ...day

I wander forth in a storm of ... and ... [Judge] B a committee of the whole -

Because I am a genteel lady always genteel he invites me to go to ... with him and Ella
Do you think I'll pass?


Jan. Thursday 15. 1874

What can one do to keep warm - Perhaps School master Brady of ... can tell. It has grown to be a serious question with
me -
Almost everything looked toward the coming of mother to day - "She cometh not" she said.
We console ourselves with an oyster fry.
A vacant day - no music - no ... no dreams - abstract vague reality - a living on - a band that will not play with me any
more.

I am walking in the way that I should go in Greek-


Jan. Friday 16. 1874

What happened at half-past eight. I had grown very much convinced about this world's being a fleeting ... - I have felt
some like retracting from this strong position since the appearance of mother. She does not find much ... either fleeting
or otherwise.

We have ... one at least and, he bears the noble name of Hyde know a nobler name a richer blend than they.

Then of a rehersal - Don't tell.

This kept me form meeting my mother - but she came and I am at rest -


Jan. Saturday 17. 1874

What was and will not be for along time again-

There's ..., a wonderful consolation in the latter part of the above - One can sort of accomodate themselves to even a
worse world than this - and worse things in this than ... yet know when there is a prospect of releif -

And so as I go over and over the questions before so ... with my heart full of care for those before me I stand it well for
me - as I know it will not ever be again

The ride over to Farm House in the ... frosty air was like a hope of heaven in a field of graves -
How I ... in my every thought


Jan. Sunday, 18 1874
What my eyes behold!
It is for me once more to behold him whose grandfather gave him a [cart]. I have never seen the [cart].

I listen to him from Judge Bromley's seat and I am erect and very alive - He tells us this time nothing whatever
concerning the chariots of ... - but discourses on peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see God -

The Bible lesson was a help to me - in my own inner consciousness there was a joy that I had been reached and helped -
That in the hand that reached and helped - there was still an infinity - and I cannot quite fall away from it even in tired
busy weeks - like this and the next


Jan. Monday. 19 1874

What Susie says - and Miss ...! I have truly plenty to think of to-night - and I can be glad even with examination before
me - and around me - a message long and heartsome from the other side of the Mississippi - A message more than
heartsome - sweet and sad from "Our Home"-

Dr. French appears armed and invincible - He says to me "Don't stay here" My heart rises up and says "I won't no -no
"but I must wait. A few souls can - He only of all others says "Go to college" - Everybody here says "no no" - After all
one must know oneself and then - act alone - That comes the way most things get decided -

It is very stormy to-night and the walking is not for unsteady feet-


Jan. Tuesday 20. 1874

What fails me - Examination was designed to make my pleasures less - So much is not to be contradicted or opposed -
My courage sinks to low water mark to-day and I whirl about and turn about - Most tortures in this world have an end or
at least moments of repose - and mine ... - My works do not have much of a tendency to follow me - Susie's question
puzzles me and I am chased by them everywhere.

R.G.- "I have the pleasure of introducing Miss Julia M. Thomas"-
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
"Am I a soldier of the cross?"
The above is a synopsis!


Jan. Wednesday 21. 1874

What stops - It opens with a snow storm which does not stop - Out doors the snow will cover you up in a few minutes -
It's like .. days in ... - We all graduate with a prayer at one end and a benediction at the other - and no music - Then,we
all come to ... house and eat cake and ice-cream. Then everybody goes home and I get my remaining ... of mind in
getting and attempting to realize faintly what everybody has said at me - In the last month "You will have a little rest
now"-

My going away for a trip or my staying home and not going hangs by a thread - which shall it be?


Jan. 22 Thursday 22. 1874
Whats the query?
My moments of unalloyed bliss are so few which of course means my vacations that its a serious matter for me when I
come to decide what to do with them - Gertie and mother and the cozy home charms and Greek and French and ... and
Greek History all put me in a chair & chain me. The .. blood in my veins, and my backache and my head that turns and
the ... whistles all pull me off to - well wherever I want to go -


Jan. Friday 23. 1874

What is dreamt of in my philosophy - Things seem to turn in the direction of clean clothes - but I am still undecided - In
this chaotic frame of mind, I step aboard the 1-30 train and find myself moving quietly toward the cruelty we all dream
of when mother's gone - Something entirely [even] to me ensues - Bromleys by tens and dozens get in at each
successive station - until the Bromley millinnium is suggested. It has never occurred to me before to be thankful that I
was a Bromley - I've been sort of thinking that way as I chat with Judge B - and his blind brother and hear about the
silver wedding they're all going to -

Well - I at last after undergoing amputation at the hands of a barber find myself eating oysters with ... and rejoicing over
the appointment of Mary Bryant


Jan. Saturday 24. 1874
What this is called-
My attention seems to be drawn rather at the outset toward my night which did not pass away in song - but in chills and
fever - and a burning spine and yet with all my crude disjointed ... and broken slumbers I rise with new flushed hopes to
go or not go to [Syracuse] -

I am carried ... through scenes which ... over bridges near the stretches of sky and meadow toward my native country
only by viewing a ... of dreams to-day -

The red and green is ... into my ... wearily - and a card or two is sent to wailing eyes at Dansville - and night comes on -
which means a [splint] bed and can't it mean something cheery - Has not the night a thousand eyes - Hath not He set his
love upon me?


Jan. Sunday 25. 1874
What holds me-
Not always beneath the deep or beyond the stars are the answers to life's dearest askings - To-day the word and the gift
were nigh - My heart is very tender to-night God's loving spirit may find a resting place for the depths are stirred and
there is no bitterness to drive the Blessed One away - There was a simple story of [manna] There was the preaching of
the Lord Jesus Christ in its grand simplicity and Dr. heart was full - I said his closing words over and over going
home in the horse [cart] -

Venture on him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude - none but Jesus, none but Jesus can do dying sinners good - I
feel so to-night like venturing wholly -

I was real glad to see Aunt Mary a few minutes


Jan. Monday 26. 1874
What has been Hopes next -
This looks like business- I need only give you a catch word or two. "State Yard School" - "Register and keys" - "Miss
Kennedy don't do so" - Think of Hope in this [barbarous] place and wonder and be silent -

Not a very gay life to lead you think - but it will lend courage to any droop of your spirit if you will try and remember
first of all that you are away for a change - and next that when your day is over you can rest on [splints]

I've had a ... time in the midst of realities - That sounds good - All benefactors of the human race do just so - I go home
to enter the [morasses]laid for me by Elisha Jesus


Jan. Tuesday 27. 1874
What the prospects are -
There is evidently a misunderstanding on the part of State Yard juveniles in regard to the relations they sustain to me -
We do not appreciate each other - Poor little misguided heathens -

Just think of their persecuting me all day and not a ... in sight - Some [Olivers] would complain I find it cheerful to give
orders and take the children up in my arms and carry them to [execute] the orders - This is not a self-acting machine -

I take to ... quite early - After a small dose of the sweet [restorer] I fly to my Greek - How comforting it is to find that
the pages I have gone through with travail are ... to me as the unknown exams and exams further on


Jan. 28 Wednesday 28 1874
What I am up to
Don't forget the place - I am still found carrying children around at the State Yard School - You will be surprised to see
how soon they will learn to walk - I never carry children long - Miss Hastings and I take rapid strides in getting
acquainted - We are on the way -

In the evening, I ... away - My lifeless remains were interred in Aggie's chair near a [register] - and my basket was full
of ... and vermilion paint -

I further distinguisheded myself by an object lesson - The lifeless remains made a melancholy effort -
Some .. pleases ...


Jan. Thursday 29 1874

What is equivalent to that which Aggie and and I put ourselves in [splint] beds - puzzled - whether that which will
really be what or go to sleep without knowing - taking on trust what we can't reconcile -
Matters you see are in a ... state - It seems beneficient that Almighty hands are provided to take care of the things that
grow too great for us -

To get Mary Bryant here - Mrs. [Loveland] there - at the proper moment - making the connections is too big work for
me - I drop it into the hands that have never let me down -

The evening seems long and heartsome I can take comfort in an evening with Miss Hastings - and Aggie comes after
night school and we talk and talk


Jan. Friday 30. 1874

What a queer world I find me in - The hands that were let down have taken my burdens. All things dovetailed and Mary
is here - Some of this goes to prove that the world is queer -

I came out of State Yard to-night without a tear - I didn't greet any ... - I rejoiced in a deliverance and in the trip before
me -

Here I am awake to find myself in Schenectady laughing as nobody has laughed since the panic - and my hostess is
Miss Hastings - Think of that - and don't deny that the world is queer -

The lecture by Prof. Wells was a treat - so was the sight of his face and the things I could think of when my thought
grew restless and I am -

Ah - There are dreams that never die -


Jan. Saturday 31. 1874

What of the night? The star of promise is shining clear and bright saith the watchman and unto Him of Calvary the
gathering of the people is -

I sit once more in the ever sacred room and I am buying of Him gold tried in the fire and imploring white garment that I
may be clothed - As in the olden time I am found knocking, knocking at the open door -

This covenant meeeting is full of Jesus - but when I turn my eyes to the old places I see them filled by strangers - and
only here and there are those I left but it is [right] ... - or it could not be - We only learn in this way - that this is not our
seat

I stay with Sadie and there is much to tell


Feb. Sunday 1. 1874

What the first day brought -


Feb. Monday 2. 1874
What a spurred one on


Feb. Tuesday 3. 1874

What form the next trouble takes - We have ups and downs at our house but chiefly downs - Since Dan's postal came
and Gertie's sleep forsook her - What Dan means is entirely incomprehensible - we are left to worry about it - which we
do in a manner never before attained

It was a mistake sending a boy down in our family - but we are knowing so well about this matter that the next
generation may all be boys and we'll be ready for them -

One can live and worry too - The latter doesn't kill one - at least not me, any more than teaching with ... That tests
endurance - Beyond that we need not look -


Feb. Wednesday 4. 1874

What everything tended toward- Becky, it wasn't a bear - not that but a bundle - bear-like in its proportions - We hope it
will get along nicely without us - It will be an item to many people that they saw two girls go by with a bundle - Don't
proceed - It is harrowing to my feelings -

That boy of ours - why is it that he writes us not - We are all sitting in a tub of melancholy waiting and and hoping

Helen - bless her heart has not given me up - She writes once again and with sincere contrition I promise all to myself to
be good and not make her wait any more - Will I - Shall I - A moment to tell her -


Feb. Thursday 5. 1874
What I think to-night.
It is after the prayer meeting and my thoughts tend that way - I seem more in the atmosphere of God's great help than I
have been in months - His rest is around my restlessness - I can venture on Him, venture wholly - I go up into the long
night and my meditation of Him is sweet - I recall past moments when He was infinitely dear - and my soul is nearer the
Eternal Moment - the assemblage of just souls made perfect ... I have known since my ... days began to go on -

[Dannie] does not come or write and we are still much perplexed - I revel in three days at home -
Mother is feeling miserable to-day and I am very sorry


Feb. Friday 6. 1874

What does and does not happen - It does not happen that I take Mr. Maynard's [horse] - nor that I get a letter - nor that
any word comes from that boy - nor that I read my seventeen lines of Greek - not at all -

It does happen that another bundle goes and that I "am one of the means" - that back numbers of the Weekly Herald
arrive - That geography questions replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion - That the mercury sinks to the
depth that never dreams of thaws - or feels for mortals who were born in other latitudes -

I am glad mother is a little betterr -


Feb. Saturday 7. 1874
What comes to us -
It is a day of sharp bitter frost of a keen cold air that lurketh about and for which there is no help - The good word comes
from the boy that he's well and our hearts take a rest - It is such a blessed giving from the King immortal invisible in
answer to my feeble asking - Dannie cannot fall away and be our disappintment not so long as I ... him up to the
everlasting Arms -

Work makes me feel good today - it is so nice to work at home - I keep in the spirit of it all the time and can hardly be
persuaded to stop - I've had wonderful times visiting ... and Windsor and Brighton


Feb. Sunday 8. 1874

What comfort I have learned -

"A Presence fills my valleys and gilds my mountain tops - breathes upon the plains and they spring up in lilies and
roses, flashes upon the waters and they flow to spheral melody, sweep through the forest and they [tremble] into song" -

"The fire is unquenched beneath - You go your way not disconsolate -

There needs but the Victims Voice - At the touch of the Prince's lips, life shall be perfected forever"


Feb. Monday 9. 1874
What there was of it -
One of the prominent features of the day was Mr. Maynard's horse - It will live in the memories of those who saw us -
It came over about noon and we chased the horse away - We could easily with that type of horse -
The afternoon was a rare one - just cool enough to keep the snow - just bright enough to keep us -

Snow flew from those swift hoofs thundering south - and each [move] of the charger was [strained] to full play -
Did I not guess that Mr. M. would wait for the stud at our house - Forewarned - forewarned !
Did I recite a Greek lesson ? I fear not -


Feb. Tuesday 10. 1874
What is if - ...
All our heads meditate one theme - It relates to a rag carpet and no carpet and a new carpet - It ends in our coming into
possession of a new oak and green ... too pretty for us - and the rag carpet being taken up stairs -

Patience Strong would know lots of pretty things to say about this - There woud be no end of comfort in her thought of
it and it would be like a piece of ... to Patience and her mother

As for one I shall like its pretty brown and oak and lighter green more and more as I live where it is - I build a castle in
Ann Arbor and in its glow is my oak and brown and lighter green


Feb. Wednesday 11. 1874
What became of us -
There never was so much done before for thirty cents - In this world we are all blind leaders of the blind and in our
blindness it seemed necessary to offer one of our rooms to Anna [Ostrander} - and in Mr. Maynard's blindness he said
we might have his charger for thirty cents to go to [Ostrander's] and in further blindness we passed the heads of the
[Ostrander] family on the road - and then came the ride from Ghent to Aix dramatized

"For one heard the quick wheeze of her chest, saw the stretched neck and the staggering knees, And sunk tail and
horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank"* for thirty cents


*Robert Browning "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix"


Feb. Thursday 12. 1874
What! and did you :
The bell rang a year ago this morning and Fanny do you remember that I promised never to make you walk up to answer
its call another first day February morning

This seems my girlie like one of the questions I was not allowed to answer - like one of the problems when the slate and
pencil were taken from me - and in so wonder why I am made to stay here - I go up again to answer the singing of that
bell.

The girls bring good cheer - There's a spirit of good ... - a new ... a golden age breathing in the very air of the Normal
Hall

I go home from it into a cloud that settles black and grim - and ... - It's only like what has been so many times ...
Talk to Gertie


Feb. Friday 13 1874

What can she do!" I suppose this is one phase of the woman question - That makes me think Prof. Tyler of Amherst
College has spoken thro' the columns of Scribner's Monthly and he turns the farrow and ploughs up the subjects to be
considered in women's education! The "peculiar" nature of woman" - In "Her proper sphere"! O Tyler - "so new - so
universal, so individual"!

But to come back from my wandering - what can she do - The answer seems to be to start a school - to be its pivot - its
motive power - and its [waste] of material! Also to be able not to write to Helen ...[Allen] - not to get a Greek lesson -
not to do any writing or take any ...


Feb. Saturday 14. 1874
What did she do: -
Friends I come not here to talk - You know too well the story of our thralldown! Do you have tears? Prepare to shed
them now! How many expeditions to the stores I was guilty of statistics shall never show - They shall show however
that Mr. M. brought over a stove - that it was elevated to the upper regions with our arms - that it is the worst looking
stove I ever saw - or carried up stairs - They shall show that I carried around pipe - and my ... - and Greek was not - The
weather was full of April - Our hearts sang and we said - Is it spring! Dr. Sanford with hope big with immortality could
[say] - I believe this is spring - It was ...- Storms may come - but it will do us no [harm] to be glad even when it cannot
be -


Feb. Sunday 15. 1874

What the dear lord is to us - so much, so very much - how can I tell alone - Let Isaiah tell how he is a covert from the
storm - a hiding place from the tempest - a shadow of a great Rock in a weary land -

Let John tell how he is love - Let Psalms tell how he is a shepherd tending - Let every thing tell how he is a tender
Father pitying

It is safe and best to hide in the shadow of his wing - To let him cover our defenceless heads - To-night a thought of life
came over me of life as it is and will be - a life that must ... - and ... is sufficient indeed for these things


Feb. Monday 16 1874

What I know about Elisha ... - He is another man who was designed to make my pleasures less - He grows more and
more incomprehensible and I can't perservere and never mind him! Anabasis is studied and forgotten and it returns [into
one] void - an unfathomable void - The passages that I pour over and pour over appear for a little time and vanish away
-

... comes and she brings all the cheer that she could gather from [sunny] weeks at the farm - Up in her home there is
such carrying of lambs in their bosoms - such gentle leading - such comforting as mothers comfort -

I shall always love the house at the end of the ... road -


Feb. Tuesday 17. 1874

What I think of - The present is a busy, hard present - it makes me what I shall never [reap] - and it is a weary ... lately -
but the past has in it a gorgeous land - "Here are cool mosses deep and thro' the moss the ivies creep - The music of ...
old ... full soften them "night dews on still waters between walls of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass"* - Dark and
stern may have been my walls of shadowy granite - yet always have the night dews fallen - always has there been a past
transfigured -

My love - Yours is a sunny face that lights up my fears - no sunnier ...has ever shone upon one
I can best keep your birthday, dear one, in lifting up my light in immitation of yourself -
And today at the thought of you a laugh steals into my heart -

*Alfred Lord Tennyson "Song of the lotus eaters"


Feb. Wednesday 18. 1874.

What new business devolves upon ... pupils are not ... The scarcity of an aricle in all cases governs the price ... Normal
students - new ones are more precious than rubies - And so as they develop any signs of being lost to us I [leave]
everthing and call upon them to remain - Even my ... Greek ... has been forsaken for this - I have forgotten the
assembling of myself together and only stand trembling lest another sheep be dead - This is not a state of being in the
[main] desirable -

Gertie is sick - sleep frightened ...- the sweet restorer will not return and she is simply miserable - It is a shadow on the
pretty ...


50. Feb. Thurs 19. 1874.

What is a trial balance -

I look the first thing to see if the girl I worked upon last night is here - She is not -So I fall to musing - One of my life
problems has taken a definite shape - It seem to be stated as follows - "How will you get a Normal scholar? How will
you keep her? Are you ingenious enough to make the solitary place be glad - to make the wilderness blossom? You may
study how -

I feel so unsatisfied and forlorn to-day -
can't find ... and no pastures are green.
Who so harnesth ... the apple if mine eyes [and] mother said something cruel loud enough for dearie to hear - So I go
down into a black evening


51.
Feb. Friday 20. 1874.
What the final decision is -
I don't know what the number of this final decision is - there have been so many since the first that I have lost track -
To-day proclaims one more - it makes me tired and sorry to have all my plans for Gertie fall through so - and not one
thing to make up their loss - The creatures of my brain are very dear to me and I work for my plans -

There have been cheery things to-day and the traveler I have been on smoother waters - without much of any head wind
I could go better with the breeze if Gertie would only be good ahd work with a will at her music -
I quote myself as an immortal example of working against ...- this in Greek


Feb. Saturday 21. 1874.

What I do not know - Here I am perfectly at home - It is perfectly remarkable the things I do not know - As a general
rule I keep away from them - I don't proceed a great way from the known to the unknown - As it happens I have spirit
most of today among the things I dont know - It's still Elisha James that's at the bottom of it - I may well say it's all
Greek to me - I send my 13 and 14 to Prof. - with many a pang -
Jennie has been so sweet and dear since she came back - Gertie has been grim all day - and mother has spent her
existence in painting - The weather is an approving smile -

So seems the world away - "O - the hills I crossed and came not to you - love -


Feb. - Sunday 22. - 1874
And Death is dumb -
How dumb is only known to those who miss the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still -

How dumb Death is - we are [growing] more and more to know - for not a word or token has entered the silence for
twelve years

The ... was full of breaking on the cold gray storms of the sea - for there was a vacant seat that shall never be filled
There were white flowers tied with knots of ribbon - fresh from the ... for her burial -
There is a giving of the kingdom by and by and it is the Father's good pleasure!


Feb. Tuesday 24. 1874

Fall we may and fall we must - We are indeed fallen creatures - Watch one of us going up that hill - Its like the frog
going up the well -

We attempt but little in the walking line -
for it takes so long to go a little way - I sort of creep up the hill but it is no ... a spectacle in [broad] day light - I can live
to-day better than I could yesterday for the sun blessed us And Gertie's gone - I am sorrier than I can tell but I [am] too
much like the pumpkin eater- "I couldn't keep her " - I come back from the [car] with more pain in my heart that it
expresses - and a vacant night goes on - goes on -

It is the end of a chapter that begn in [radiance] -



This is demonstrated by the snow-storm - Mr. Maynard came over yesterday to take me as he said the last sleighride of
the season
I was not home and [never] got it. Now he will have to come again - the snow has made a last apearance once - When
people in this world begin to advertise their last appearance one needn't be in a hurry -



This is demonstrated by the snow-storm - Mr. Maynard came over yesterday to take me as he said the last sleighride of
the season
I was not home and [never] got it. Now he will have to come again - the snow has made a last apearance once - When
people in this world begin to advertise their last appearance one needn't be in a hurry -

There is ... for one's feet and I half reconcile things though I do want spring - I can't wait to see mother's floor navigable
once more -

Jennie is a comfort - She has never seemed quite to me as she has since she came back -
A blessing on her red lips -


Feb - Thursday 26. 1874
"[Aint] very well-a-day" -
I can't conceive of teaching in this status but I can do often what I can't conceive - After one is up and at it there is
always a supply to carry one through - A somehow to venture in and attend to ones ... -

My somehows are good and faithful servants - I have got in deep deep water and I can't swim - I sit and shake in
presence of my ... and with a ... I cannot express - Me - analyze Shakespeare - We eat at the table with these gods! No
wonder I have a headache - No wonder my brain sits weary on my spine -


Feb. Friday 27. 1874.

In which Jennie becomes Glory [McWhisk]! How could I tell what had happened - And when Miss Miller came up
after school so wisely with "Jennie's going home isn't she?" - Was I going to appear less wise than she? - Not at all - So
I said intelligently - "Yes" but I went to the post ofice [sic] wondering - When I got home I found Leonard there! Yes
verily my friend, the sky had fallen for Jennie and poured its treasures into her lap. The tea-table was jollier than it has
been in many a night and the shining ..., the dinner words rang - "Not for ...


Feb. Saturday 28. 1874

In which some of the sunshine is carried off -
True - True and on no better vehickle [sic] than a slow freight - I like Leonard's laugh - It means something - I build
dreams of a tall brother who shall have whiskers and a seal-skin cap and be good to me some day -

I set me to analyze Shakespeare - Light Little Lark - this sitting in the presence of the gods among Kings!
My conceptions are not lofty to-day - but I get to a stopping place - I always do
Miss ... comes not - but she will come next week if or if not - Well - Hope it's ... - It is so nice at home - O make ...
long and sweet -


March Sunday 1. 1874

In which March comes in like a lamb Yes - a lamb without spot or blemish and my heart and eyes look lovingly into
every sign of the blessed spring - one feels so good at its very mention - I take long looks at mother and the cosy sitting
room and enjoy and enjoy until I am dizzy with the blessedness and the delight

Home never seemed so nice as it does this winter and it is the Father's good pleasure -
A man from Bar Harbor preached - I have great ideas of those men Any one who has seen Yale College is great - So I
was doomed to have a fall - His preaching was not good - Yale


March, Monday 2. 1874

In which the wind is south - Then I feel sure [it's] spring - but old men shake their heads at me - They say "no - no - no"
- They are ready to proclaim a storm - a wheezer - a roaring lion seeking whom he may drown - but then I have in my
heart a song why not sing it ? Ah! - Believing I rejoyce with joy unspeakable -
Some of the vacant seats are filled and I feel more like teaching - How blessed the latter when according to ... I've lately
"poked".

What it is to teach and not feel like it is one of the never to be unraveled mysteries - There is no danger of my ever
telling for I am incapable


March, Tuesday 3. 1874.

In which it comes to me that the rainiest days like the rainiest lives are by no means the saddest! The heavens opened
upon us and what was a threatening has become a reality - But school must be taught and Fannie must teach in any case
-

In a query as how I was to get home without transport - a knock announces an appearance and I embrace my brother - I
find myself almost elated - How proud I should be to have him turn out well in this evil generation which ... to destroy
them - How my heart calls unconsciously for this as from the great God who had a Son in this world and gave him
power to overcome


March. Wednesday 4. 1874

In which I worry about Susie - Seven weeks it is nearly - and its long to wait - I ask so many things and wait and wait -
Annie McDonald goes and I try to help her off - and help her to friends when she gets there - I know she'll get kindness
if she falls into Aggie's hands - [Then] there's one more vacant seat in Normal Hall - and one more gone beyond me -

Not so much as a shadow of a [lesson] to-day and my courage lags - Even English literature is a [howling] wilderness!
Very - I come home and fall into the hands of a [book] - ...

I might have expected I would -


Feb. Thursday 5. 1874

In which there are signs of [hulled corn]! This as you must know is one of my strong points - so I make it to head my
chapter - Mrs. [Headley] is awful good to me lately - To-night she lent me herself and husband coming from prayer
meeting.

Gertie writes strange things of her doings and Mr. Willard. This is a strange world - I feel so good to-day - so well and
not [nervous] with this new head of mine!

My Eng. Lit. class still [struggle] and dire and flat [[breathes] Shakespeare business - It's fearful!


March, Friday 6. 1874

In which there is the coming of a pale face - poor little white cheeks and its mother's little girl! [It's] nice to see her -
nice to go up to the train and bring her home - nice to hear her tell about Mary and Annie and the folks - I hear the clock
strike twelve and still my eyes are open wide! My thoughts are on a march to-night - I have very much to think of lately
and my course seems more and more plain before me - It seems more and more to lie far away and to call me nearer and
nearer and my thoughts to go hither and thither


March, Saturday 7. 1874

In which are seen the effects of [hulled corn]! Behold me I stand before you a victim to its emanating influence - Why
was I not warned? A head to-day unequal to Elisha Jesus, a stomach quivering - eyes tremulous ... - Well, you'll learn! It
[doesn't] act like spring out doors at all - [It's] murky and dreary and still enough Aggie declares for a land where
Sabbaths never end!

Ella and .. call and I feel like seeing them - I am sort of wrapped up in those
... girls

Am I a foolish little teacher? Life is brief yes - but is not love long


March, Sunday 8. 1874.

In which I am glad to feel that there is a rest that remaineth! It comes over one sometimes and I creep away in the
shadow of it and tarry and tarry! I have thought too of [Kike] to-day and how grand life grows when it is laid down - of
itself - Have we not power to lay it down - ... not [God] promise us power to take it again - We are all together at home
once more Sunday - all around the sitting room stove tonight - There is a shadow of a parting next year - O make your
good nights linger and your ... long and sweet - for these loves shall die? not in thought nor yet in tears -


March, Monday 9. 1874

In which we all laugh mortal! Hear the mournful sound! We see the ecstatic vision of snow - and feel the [the] wind in
our faces - O - sad delusion and I am the deluded one - Those old men will be right - and our teeth shall chatter, chatter
still -

I am found at the old stand and there are somethings inside that are not snow or wind!
I look for John ... but see him not - and who else will answer?
Aggie feels better to-day. She has an account to settle before my brother's tribunal - It relates to how she found out
things from his diary -

I sympathize with him - I have feelings on that point -
Memorable March 9 - Another I first beheld Castleton


March, 10 1874

In which I shall probably have a sore [mouth] ! Those painful evolutions through which I passed last winter have not
repeated themselves on one of late - They are not far away - I may yet have a sty - There was more in yesterday than
there has been in to-day of hope and caring and satisfaction - but these are crowns and crowns are not given each day - I
hear such glad reports of the girl's prayer meeting - How I rejoyce in the thought of it.

It is sunny and cold. It is less like spring than the November nights weeks ago - and I [must] stand and wait


March, Wednesday 11. 1874

In which there is no [star] of promise! How could it be so cold and windy the on the very verge of April! It will teach
April to be unkind! How could Jennie stay away so long when we want her so? How could some of the girls still fail
and fail! How could all the surface ripple forth discontent - and chafe and numb - When love is long? There are some
of my girls that will never let life look very dark to me - some that are priceless as these priceless days that are taking
them from me!



In which Ella [Marsh] didn't do it enough! It was an Algebra problem - "Well, have you the answer? Yes - but I'm
afraid I didn't do it enough" - My comments are inward - This is so muchlik Marsh! I know on e thing through the day
school! I know one thing through the night - Greek. I have had a dreary feeling - I want to paint ... a beautiful picture ...
the hearts of my girls - I long and long for it - and I have been



In which Ella [Marsh] didn't do it enough! It was an Algebra problem - "Well, have you the answer? Yes - but I'm
afraid I didn't do it enough" - My comments are inward - This is so much like Marsh! I know one thing through the day
- school! I know one thing through the night - Greek. I have had a dreary feeling - I want to paint such a beautiful
picture [on] the hearts of my girls - I long and long for it - and I have been [doubting] lately - I can't erase mistakes - and
I am longing to right all things - to make myself felt forever - so that nothing shall separate -

If I only only could and I love them so


March, Saturday 14. 1874.

In which Uriah carries off Dan's candy - It lay on the kitchen table - the only piece of last night one from our house ... -
the ... - There it lay - We are fallen upon evil times - It doth not lay there now - It is a prey - and Dan stands unto us
desolate - Uriah dost devour widow's houses. I am a ... There's lots I don't do. [Anybody] could mope a little.

It could thaw some and not try very hard - I am all ready for it. And I forgot to tell you that Jennie's back - and the
sunshine came along with her - right along -

My ... is our preying ground. I may make a night of it -


March, Sunday 15. 1874

In which Mr. Stone is a sounding brass - and Mr.Hadley and Frankie [Burt] are tinkling cymbals! My seat is number 50
and I occupy it with my sister. Both of us have colds in our heads - A great many - The sun shines in ... the window -
and if my tooth didn't ache there would be a May in my heart - I was one of the wretched last night that sleep forsakes

To-day we visit - It is one of the summer days to which we may never wander back - There are dear patient fingers that
make ice cream, and candy, that iron Aggie's dress - and fill the day - and they will be still some day when these
summer days are gone


March, Monday 16. 1874.

In which "John Dooley he knew" - This Dooley who is a fairy with the reddest lips is an elixer of life! - she
unconsciously prolongs ... - This by way of introduction for the day had to strike its key - and she [goes] it a merry time
- in the midst of my forlorns measured by the condition of my body - which looked through to ... minutes before [fire]

... It is is not - I'd forego the scenery, the people , the [beetles], the ..., the soil if I could only have the climate, the
eternal spring!

To-day there is a faint prospect of a Vermont spring - very faint
I stand shivering on the brink of Greek -


March. Tuesday 17. 1874

In which a streak of thaw occurs - Our bosoms glow - The old men do not shake their heads and say [there'll] be cold
weather yet - They may think so but they do not tell it to me - I am in my martyr mood to-day - That is I go about kind
of pitiful - and work with my teeth clinched and my hands holding on hard - but muttter no word about it - This mood is
well for those who learn of me - The ... versus Willard - or ...versus a] J - ... is progressing in Schenectady ... had a ...
time.

The stove pipe in Normal Hall has another improvement - a white rag tied around it and fastened to the stove-pipe with
a stick what plans are devised for our comfort - Think of it


March, Wednesday 18. 1874

In which I have an uxpected shock - I needed a stir to break the monotony -
otherwise how would to-day have differed from yesterday and last week and ad infinitum! Dr. French has enough of
him to break most anything there why not monotony? - He broke it in many pieces - He scares me but he knows it not -
he leaves me rather exalted then otherwise! - My [Thomson] class is going to Poke - They commence that way - Jennie's
learned a new word - "..." - On the whole I find it very expressive! Dan is [joined] to his sick room - Let him alone -

There's more spring than there was yesterday


March, - Thursday 19. - 1874

In which I am perplexed but not in despair!

A memorable day - I heard a robin sing - and this the 19th of March only! When in this latitude have mortals recorded
such a statement? It covers the year with a new goodness.
I feel under the weather a little and a good deal forlorn - I drag Fannie around - I make her teach and write and translate
- and the child [doesn't] want to - Even Mich. is a terror to her -

An anniversary day - we must not let it quite die from our memories - The veined sardonyx stands for this - for it is a
life-story full since of the tederness and the pain and the purifying -


March, Friday 20. 1874

In which there is a change of base - I change my previous habits and become a visitor - a guest - I roll away out of sight
of Normal precincts or Liddell and Scott - and all without stopping once to see how my [bow] is put on!

Emma Alland has a pretty home and they all sing and [it's] grand - I envy girls with a father - You would like to be up
there to night Hope ... - There is a plant here they call heart's rose - and we love it - Hope and I -

I shall rest and it remaineth - but [Helen Birrell] ought to be with us - I think of her over and over to night and say half
sadly to myself "And never wander back" -


March, Saturday 21. 1874.

In which I see cousin Euliza - This is not suggestive of as much an arrivent as followed for she has a husband , George -
who evidently was designed to make our pleasures more.

I am glad to hear something that [isn't] school - It is a benedicite?

I love such peeps as this into other people's homes - Love to sit by the parlor windows and watch those who are
enjoying the grand weather out doors or look around and enjoy the cheery talk - [Its] all making a new world of the one
that was growing to be a very old one -

I would like a home like this and a nice [funny hubby] perhaps - but my kingdom has not come -


March, Sunday 22. 1874.

In which a daughter prophesies

I fancy this sunshine is for something - I foretell a speedy coming of arbutus - of harpers harping with their harps - I
know that April shall bear in her hands the fullness of life!

I went to a Baptist church and listened as I was told I should listen to a Baptist sermon - It didn't hurt me - I have been
homesick lately for my dear, dear church. I do so want something to do in the beautiful work. I seem to have a nice
sounding in my ears - Give all your life to God's work -

Be - O be about the Father's business!


// March, Monday 23. 1847,

On which I postpone the fulfillment of prophecies for the time is not at hand - It gets cold, so cold we forget all about
the joys the world could give last week - and alas! - could take away -

I am tired of buying coats for a contrary naughty boy who will trade [hens] and get [hens] when we [don't] want him to -

[Don't] let me worry about it - If there's pain in the air [don't] let it rest ... - In the place of it let me grow patient and be
busy with my living -

Let me lay down and lay down and lay down- that I may take again - Deny - deny - deny - thyself -


March, Tuesday 24. 1874

In which I cannot face a frowning world! - I have got pitched up to-night very high - not in hope nor yet in courage - but
on mounting billows - It is akin to [bathing] my weary soul but the seas of heavenly rest are farther on - Dannie
is headstrong and unreasonable - school stormy and discouraging - and my head fairly quakes in want of rest - and all of
these things move me - I seem another person to myself these days when I work so -

Jesus is the Savior and nothing do I need to-night so much as to be saved - O could I see the that is like ths Son of
God!


March, Wednesday 25. 1874

In which there is more faith and the Dolly - There is a happy in the bright morning times when ... make together strong
for whatever may be to do or hear!"

The day - O - How much you are to me - It is ever a trial to be out of doors - but I hold on hard and tremble lest such
days be taken from us and we go back to yesterday - and day before -

How many of God's best gifts do we hold solemnly - almost without breath lest we lose them!

I take a breathing spell from English Literature but there's enough else to O - if I can only keep tender loving
feelings and be patient - nothing elese shall worry me!


March. Thursday 26. 1874

In which I am "pleasant to have about" - The rarity of this perhaps accounts for its being recorded! The whole day has
been like a hope of heaven - I love these new fresh days to take last year's ... and ... of sleighing and cold ears and noses
- and then think how very comfortable we are to-day - this March day! Evening ... of a ... - meeting followed by a not
very comfortable introduction to Mrs. Col. [Parker]! Then I went shouting through the streets to Mr. Co. [Parker]!

[It's] pretty nearly time I had a letter. I am tired of looking and not finding! Very!


March, Friday 27. 1874

In which I ought to be a source of great pride to my friends! Chiefly on account of my socialiste abilities! Mother sends
me to see a man about renting our front room and I spend the evening and do not mention it. A [man] of ... dawns upon
us - he visits us in the capacity of - I stay & converse with him after school. This Mr. Williams does not smile upon - as
he trots around the floor picking up little pieces of chalk!

March is still smiling upon us - and there are signs that the waste places shall be made glad! -


March, Saturday 28. 1874

In which we concoct large plans - They have to do with two old people - a dear refreshing lady - and a joint affair of
hers with a cane! Our plans remain in ... until Monday dawns! - The first chill fell upon me to-day - It will be followed
by the frost by and by - For that we shall leave the cosy home in early fall is now inevitable - We shall be more sorry
than we know - It has been a grand day and the ... people have all made a grand march out doors! -

It seems so strange to feel the shackles of my room so unceasingly - I ... myself for taking one moment to play or take in
- but I shall [rest] and the time is at hand -


March, Sunday 29. 1874.

In which thoughts come to me out of the pleasantness. In this the day is like ... - Everything in that was born of a
pleasantness and it feasts upon a glory - or a revelation -

Does any one often discern the things of the Spirit - unless their minds grow to that heavenly repose that is blessed
evermore with the presence of the Spirit.

I long for a Sabbath recognition - to be lifted up by unseen hands - but my prayers though they help me - do not
[transfigure] - I must walk more and more by Jesus every day - if I would know the things which are spiritually
discerned!


March, Monday 30. 1874

In which our paths have been directed but not our way - The super structure we have [built] for three days has fallen and
we muse sadly and half fondly on seeing our plans fail and wonder what the Heavenly Father has in store for us that this
must be forbidden!

The sun still shines by day and the moon by night - and now and then even there are faint twitters of birds - There's
always something to take comfort in and mother looks around for them -

My Greek lessons [Ex.20.] returns to me and I feel dubious enough! - Jen's laugh fills the house to-night - Blessed be it -
March is still cold -


March, Tuesday 31. 1847

In which on, on, on the plans come marching!

The theme is not grow grand and majestic - but ... as it proceeds

How hope takes hold of that which is in ... - and Aggie sends a coaxing letter - So that's what we talk about - Mother
declares that the future Mrs. Cole will be obliged to eat frozen potatoes! Jennie takes this so to heart she fears it will
cause a [separation]!

March blows us as he says good bye - blows us good and hard - Yet the sunshine is everywhere - and warms us not - I
work at high pressure with a headache. I come home at noon and find no boy -


April, Wednesday 1. 1874.

In which I lift up mine eyes to the hills! It is ay a comfort lassie - and help cometh - for there is spring enough
everywhere for me to smell the sweet breath of the pines, to see the water running in deep wild spots, darkened by tall
trees - and to watch the sinking glory on bare hill-tops. Then we come home in the moonlight and I thought of Susie
and ... - I think Susie must be the poetry of my life for there's no bountiful, worshipful thing but brings me thoughts of
her -

All before this lay a day of hard work with a headache - and thoughts that roll and roll and puzzle me -


April, Thursday 2. 1874

In which [it's] "shall we" or "[shan't] we" and we do? - Jennie's anticipations and mine are usually freighted with
uncertainties! Last night we weren't going - We weren't going this morning - The day was a ... - our headaches were
raging and we summed up our conclusions rapidly and winged our flight - What a change from the school-room to the
skies -

We saw people and things and visions of things! One fat fair man whom it heard talking of sales of 40,000 and cash
profit in ... thousands - Took out a book and read it and lo it was the "Character of St.Paul!"
The very Paul who fought to win and ... corruptible things such as silver and gold. Schenectady will ever stand in my
memory veiled in moonlight - and again and again by faith I shall walk under the arch and wander on the college green


April, Friday 3. 1864

In which I abundantly renew my youth! The morning scene smacked of creeping out before another soul was up - and
getting off with a good-bye to an early train! At the Normal there were stairs and rumors of stairs! - There were hours
for things - Very few changes sit on the face of things - The girls all look and act just as we did: - and the boys, as our
brothers did - The teachers are as of old - and invincible armada - It gets to be afternoon and we seek a city: - Cohos -
We do not find Aggie at the bottom of the hill lonely, lonely - but on the serene summit - far, far above the starry skies -
We are abundantly entertained - I could fill your judging ear - if there was room!


April, Saturday 4. 1894.

In which level ground is a myth and flat surfaces things of which we have dreamed! We have been through the process
of doing Albany - Much of our business lay between heaven and earth - We couldn't even ask to see a trunk without
being sent to the fourth floor - There were no arrangements of flowery beds or other things to carry toward the skies -
Light-seeing in large quantities produces lassitude. I am quite sure Mr. Stone (pa) would say it this way! -

Aggie and I are safe, safe at home and the trunk is by our sides! - There's more to tell and my spirit is willing but flesh is
weak! -


April, Sunday 5. 1874

In which we are in the "beauty of the lilies" and Easter time! - "Ah: well for us all some sweet hope lies"* sings this
spring morning! - Sweeter and sweeter it grows as we rise to the calm of the Seventh day - and this blessing of the
Easter chimes:

The morning was still for us just rested - In the afternoon we went to vespers and saw the altar Lilies - and heard the
organ - The service was all music and I felt better -

If Aggie's Sunday's are all like this I don't wonder she cries for mother! -
Miss [Hasting] entertains us with detailed accounts of lassie Marie St. ... -
Poor little almost sick sister went to bed early -

* John Greenleaf Whittier. Maud Muller


April, Monday 6. 1874.

In which time of our departure is not at hand: This has to do with the whole family - and touches on the questions shall
we bring our flight southward now or shall we wait till the birds go! - [It's] answered on my consciousness already -
There's too much to move me here - and I am easily [worn]: - I find there was a joy waiting for me on the journey - It
seemed so nice -

This day belongs to Susie and I - It is five years old now - and we love it not less - but more -

There is a shadow about it even lurking in the blessed daylight for I
have not heard in eleven weeks - and I fear - lest the shadow I feel is a part of a shadow from him - Why [doesn't]
somebody write and tell me! ---


April, Tuesday 7. 1874

In which April assumes her proper character - There's been great carryings on here in my absence - The snow veils
every hill-top and covers the streets and everybody is as forlorn over it as hens in a ...
To-night there's hopes of bare hills again and perhaps dry feet!

School is such a treat to me when I feel like work - and I do to-day every inch of me - The girls will think to-night that I
have been pleasant to have about - perhaps - and so I come home comfortably off - Dan writes of a sprain - [consequent]
on his morning to Sunday School - The last part of the ... is a shock! -


April, Wednesday 8. 1874

In which I buy Hamburg eggs - It comes about that the melancholy days have come again and Dan's hens hold up their
little heads and clamour to set - mother having seen a picture of a Hamburg fowl (foul) - she must have Hamburg eggs
- I must get them - It comes about that this is a means - and through it I become acquainted with pa [Stone] - and the
fifth lady of his ...

Mother and I still sit on the ... of indecision - and we can't tell how to fix it! -


April, Thursday 9. 1874

In which our plans are still status quo! - We are waiting for the children and in the meantime my mother thinks and
thinks and thinks! - I go to prayer meeting and hear about living above the world - I am less in that atmosphere than
once - The work of the world, hope of future, ... draw me and chain me and the perfect devotedness to the weak and
lowly Jesus is another and far away thing! Bring every thought into subjection to the obedience of Christ!- I have work
to do - and the field is within me : I must learn to die daily ! To carry about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus! -

There's mud and snow and spring is a legend old - and mythical! -


April, Friday 10. 1874

In which the old men are right! - I have held fast in hope until to-day which shatters every one! - There has been no
snow storm this winter like it! - And the snow blows in our very faces to ...! School has been sort of snarled up and not
soothing - but we can always say "a little more sunshine tomorrow"!

It's so nice with mother today - What shall I do when I can't work by her or talk to her next year - I can't bring myself to
see! - The days will come but now they are hidden from mine eyes! Mr. Maynard presents me with an apparatus
consisting of two sticks!

My only fear is lest my good mother use them for clothes-pins!


April, Saturday 11. 1874

In which I am a social being - It's not the best day in the world to develop one's social faculties - but such as it is I take
and trot myself out - I ... between mud banks and snow banks - Frank ... Marshall, Esq - East has the wrong pig by the
ear! He is not [deep] - He needs appurtenances!

He firmly believes that I am the candidate - the probable victim - says if I 'll ... around and come for B I can begin in
May! Poor little misguided man: - Mysterious must have been the ways of my letter!

I eat sugar on snow! Nice new maple wax - and I hold the new baby - Now what do you think?


April, Sunday 12. 1984

In which there is a crimson and a blue!

I do not find myself alone - The Sabath lesson makes one feel still more sure that the Spirit is in my heart - That it can
help me to bear - and believe -

The sun was a ... by shining on snow that will not thaw : - I try to write a letter to Susie but I'm not worth much to-day! -
It would seem not much harder to squeeze or drum "words that [burn]" out of a brick! - Where did I get this cold and
what did I get it for: Poor little robins: how can they be glad and sing with their little toes in the snow!


April, Monday 13. 1874
In which we made it do -
It is a dreary opening with a week to take its keynote from it all the same. And my cold undoes me! But I stand it: My
writing if submitted will bring the same criticism which has fallen upon J. Croft - "Illegible from incorrectly formed
letters" - There may be better signs tomorrow - hope so - not of penmanship but of weather! Morning sessions for
classes seem not to pay - It takes too much [dismissing] to get the folks together!

The nose (noes) have it - snuff and be undismayed


April, Tuesday 14. 1874

In which a wave of troublewells over my peaceful breast - It takes the form of Andrew McMullen and the substance a
coal bill. I have been so in hopes those old bills could wait a little longer- I feel bound hand & foot this Spring with
Michigan before me. Well I haven't got any further than well - yet -

School partakes of Andrew McMullen - and the sitting room by the coal stove! Sure enough. There isn't much "
[Broadfields]"... about any thing that has had to do with me today -

Far from it -


April, Wednesday 15, 1874

In which the foundation of theology is sure. I made a spasmotic attempt to get once more over to Greek - and found the
opening statement unanswerable - some old professor of Harvard College has made a written assertion and convinced a
continent (named Maynard's) My teacher wisely tells me that if he had written it in Greek I never could have read it! -
How thankful I ought to be that so much light illumines my darkened understanding through my mother tongue. I write
to Andrew - Time away from the thought -

At last at last there is word from Rosbury and my heart rest -


April, Thursday 16. 1874

In which we are exhorted by a disciple of Dr. Edwards - We also hear more from the same individual about President
Finney - Dr. Edwards passed through two remarkable conversions. He thinks he wasn't converted at all the first time -
His friends think he was! I go to prayer meeting but my thoughts are not there - My spirit does not enter in and partake
of the near the holy things of the Spirit - The service which had to be sung was simply dreadful - O how I long to go in
and out to find pasture! - but I'm swallowed up in work and it will not let me

A summer with Susie is near and it may hold in it something of the blessedness [intense] of the old summers -


April, Friday 17. 1874

In which we are confronted by another snow storm - And it isn't one of your common ones either - It means it all -
Mother knew what made me worry the minute I came in to dinner - I did want for once the power of forbidding another
flake to fall! Andrew McMullens reply was like a big snow bank falling all at once. I gain resolution from despair!

The lamps are not lighted early - We sit in the light of the coal fire and have a long long play - Jennie can laugh for her
mother is better -

We have one of the good old times in the rocking chair - Mother joins in -


April, Saturday 18. 1874

In which its something else I'm up to - Upon me has fallen a conscious weight - I am almost to the depot - in the bend
this side of it - before I wake up fully to the sense of it - Upon me has fallen the responsibility of the much talked about
class-rings! Very truly! Also the responsibility of a box to be sent to Dan! I live through them both - I sit for a picture
and almost make the man not live through it - At the latest both are alive and may recover!

I am in my parent's arms - and my salary is a comfort to other people


April, Sunday 19. 1874

In which desire has not failed - Heaven has sent us a reminder of itself in the day - a suggestion of what may be -
somewhere I felt like resting my heart in the tenderness that is with the Almightiness. I asked for bread and received a
crumb! I am not an apostle of Congregationalism - He can't knock me into this way - Never mind - the doctrine - the
beauty of God - and the glory are all about us - and one who is meek and lowly of heart can give rest to the soul!

Mother and I have a nice visit - We talk of the time when Dannie will be through school - and bring joy and comfort to
us - when the old debts shall all be paid and our new house shall be ...!


April, Monday 20. 1874.

In which there comes a reality! And of course it was something for which I had not in the least calculated! I thought I'd
put away headaches with my old clothes - and such a one as I never put away (for I never had it) was upon me to-night
and to-day! My head sort of performed through the day increasing in volume - It ended in a smasher and the daughter
of music is laid low.

There is a brightening smong the girls who are to graduate! They stop and take on hopes.

The weather adapts itself to my state of health - it rains and performs - In the meantime Mr. Woodruff the reverend sir
calls! -


April, Tuesday 21. 1874

In which I am of some consequence to myself.

The reason is obvious - I am invited by my friend, philosopher and guide to take an airing - Not in the carriage that cost
[$.21] cash but in the other one. The reason of this is likewise obvious - It is muddy.

There is nothing cheery in the weather - It sinks one - I am buoyed up by things that have nothing to do with the
weather.

One prop is a letter from Dan - It is also tending to build one up to be able to sit up all day -
Mother's enterprise is rewarded and the chickens are born. This is a strong prop to mother -
Lillie Clark's face is so pretty and she's so bright around home


April, Wednesday 22, 1874

In which our family is increased. This is some of mother's doings - looking forward to funds to settle up with when the
change comes - Bless her heart - As to me I am not such a very smart - Mother says I have typhoid symptoms and
suggests I fly like a bird to the mountain of homeopathy - Since I am no disciple Of blue pills - I am not ready to vote on
the question - Miss Eaton has gone down to Manchester and found out that I am a good teacher - so she returns satisfied
-

The sun and I are trying to so let our light shine that others may see our good works - We have a sorry time shining - I
was not born to shine!-


April, Thursday 23. 1874

In which I shan't play any more! - Not with this April - It lives but to deceive! - A cloud bigger than a man's hand covers
our heavens and pitiless flakes of snow fall - and mists come up not to be penetrated. I feel so much better every way -
My typhoid symptoms vanish -

It is like old Seminary times to hear the girls upstairs! - Its almost the only thing in these times that I care to keep in
mind.

These are pleasant days to me after all - full of the work I love - more than full of the light of young faces - and loving
hearts - These I go from to I know not what - and the time is nigh.

The prayer meeting had in it something to bestow and there were the promises of love


April, Friday 24. 1874

In which I neither sit nor sing! It's sort of Friday nightish - and my key partakes both of the nature of sharp and flat -
Besides my pictures haven't come -

Mother shouts over two new aprons - and I over a pair of new gloves - "[Pit]", Jennie made me!

The felicities of the day have been exceedingly augmented by good Mother - Mother wants me to write a poem. I want
to - I'd love to - but the sources of poems are not Mrs. [Munchmore]. O - dear no! - One precious button from my new
gloves is gone - Who's got the button ! -


April, Saturday 25. 1874

In which the sun goes down upon my wrath! -

If I ever had any love or respect for this 1874th April I have thrust it from me - It is gone - We are in another woeful
snowstorm - and the wind blows and it's cold enough as mother says it "to freeze the hair off a dog" - I suppose all one
can do is to shovel the paths and hope to busy myself with things I've been putting off to do - essay subjects for instance
-

A dear letter from cousin Mary [Struter] Dodd lays hold of me like everything ! "You cannot do too much for your
mother - If you could see things as I see them now you would love, trust and indulge her more than all the world" - and
this from one who has just had her mother taken away forever!

The pictures - I can find no fault with. There said the ... "Now she'll do" -


April. Sunday, 26 1874

In which I am drawn from the skies! - The [hosts] of sin are pressing hard - and a boy throws a shovel full of snow in
my neck - I go on to church pretty mad at that boy - The ninth regular snow-storm in the series was delivered today -
and as I told Sue my spirit sinks to depths unsounded - But there's cheer inside at home - Cheer and chicken! - I am very
tender to mother all day - can anything ever take her away from me: How weak I feel to keep her and yet how strong I
feel to keep her - I write a few verses on the death of Mary because she wanted me to - and they don't sound very good
- My old passion for rhyming has gone from me -


April, Monday 27. 1874

In which we say that Grandma shall have some maple sugar - What's the use of having folks in the country - and that too
in the maple sugar country - if one can't have the good of it once in a while - My arms are put through a discipline .
They take a gigantic bundle up to the depot of magnificent distances for the little girl at Cohoes - I feel as if I had earned
a share in the merits of that bundle. Mother is in the cap business - so your Grandma is to have something more than
maple sugar! - The snow begins to go -


April, Tuesday 28. 1847

In which I don't know what to do with Fannie. She has spells, days - It is not a little blessed that these days are a long
ways apart - If she'd said much it would have been cross. - She didn't say much - Work moves not under her fingers as
of old today -
Greek is hard to make from English. Some of the classes are stupid and the review in Phys - a trial weekly to me. - How
thankful I am for little ... of discipline. I wish I had enough nerve to make me behave - The night settles down cold -
and it may storm - I think I'll walk after school but I don't - What comfort is there in such chilly afternoons for
footmen?

O for the power to be a son of God! Miss Willard sends me a dear little bouquet of flowers -


April, Wednesday 29. 1874.

In which the key-note is still weather - It is pitched low - If there's any more snow in those upper regions I hope it will
come quick - It has been a dreadful day - The snow blows and the wind that blew off the steeples in Bennington is upon
us! I am so cross I can't stand it - I'm having more than enough shadow to temper the glare of the sun these days. I can
stand the sun a little while - The ... in the little bouquet has helped - It holds me fast without a spoken word - like the
soft hands stroking into ... in the dark -

The side of life purely real has consisted in sitting perched with the end of my backbone in the angle of my chair - in
buying codfish and carp - ...
I'm delving into ...



April, Thursday 30. 1874

In which I relinquish this April without a struggle - my breast is unmoved - I am perfectly calm. This April all along
has been having tears and preparing to shed them - Their departure impresses us in the same manner that the departure
of Miss House would. Mr. Williams shoots an announcement at me from his loaded gun - I have known him too long to
be much scared! Judge Bromley happens along and says tain't so! - However my evening is as good as spoiled for I am
too stirred up to work -

Mr. Maynard was overwhelmed in prayer meeting - Twasn't from Pres. Edwards or [Finney]
Lillie Clark is nice to me and she comes part way home with me bless her heart



May, Friday 1. 1874.

In which Miss Willard's little Bouquet contains all the May flowers that I have - I don't know whether taking the year all
round we shall find any May at all - No one has found any April! That box makes a start for Grandma - We take to
wondering what the ittle old lady will say when it gets to her! Normal work is growing on my hands and we all keep
good-natured and it moves! -

We wish each other happy May Day - and we say by our faces cheer up - and the days move on - The folks that go
home ... away in a dream of glory and they who stay - say to themselves ... more!


May. Saturday 2. 1874.

In which I have an up and a down! - I take to a change of employment and bring into use a new set of muscles - This is
well - my little [man] ! -

In the work here and there, doing this and that my heart sings! - It's like being on the farm - besides the sun shines some
- Mother feels good too - Her little chicks are a joy forever - Jennie says "Lets us lay an egg and hatch one" -

Mary ... amuses us so much - She sort of exhales an air not of this clime, nor like it - but purely Irish - Don't think it is to
be [despised] my worthy friend! You don't know - it's spicy, aromatic nature- it's tending to thrive!


May, Sunday 3. 1874.

In which I consent to live - It begins to smile outdoors and the desert places are going to be green again! I have a nice
time in the early morning writing to Sue before any body is up - Mother and I chatter chatter through the day and we ...
lots of times how Grandma looked when the box came and what she said - I wrote to the boy too - and I lay awake and
think of the snares laid for his feet and I pray that God may give his angels charge concerning him - He must not make
mother's hairs silver too soon - I think over and over what Mary wrote - "Trust her, indulge her, love her more than all
the world!" -


May, Monday 4. 1874.

In which heavy, heavy hangs over me! I go up on to the Monday slopes slowly and not steadily - I can't get into it at all
at once to ponder over in any [heart] the things that R.G. said to me last Thursday - and I take fire and it smoulders but
is not quenched - I guess I shall stand it - I've been through an extended process of standing it - Other people have got
out of Castleton alive - and perhaps I will.

The girls prayer meeting was well attended and the influence was holy. A man was a shelter from the storm - a hiding
place from the tempest - as rivers of water in a dry place - as the shadow of a great Rock in a [weary] land


May, Tuesday 5. 1874

In which I have the cramp Judge Cook tells about in meeting! - It must be that it is not intended or adapted to build one
up - but to make one bend over - There is nothing alleviating in this ! -

It's cold getting up every morning since the fire went out in the morning light- That's another thing I stand though
another insists that that is the cause of aforesaid cramp -

Aggie writes ... of orders about making that newly arrived spring dress and Aunt Mary announces Grandmother's
satisfaction and delight -

School is more beingnant - I feel more like being glad and waiting for the little [behind] ones -


May, Wednesday 6. 1874.

In which I am expected to go in Miss [Underwood's] society! I am taking giant strides in this world - Who would have
given me credit for such a spirit of progress? - My next upward move will take me to Mrs. Adams to tea - Already she
may be making wings to put on me when I leave my low chrysalis state!

The visit at Miss U's was ... of tongues and things!

Other events are [over] likewise - The arrival of the class rings - the letter from Dr. French -

My thoughts are sent [Fair Havenward] and rest on my possible performances. How interesting we are to ourselves! -


May, Thursday 7. 1874

In which Mrs. Briggs hears something! - George Eliot does not know Mrs. Briggs - What a treat she would be to her! - I
in my more limited way enjoy what my slender capacities allow me to appreciate - Mrs. Briggs is the medium of
communication between the corporation and me! The latest bulletin is exciting - Mrs. B.[Briggs] has just returned from
the 99 cent store where she bought Mr. B. [Briggs] a pair of pants, a coat and a vest - Poor little man - Did she make
him try them on in the store? Did she let him tell which he liked the best? It's cold to-night and not the least bit
consoling! I've been sort of patient and comfortable through a worrisome day - Shall have a little [credit] - yes - [her]
shall!


May, Friday 8. 1874

In which it becomes necessary for me to see not Doctor of Divinity Cole but Doctor of Medicine Cole -

I do it in my usual tremulous manner for things are at stake. Things seem to look like not not having any [house] - so I
take refuge in a flaming cole - a shining light - I am some comforted but none too much - There's something pleasant in
the day - but that is none too much - I think and think what we will all do - and how we will get along - but it comes out
that I canna tell - In the meantime I write to Michigan and ask Pres. A... a big question

And so the days go -


May, Saturday 9. 1874

In which a warm rain makes the grass look green - To stand in the door and feel a warm breath is very new - We place a
faith in May - I find my discipline takes a new form - it's one of the times when work is a discipline! I sit still and hold
... hand all day - I take great comfort in seeing ... taking the joy and pleasantness when I can't possibly go - Dan writes
home for shoes and pants -

Mother has sick headache and threre's dishes to be washed and bread to be baked - but I put in and help - and send
mother back to bed - the kitchen is an ... element but I can't sample bread - not good bread so I let that alone and by and
by mother is better


May, Sunday 10. 1874.

In which a breeze has swept the ocean. There are tidings from afar - and Dr. [Lyndley] brings the gospel message -

It is a day of days to us who care - Every line from missionary lands is pleasant to me - A man who has preached Christ
and Him crucified for thiry years among the naked savages of East Africa - can say things that I want to hear - and I
came home feeling better than I have for weeks -

There is a preciousness in the thought of hearing all and following Christ and I glory in the [loss] and count it all gain -
but it is not for me - is it?


May, Monday 11. 1874.

In which melancholy days have come - This does not smack of weather. It might be imagined that I write nothing else
but for once I chronicle a [dread] which weather has not founded. It is with [form] in or by examination honored by the
also sounding title of "preliminary". The girls gather in a manner tremulous - and they tell me they are scared.

I vibrate cautiously with sable-draped banners - between questions to write and paper to read -
And so on - and so on


May, Tuesday 12. 1874

In which we live in the prolongation - so we do not of hopes and blisses but of the preliminary - Life all seems to drive
today at one point and [untie ] itself in one joy or dread or hope and yet how little all this will be to us some day - How
much of our building O let us ask will live?
Let me build strong and ... and make it not with hands - The years are telling us not seldom "How vain is all
architecture save that which is not made with hands! I moralize ... but I musnt -

Let me stop now and turn and think


May Wednesday 13. 1874


May. Thursday 14. 1874


May, Friday 15. 1874

In which there is something new to be glad about - Something that rejoices my ... and soul - A copy of Dr. Quincey's
Writings - I can come home with an abundance of good-nature and work patiently over these examination papers
without one audible groan - for my book - ... - and its new addition comfort me -

Mother thinks a litte child wouldn't act much worse. It could and so could I - There is an end to terrible under the sun,
and so examination papers will fade away - there is no end to joy. It is perpetual - My books are durable riches!


May, Saturday 16. 1874

In which I am a victim of circumstances - There is a table in the sitting room and a chair by it where I sit - I do not
[give] myself away - My expectations look forward to so such consummation. All there was left of six hundred has
been engulfed in one dismal morass - examination papers - I have now piled them away for the last time and look at
them not lovingly - In the mean time ills have settled in my side and it moans piteously -

Some folks are ... it rains - but my work has no weather in consideration -


May, Sunday 17. 1874

In which serene is the sight in "the soft May weather" - My heart rests and sings - It has nothing else to do to-day -
Every moment is precious and I say at [home] with H. O moment over too soon - and morning left behind"! - The
pale grey hours descend and in the stillness I am left with God - In every stillness there it is - and he is nigh even at my
very [doors] -

The dreamy deliciousness of this whole day tells me that coming down out of it into tomorrow and next day and next
day will be hard - but will make with thee the tabernacles Lord and remember the day the hour after them are our ... -


May, Monday 18. 1874

In which one girl gets tired - Not a little bit my friend but too tired to think or be good - But as old Mrs. Spencer says -
"Its a good deal to ask anybody to be good all the time!" - The last of the examination on its last faint echoes dries - and
I am not too tired to be pretty glad - I think of Thursday night with an inconcieveable dread - and wish I was on the
other side of it - Seeing R.G. in the office does not [conduce] to my exhilaration - It never does - Besides it rains and
night throws a mist over the early departing day - neither can mother make a fire -


May, Tuesday 19. 1874

In which the things that make me tired are not less - A lodge in a vast wilderness has had a pleasant sound of late - If I
go nobody will hear of me again very soon - I am a living martyr to the present ideas of popular education - and I scold
to myself about it - which martyrs never do -

What kind of essays do others thus victinmized write at this time and condition of nerve and [cerebrum]? - You can find
plenty of [sick] in any editor's waste basket - There is nothing comforting in this thought -

[No] bulletin has been recieved from Mrs. Biggs to-day - We must get our milk there -


May, Wednesday 20. 1874

In which we meet in our annual capacity! - Very? After daily impressing upon those who bear the normal name the
magnitude of the form granted - the G. of P. says go we may, not only - but go we must! We haste, haste, haste - The
introduction to Fair Haven [census], toils and sufferings is marked with the most soothing of rain-storms -

I land satchel in hand at the Town Hall, our banquet hall deserted - I find there Mr. S. [Thomsen] and a few waifs - He
approaches me - Would I like a place? I musnt - of course I don't know where the place is or who the folks are - but
that doesn't make any difference. He afterwards irons my ruffles by telling me when he found out my [station] that he
might have known I had a place in the hearts of my pupils.


May, Thursday 21. 1874

In which I am scarcely less than the hero of Chippewa and the Thames. My courage has risen to a tremendous height. I
am so supremely desperate that I shall be carried through the day with confidence scarcely less than H.L.D. Potter : - It
is a source of great joy to me - It makes one appear so [flat] to get up half scared to-death - but not I - I am to-day
incapable of being scared - Dr. French told me to stand behind the big desk and ... myself on tiptoe and say to the people
- "It is I - be not afraid!"

For a graphic account of the day's doing I refer the gentle reader to the R.G. which does not mean Williams!
But you won't ... know how good Winnie and her mother are to me!


May, Friday 22. 1874
In which we all stay -
My thoughts seem to hold themselves to two points - R.S.'s (not Rutland Globe) lecture - and Mrs. Kilborn! - The
"Relation of the school to the state" is an intensely interesting subject! - in a dreary hall on a rainy night! in the place of
President [Buckham] - Aint you glad you came -

The after part is worthy of history - It will admit of being told in [Goth] -

The nomination by the honorable committee with extenuating circumstances - shall I ever forget it? Poor Mrs. Kilborn,
how little mortals know! The midnight walk home to Emma's was and is not - "The clouds unexhausted still combine"


May, Saturday 23. 1874

In which we make our best bow and and arrive at home. O, happy fate - Shall I forget to speak of the gallantry of Prof.
[Gilby] - and the invite to spend summer with him? That would be heartless! Mrs. Kile congratulates me on going to
Michigan and sends me on my way with "success to you" - Prof [Gerby] ... his not - and the Dr. says, "Good bye
Frankie" -

I am home soon on mother's bed - and I'd rather be there than anywhere I can think of - One serious trouble what shall I
do with my ten dollars?


May, Sunday 24, 1874

In which a "rest ever begineth" - I feel like just resting today and I do - It has been a hard week - and I have climbed up
to look back on it - The Sabbath ministers unto me of the good - the precious gift of God and to make giant strugglings
toward the light -

My thoughts of heaven are [alloyed] with thoughts of work and dreams that centre not near the ...

I never needed more a tidal mass to sweep over my religious life and carry me in its strong arms out of myself - Will not
God grant it soon or shall I live this way?


May, Monday 25. 1874

In which there's another chance to take school up bravely - I think these days and ... - a few of my thoughts are those
that do lie too deep for tears! - Some of the coming pain has just touched me - a pain that is of the present does more
than that. It is the hour when I wish that I had been more patient with the girls - that I had clung with both hands to
Jesus knowing so well - my easily besetting him - How many times I have tried to bring a [pact] and welled upward in
resolves that have vanished like the billows that bore them and left for God no gentler story - "Life


May, Tuesday 26. 1874

In which I am again in the crucible - I've been set down in the old 1872 days - with girls to fix over and see what's the
matter about - and what not - This new performance makes me [stare] and [move] - Its strange for Queen to have a
[kink] - and Ella March - However its not as bad as it was and it will pass away -

I go to bed but I cannot sleep - I think and think - Life teaches me at so many many points - and who is sufficient for
these things ? Is God's strength made perfect in weakness in my case? but do I pray?


May, Tuesday 26. 1874.

In which questions are at issue - There's a great many things to ask and its about dresses and what kinds and I refrain
from the rest - These are questions of flesh and [sense] - The question back of these never asked but always there is
"Shall I pass?" but the work never slackens - nor the hopes fail -

My need fails me and performs - Every little nerve sends up its feeble protest - but there is no help - I must work Fannie
and if she runs over and vents out cross things - how shall we punnish her - Ah! The punnishment is swift and sure -
There are ... of pain - unknown and known


May, Thursday 28. 1874

In which my banners are sable-draped - This is not an unusual case of late - Mother's banners don't trail in the dust like
mine - but they do not wave - She does not [lend] them to the breeze - for she is ... and Cole - thou art the man - He is
for her the pestilence that walketh at noonday -

We are not made happy in the consciousness that we are to depart not knowing whither we go -
Yet there'll be a place - How sure I feel about it - the ringing of the bell in the [Congo] Church -
I have too many irons in the fire looking toward Balston & the like - Well -


May, Friday 29. 1874

In which I am speeded on my way - and have unexpected good fortune.

My getting to the train after teaching until one was a desperate undertaking. The train and I have in sight at one and the
same instant - ! I am off - out of the [crimson] into the blue! How can I tell about it! - I rush on through ... land,
gorgeous land - and as the cars stream into Troy the first face is Aggie's - What grand - good fortune!

Then we look around and buy a great deal - We feel pretty good about it - and catch a glimpse of [Ad] in the drug-store
- Poor lonesome boy! Every thing favors us - We ride on lofty chariots of triumph and creep into bed late -


May, Saturday 30. 1874

In which the past and present meet joyfully!


May, Sunday 31. 1874

In which I hear a sermon by "Dr. Smith"-


June, Monday 1. 1874

In which I stream again into Carlton - I don't forget that it is the first day of June - neither that I ought to be glad - Will a
June ever come in which the life that is in and about me will not be transformed into one Red Sea of work and hurry
throughout the "then if ever perfect days"!

I take up the little threads and spin on - Neither do I forget that I ought be sorry - The little threads are almost woven - I
can see the end - Slowly - slowly vanishing is it all - the hands that [gave] are slowly - slowly taking away - yet is not
life still full of grand opportunities! -


June, Tuesday 2. 1874

In which I find plenty to do - You may have heard something of the kind before - I hope you haven't heard all there is to
it! - This weather is the weather of which Lowell [writes] -

The days are fresh as the first [rain] glittering on the [soil] - the ... are there in which ... comes into the garden! -

There's work to do and some of it is hard unappreciated work - Life is full of grammar and arithmetic - and essays - but
the blue is somewhere! The tender blue waites far off for the ..., asking ...!


June, Wednesday 3. 1874

In which mother and I think we have made up our minds - and we wait results - It is a source of gratification to first
person singular to get as far as this - We have looked at houses, and taken them through preliminary examinations, and
caused their owners to rejoice at our departure until it seems quite time for us to conclude -

The end now seems to be that we shall not spend vacation in Castelton -

Since I sent the letter we feel more easy - The next problem in the book has to do with Dan. Will he begin - or will he
be loth : Questions to be answered to-day tomorrow or shall be beyond these - We leave daily the things that are behind
and daily press on to the things before


June, Thursday 4. 1874.

In which we hear not about Pres. Edwards or Finney but of a grand old Baptist named [Miller]! Let me tell first about
my Webster's Unabridged! - I embrace it - I hold it in my lap - and wonder and wonder how it is that people live without
Unabridges! - It puzzles me that I have lived so long! The prayer meeting is made up of several seats full of ... females
and three or four or less divinely appointed males whose mission is to minister in spiritual things to these several seats
full of females. Their ... congregationalism hath [sealed] - I muse on my way home


Friday 5. 1874

In which I cut away and think. I [don't] cut'n me that would be well but - I don't do it - I cut for immortality - for scrap
books -

The rest of the day was complete in itself out of doors - There were things laid up in it of which [heart] hath not
conceived - but the [weary] part of it was up to school where the girls didn't know why should it make me nervous lately
- Is it the weary protest of the poor, little nerves? -

Greek remains untouched - and it reproaches me from every part of the sitting room


June, Saturday 6. 1874

In which my desires lie in direction of a ride and not in the direction of Botany questions - But I do not take the ride and
I do take the Botany questions - I can't set myself to work - I have to drag the child to it and pin her with a star - She has
things in her mind. She is restless & she runs. We have ... - a great many and I try one -

Addie [Taft] comes and her coming has had an uncomforting effect - A. J. McG. has come and carried Jennie off and
mother has lost her dear little Hamburg chicken -

A joy forever is a joy nevermore


June, Sunday 7. 1874

In which I feel no Sabbath [touches] except the rest of it - My spirit is O-so willing - but I am on my tired, tired month -
and I am so far from God I can scarcely know how to find my way back - I think in my cry for rest I too often forget the
cry for pardon and strength for the daily burdens - I in all the mistakes of the year as they come to me know - the one
great lack has been forgetting to nurture wholly on Christ and let him lead - I look mournfully over my mistakes - I do
so want to stand as the index of what a true teacher can become


June, Monday 8. 1874

In which the days go on, go on - to-day has in it a tenderness which is very grateful to me - a good and perfect gift for a
dear letter is before me from my Sadie of old - It kept me awake far into the cool and blessed summer night - I begin to
feel how near, how very near we are to the "never wandering back" - The [leaf] will soon turn and all of us shall wander
"out of the quiet way."

The sadness is inevitable and it will grow more and more as the paths come to the one place where they must change - O
days most sad and sweet! -


June, Tuesday 9. 1874

In which Dan has a silent side - Very - Mother says "Why [don't] that boy write?" I give it up - That boy is an intricate
problem -

School is pleasant to me - [It's] one of the days when I
resolve always to teach - Aggie sounds in our ears that a house has been hired and now mother can sleep - Jennie is
wrapped in a cloud of blue tarlatane - A cloud of witnesses around- Hold me in full ... on the essay question -

Another sound for a change would refresh me


June, Wednesday 10. 1874.

In which another chick's dead - Mother's bulletin from the hen-house grows more and more dubious - Our chickens die
in childhood - They are as the morning cloud and early dew! Their flesh is grass - Coming home from school I find my
good mother in a tempest - Dan has written a letter and she can't read it! Her experience in missing children has been
that the more you send them to school the worse they write! - I don't feel my best today. It seems kind of hard lately not
to have any difference in days - but I have the same old [round] when I feel pretty well and when I feel pretty bad - But
to complain is weakness -


June. Thursday 11. 1874.

In which I think over something mostly. It relates to a letter which I wrote and the manner of its reception & what
somebody'll think puzzles and worries me -

[It's] cold - we've had another jump from heights of melting to ice-stratas! - O have the all gone feeling in me - not in
the pit! - but most everywhere else -

I have a nice visit with Jennie - They grow nicer and nicer as the time gets so near - The little links ... will never write
again hurt me - in the thought of it - "And the years glide by"


June, Friday 12. 1874.

In which herbariums fail me - This the direction toward which things have looked today but I feel too good inside to be
cross about it - Sometimes I have been a trifle vexed - but what friends would have vexed me [tonight]

I'm glad I am just as I am - mostly - I feel so up - when I am up and so down when I'm down - and [its] nice to enjoy
with all your might when you do enjoy - even if your sorrow is great in proportion - I feel glad to see the rest coming to
know there'll be ... days - It seems to me that some day when I read this I'll want to laugh at the way Ella and I heard the
concert -


June, Saturday 13. 1874

In which it is what do you think of that, my cat? - and what do you think of that, my dog? - I sit still and [cut] mostly,
and when the train comes I go over and get a letter from Ad. It doesn't stop my wanderings - and my heart fails me -
still never mind - Of life this is so small a part! -

Those herbariums are to be a means of grace for they discipline me by never coming -

The pile of Christian [Unions] I can ... grows less - although I've set every vertebrae a quivering
Mother announces the birth of a thriving family of chicks - which calls for a still further "cook" -


June, -Sunday 14.- 1874.

In which "pa comes." Where upon there's one glad girl! Very! - I know of another and her pa don't come - A Sunday
has come and no one can take its joy and blessedness from her - and she's glad! -

With, from, in and by today have been the [Hyers] Sisters! - And I listened. [Its] good to listen to them and Rock of
Ages is sung which is far more [exceeding]

Mr. is a howling wilderness - some. At the close in his peculiar rises and falls he gave utterance to those memorable
words -"Whose voices are tuned in unison with the angels will now proceed to take up a collection" -

Pa Stone hasn't heard them enough - They haven't done it enough for that worthy sire - He entreats - One little song
more!


June, Monday 15. 1874.

In which Mrs. Rice is heard from. This is chiefly of interest from [an] account of May's death, and the message of Ad's
- I love to read of a triumphant death - It seems so much easier to think of walking through the dark valley - by and by -
I feel glad I wrote to Ad since this came. When I find myself [destitute] of something to worry about I can stew because
the herbariums don't come - There are still papers upon papers to cut and my interest in the business languishes! What
sense would there be in an existence to ...


June, Tuesday 16. 1874.

In which Mr. Cole spends his life and exhausts me in measuring! - He has measured every available inch of exposed
surface in this our habitation - he has measured the well - he has measured the hens - he has measured the clothesline,
and more - he has measured mother and I. It may seem to slight observers a condescension on his part thus to favor us -
but we groan under it -

There is news - Herbariums arrive - This calls upon me to exert my latent power in another direction - I ... the job.
There' a good deal of stuff in me that rather rejoices in being thus officially engaged coming home to find a dearth of it
and [lamp wicks] & the [stoves] shut up sure: -


June, Wednesday 17. 1874.
X My mark.
In which I am not a person of sedentary habits - I am about and wheel about and do just so - My pursuits are chiefly
examinational - My thoughts are in the green fields - in shady restful places - where the tender blue waits - A prolonged
silence between myself and friends ensues - and I am powerless to bridge the silence - Home bulletin announces a hen
sick - Her gyrations are painful - she takes this ... pretty hard and Dan is not here to lance her eyes - We might send for
him - a thought just suggested to my mind! -


June, Thursday 18. 1874

In which the little reminders come to us - We are in the work that comes with the last tender looks - and we feel the
tappings as they gently, gently call - We know we are doing our last work together - as we lay the little flowers in and
talk -

I get to the meeting in time - and move about in a manner totally distressing - Mr. Stone says considerable - mostly in
the direction of ... meetings - not that we tend in that direction!

A thousand pardons - A new thing for this staid and venerable wielder of chalk and discipline to be interested in a line
from a boy - The girl runs away with [one]! -


June, Friday 19. 1874.

In which the morning commences as only the graduates are presented to Mrs. [Lady] of P - and kept in custody - but no
deaths have ensued - We hope for the best - I keep hold of the little ways and doings for [its] awful hard to see things
stop - There's so little I can do for them now - my cross is the old and heavy one - that I had only loved them more and
been always tender! - Ella and I take a ride off by the marble mill and the pretty dam - It makes my head feel better -

Ella is a precious little gem -


June, Saturday 20. 1874

In which it is all tender and sadly sweet. These last days I mean - and these last duties - All day long the girls drop in
and I help them with this or that with a patience that knows full well that I am doing my last offices for them - We
beging to know that we are going forth from summer days - never to wander back. Jennie keeps saying - "Where am I
going" - and I answer back as of old - "Going to Crofts" - She can't help showing how glad she is -

Pretty soon it won't be mother and I - it will be mother and Aggie - This too [grates] -


June, Sunday 21. 1874.

In which I walk home from church with "pa Stone". It was cheerful and I beamed brightly - Conversation dwelt on the
Baccalaurate - suggested by Mr. [Moulton's] apt query - "Do you think it will last all day"? Nothing of the kind occurred
to my friend [Woodruff] - or the Hadley's who ... their applause - So it has come about that Pa Stone and I meet on the
broad platform of peace and good will -

We had our last Sunday meeting in the east room - We could all say - "Yet a little while and ye shall see me no more"-
but we could pray - and our hearts know that in the day when we all meet again our sorrow shall be turned into joy.


June, Monday 22. 1874.

In which the righteous Judge comes - The motto on the blackboard is suggestive - "Let them pass" Dr. says knowingly -
"I will if they know the pass-word" -

The day begins and ends in a hot - and we all stew - There's scarcely any breeze in Normal hall except metaphorical
ones - Dr. sort of makes the leaves stir when he sees the programme for commencement week -

The girls go home worrying but the night comes on in a glory beyond words -

Jennie and I go out for a walk - and we feel how nice it is - and how many nice ones we have taken together - and
scarcely dare speak of it - that it is the last -


June, Tuesday 23. 1874

In which we see the star of promise - It is not an enviable peace - ours - The strain on us makes us feel victimized - and
somehow we get ourselves up to such a pitch - that we wait almost breathlessly for the verdict - I could scarcely feel less
so if I were court-martialed. In that dreadful room "below" the roof is lifted with the announcement "All have passed"
Dr. has a word of cheer for me as he takes my hand to say good-bye -

At Colonel Parker's it was almost Mrs. Cope's - [It] will ever be a South Side to me - and it comes like a breath of quiet
joy - a restful comfort from a sunny home. How many a peep into the windows I have had in my walks


June, Wednesday 24. 1874

In which all Normal does does not hurry. It seems so good - so new - to the girls to have this day of days - without a ...
or a book - or that dreadful Mip B , with her - "I want to call your attention to this particularly" - Ah - young ladies -
attention is outgrown : What do I do: I have some of the time that odd idea - of not knowing just what to do - but a few
dilapidated essays to repair - and flowers to solicit - remind me that it is not vacation -

I do not pay my respects to either the G of P - or L of P - I am found at my old stand - making bouguets -

I'm sorry Mip Allard came tonight - I'm sorry our talk was just as it was - sorry too we were all so hurried and nervous -
sorry - a ... deal


June. Thursday 25. 1874

In which we step buoyantly upon the scales - Unto us has been granted a benevolent day - Benevolent and beaming - for
the same idea in poetry see Rutland Globe or Herald - This way for the qui vive! - Which just expresses where I went to
-

Nothing of the day was so disastrous to all feelings of [moderation] so melancholy without Mr. Williams attempt at
rhythm - I loved to gaze with Stella Eaton "into a crystal fountain whose depths she could not fathom-" and with Mary
upon the young maiden "whose swelling bosom heaved convulsively" - but the manufactured verses [affected] me
beyond all these - The farewells come flatly with the echoing enemies of Strauss and Mendelsohn -


177.
June, Friday 26. 1874

In which we learn what it is to break up - This is best impressed on my youthful mind by a process of experience - I
never passed through anything just like this. Our L... and P... wander about dolefully - Our house is chaos - all the little
sacred nooks and cozy places smile sadly - life is one wintry waste - in dire commotion all! As the rooms are made
empty one by one - the little lights that beamed in them go out and stories repeat themselves. "We live in feelings not in
figures on a dial" - I shall always see the images with "Jennie" and "Pa" going out of sight -

The girls come in one by one to say "good-bye" - I walk down part way with Ella & Q... - At last our train comes and
mother and I are gone!


June, Saturday 27. 1874
In which there is little to augment our felicity. We are kindred indeed which is significant of dislocation in more points
of view than one. There is very little to awaken romance or even complacency in a deserted house - It would melt one
to see me sitting around on trunks - [chewing cocoa-nut] - Especially if he or she stood near the window or door - as
they gazed - I from their thoughts would turn to that maiden whose swelling bosom heaved convulsively - Mine did and
her hair cleaved tightly for it was hot. Mine did - Albany is not shaken at my approach - I come not with the roll of the
stirring drum - not even a horn - Aunt Mary isn't glad to see me any more -


June, Sunday 28. 1874

In which my eyes are lifted up to the hills - There's been more thinking of the hills and of that to which the kings of the
earth do bring their honor and their glory - Since I have come to myself - and I meet readily with dear Dr. Bridgeman to
venture wholly - How grand it seems to be coming away thinking about it - to "do justly, love mercy and walk humbly
with my God" - I could see Grandma a minute only a little minute - and then I came up home - I saw a great


June, Monday 29. 1874

In which our mode of life is primitive - suggestive of a "bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, a fire to thaw our thumbs" but
not poor fellow - The paws we hold up have not been frozen - Mine do good service at washing windows - I also sweep
some - I contemplate my work as the gods eat ambrosia - in a fit of divine abstraction - I aint much like Aunt [ ] in my
house keeping - poor ... - my greatest accomplishment consists in being able to be here washing windows and sweeping
and being of [somewhere] else at the same time - in figuring and thinking at opposite ends -


June, Tuesday 31. 1874

In which we all work with a will - What our hands find to do is not commensurable - for Mr. John Davis - our new and
much esteemed friend appears early to announce the arrival - appearing not duly - but at a period much earlier than duly
-

It took a great many of us - and we evidently have splashed in a [pond] for there is no small stir among the brethern - It
is a dubious point - the piano question - There's no Lucretia to help - or Glory Inc ... - our only resource from a
woman's stand-point ... [sick] of Love - There are some points not clear, some with this invaluable aid - but there are
capable ...


July, Wednesday 1. 1874.

In which chaos is no worse -

One only needs to move to be reminded of the Creation - but there is not a good time to sit down and think about it - or
reason under Mother's ... does not exhaust itself -


July, - Thursday 2. - 1874.

In which the boy comes home to stay.


July, Friday 3. 1874.

In which I get my books out -


July, Saturday 4, 1874.

In which I "don't do it enough".


July, Sunday 5. 1874.
In which there is rest -
An eleven o'clock breakfast gives us a realizing sense that church cannot be reached - neither is it -

I lay by all day like an unsharpened saw and keep quiet - So do they all - We have no resemblance to saws in other
respects - The unwritten and unspoken sermons hold in themselves a tenderness and a strength and a purifying the
unuttered hymns are full of melody and my heart goes with the melody - into the house of song - the voice is "still and
small"-


July, Monday 6. 1874.

In which existence is simply a delight - I feel almost as if our cottage stood in Newport - We feel so rich in it - up there
on the hill it's nice - That doesn't tell it all - but how can I tell it! Isn't it a good thing to say that I am content?

Dannie goes to the office and makes a bargain -

This is the first step toward being the man he dreams he will become - It is an ... in all out lives - We see now for sure
that we have no more little Dannie -

The last holiday for the lad of ours we celebrate by strawberries and ice cream - Then we go to bed merrily -


July, Tuesday 7. 1874.

In which the effects of last night's indulgence are apparent - But there is a sequel - Life's realities in the shape of cholera
workers come upon the boy - The girls get up in the morning [devoid]... of sense and sensation - The [mother] laments
the folly of ice cream and strawberries -

However the trip to Albany is taken and the sun is merciless -

I stay home and keep house and take care of the boy - The Albany folks return in due season bringing treasures which
they spread out before us -

One falls to me - Ad's picture -


July, Wednesday 8. 1874

In which family news is of a mournful nature -

It began last night and Aggie was a pretty sick little girl - but Annie following sent the night air with her groans - Dan
having had his out the night before, slept on -

Shadowy forms in long night robes glided through the halls and feel... down the stairs - A day of rest followed -
At my pretty window, I reveled in the pictures, and sang on softly to myself -
The boy comes home delighted with his place and we are all more glad than we can ...


July, Thursday 9. 1874

In which I hear from Harry Jones. Death is making its ravages and dear Mips Jones is gone.

I recall with a feeling of reverence the beautiful way in which I was treated by her in my little visit to to Brockport
seven years ago.

I am ever so sorry that I did not get the money to her before she died - but I'll send it to Harry.

My Geometry vexes me altogether - I thought I knew more about it - It doesn't take much learning to find out how little
mortals know - Alas! My friends - Mrs. [Land] and daughters are [announced] - (Which has no connection with the
"Alas - My friends")


July, Friday 10. 1874

In which [it's] mostly thunder and lightening - The heavens conspired the first day in this house to salute us at aour
coming -

Then they saluted the arrival of Dan - next our getting ... sights - It must be the fearful rollings today are in honor of the
curtains and cornices! We have scarce any peace for the fear of it -

Halibut for dinner and a good deal of good cheer all through to-day - but no bulletins from the outside world.

How little consolation there is in the fact that ten years ago I studied [Davis ...] - Books vii, viii, and ix . Tri-rectangular
and spherical excesses ... upon me in childhood!


July, Saturday 11. 1874.

In which I am set to wondering - "My weekly donation and inscription is forthcoming - It does daily - Anything
whatever on the subject of rain, must be weekly - since genius has exhausted itself on this trite theme - Ma ... proclaims
that we've had sixteen rain storms this month. This is no doubt [incidental from reading the cataract!] The comb is
made responsible

Mother and a man have it - this time [it's] springs-Tucker's patent please

Judge Bromley is a band of hope - He writes of a fulfillment of Scripture - for an ass may fall into a pit - Some people
might take hopes on this - but I've [sounded corporations -

Twere rain to sound -


July, Sunday 12. 1874

In which there are experiences - Lately it stirs me even in the deeps and darks to smile to Live -

There are thoughts that have swept over me to today - and it seems as if I have been making up to them - I think my life
will be surer and safer after this - It does me good to be busy with my living once in a while - There was a quiet steady
rain to-day and the day wouldn't have seemed half so nice without it -

My need and ache do not seem so far from the help and answer -


July, Monday 13. 1874.

In which my doings are kept to myself. I am not commensurable. It may or may not follow that I will not have my ...
intercepted. I am not fond of ... revelations -

It may be as well to develop in this connection that Mrs. [Eggleston] is paid - and I haven't told our folks -
I look out of my window and think of [Broadfields].
I am full of the summer pleasantness and a beautiful restful content - I have a feeling as if I had just been ... and what it
is like - but opening tired eyes and seeing the "lace prepared" - for the first time: -


July, Tuesday 14. 1874.

In which there is a weariness in the land - Not so much in the land as in my looking at it with fleshly ailments - for I've
caught cold. The process is entirely unknown to me - What I do know is that it doesn't take very smart people to catch
them - nor to use them - so I can take no credit whatever to myself and mother as I unfold symptom after symptom -
Takes it [moderately] and suggests everything -

I study on and its a joy that is constant - and [unintermitting] - If I could only get ... into ... to stay by some process - I'd
abide it to study with a cold -


July, Wednesday 15. 1874.

In which I'm in a long pause. How long have you been there - Is the cause self-evident - Does it have to do with a
corporation? It seems to come to me in the way of a thought to ask - "Am I to sit in the middle of a pause - and wait for
something to be done to that [C.N.S.] - for a period of time reaching out indefinitely into space - "How many
uncomforting things I can think of about the whole thing - It makes me half hearted -

Aggie spends her time examining lightening rods - and reading from the reports of Old Probabilities .
[Fear] seizes upon her - for folks get stuck here -


July, Thursday 16. 1874.
In which there's a walk to take and me to take it -

What of Harry Jones: He is shining clean and bright - Very far in the case I am unable to go -
My facilities have not been the most condusive to extensive explorations of said Harry - and it was seven years ago -
but Harry ...

There's a place to walk here - a dear little slope to [rest] you - and lots of sweet clover - You can look at the spires - our
... Troy and all around - and when you're tired of spires you can look at the water - Then you can come home over the
grass and think of ... - and the big trees near the bank -


July, Friday 17. 1874.

In which I'm in the middle of the pasture.

Having caught my cold and plunged ... in a fathomless abyss - I comfort myself - Such a sieze as I had with neuralgia -
and the curing of it - Mrs. ... Mustard near the pit is an unfailing source of remedy - a healing art

I don't put my head over any ... to-day or make any efforts to get out of things - I just sit in the lot - and wait - It's
difficult to extract much patience from this girl I am telling you about -

No appearance of mother's ... - Nothing heard - We're done ... enough - for something to come of them


July, Saturday 18. 1874.

In which Dan serves in a new capacity - Mother has been hankering for fresh fish - but unknown to her - the boy has
been having a hankering to go for fish - leading him to dig bait and buy tackle and ... like [depredations] - It having been
remarked to the young apostate on buying his ... before us - that anybody could have more'n that for half the money -
answers "Ye couldn't buy the fun" - What is good logic and abundant proofs of it are instant -

One somehow feels involuntarily that [tomorrow] is Sunday and hence the quiet contentedness that come over even
restlessness like mine


July Sunday 19. 1874.

In which things conduce -

How still the day sits - It does not move or turn but it just sits and shines - Its tenderness savors only the near heart-
things and is ... a silent side something of the meanings of things lay for me in the dish water - in putting the dishes on
the table or away - the [cupboard] ... - in the chatty meals when we were all [there].

Dannie's exhilaration is a key-note-... - another's headache is better - Dear little Annie McDonald - It makes me wonder
to see all the ... she gets into her meagre wheel around life -


July, Monday 20. 1874.

In which opposite states are attained - The good cheer seems somehow to have all left us - Even Dan's is nomadic and
my heart sinks down where it was that disolate summer of 7.2 - My courage rises as my heart tells me softly that I can
learn it with Him who has put under me everlasting arms - and the comfort of whose peace shall not be rumored - I bless
that to morrow and the next day and the next I can wait calmly and trustfully -

There's little else to tell - One big shadow or joy so engulfs the [memories] - but Miss C... called and we all chatted -
which is a proof that whatever else she may be [drowned] she is not -


July, Tuesday 21. 1874.

In which courage predominates - The kind that works and will not stop - that dodges pain - and will not worry - I found
life's straight [hard] lines musical - and they did not drag slow lengths along - Family dialogues have centered on
mother's hat to be made over - and Aggie's dress-making - Family conflabs all of us versus Dan - on the ... him - Having
stringbeans for dinner pertains to the flesh - but we have not put away earthly things.

I've drank cocoa and [browned] Graham flour - and lately I've taken to hot water. I ... them all!
The moonlight makes me wish that I could sit in a little parlor by the window - with a laugh -


July, Wednesday 22. 1874.

In which there is a promotion of things which make for ... and I - A nameless sort of a day which is lived silently and
abounds in the intangible. It has taken to itself an ache and a pain in the coming and going thoughts but greater than
these - something that grief coould not dim - The walk from [street] after mother's bonnet gave me glimpses of miles
and miles of green. The sunset light was on the tree tops across the river -

Annie says - almost sorrowfully no letter tonight - Content am I -

I want no letters like those of Monday and Tuesday - I'm glad for once not to get letters.


July, Thursday 23. 1874.

In which [its] mostly work -

There's a splash in the home pond and mother's going to be carried off - This has to do with the work suggested above -
Visiting has charms for one this summer - I find what my heart wants in the little home - I dare not think once of what is
coming next - With the early fall - Even my thought when it parks itself in the little places at C - so full of mother -
comes back to me lonely and sorry -

Hitherto has peace for me and thoughts - Mother is adding new grace and order to the day - doing all the preparations to
leave us so comfortable - telling me where I can find this and that and all -


July. Friday 24. 1874.

In which I am again in the capacity of -

There's the long nice morning to get ready in and Mother can sit and comb her hair and do the little last things - have a
nice cup of tea & walk grandly and on dignity to the train - Very unlike in all respects my flights to trains - I am now in
a condition to test all the charms of solitude. All the hermit there is in me - can wake up to the occassion - The hour has
come - The first act was inglorious - caused by lack of my usual foresight - locking myself out - and finding my way in
by the old process at ... of finding my way out -


July, Saturday 25. 1874

In which there's a cause back of it - It partakes of the tragic to me and my mind dwells upon it - Not that any acting was
required - but an advanced state of passivity - I [served] - for I did stand and wait - There wasn't much left of six
hundred and my bed-times a trois heures moins un quail -
The day light part of it tells of litle steps to be taken and little things to do and see too - and the studying in between -
The picture is bright with the pretty dinning room - always cool - and the peeps through open doors - out upon the lawn
- What else is there to tell - but how I ache and toss over that [Bucher] scandal


July, Sunday 26. 1874.

In which there's a loneliness somewhere -

Things ain't to-day as they used to be - but we don't find it out at a very early hour in the morning - This helps a quarter
of a day -

My cares are intensified by a stone which knocks the breath out of a Dominick hen - and the dictator proclaims chicken
for supper - a few little steps to take - and considerable surface to turn [red] over the combination of [coal] and
sunshine! Said surface is increasing - I have "groan in wait" -

All my powers combine in the getting together of the secound ... -

I am glad to sit down by the open door a few minutes and read Tennyson's Princess! -


July, Monday 27. 1874.

In which she looketh well to the ways of her house hold and eathet not the bread of idleness! -

Thoughts that might have soared to heaven - and seem given to the adored in - "Stories in Verse" - have been centered
to-day on ambrosia - not divine! - On even such a much less divine center as cooking a dinner for Dan - but my dear ...
you who have cooked [dinners] more summers than I have cooked [salutations] - my brother Dan is a critic -

It is the hour of my exhaltation - The feeling akin to that which fried the heart of the the Duke of Wellington or Mitiades
is mine - Dan asks "Fannie where did you learn to cook?


July. Tuesday 28. 1874.

In which word comes from our travelers - The good word - safe - I enjoy these lovely afternoons so - following them
there in these old places - where I have been and thinking on to myself - how glad I am of the rest for them both - Glad
these dreary afternoons in a silent house and these steps which must be - are mine and not their's.

My courage to study is lessening - with no one to talk to - I am attaining great skill as cook - Have I not a famous family
critic - to quote from -

Annie's in a growing season - I wickedly wish it might be indefinitely postponed!


July, Wednesday 29. 1874.

I which I do roam in conjecture forlorn - Annie sends me into dismal latitudes - Her details of her several states and
spasms are scarcely less dismal than her gloomy silence. I have both - I find neither ... The post brings me a letter from
Mrs. Clute - This produces the effect of setting one to work to plan - Sometime the [evil] that overshadowed me in
Schnectady may be entirely ... - How those old prayers of mine sweep over me to-day - The prayers that are like ships
come back laden with spices and perfumes -


July, Thursday 30. 1874.

In which I am of use - There are two reasons: - A little black dog comes after our [hens] - and the boys come after our
peas. The first sends me out on a [driving] pace after the dog and the last makes me a vigilance committee. I station
myself at the window not conforming to my usual custom - I begin courageously in Ancient Geography - It looks
formidable - and I grope on tearfully thro' Book X Davies Legendre! -

After three in the little ... minutes of waiting I ... in Irving's "Sketch Book" -
Nights I dream of mother but not of home -


July, Friday 31. 1874

In which I know where the day goes to - I had a sort of a wish framed in my head that the day would go a little quicker -
It didn't hurry - it took its time - I believe I never shall forget about the little walk all alone around David Johnston's -
[Where] the desolate, sorry, yet very tender thoughts predictive of far away Michigan- and no little mother - how
dreadful it makes me feel-

It was such a relief to find Nifs ... at our house when I got back - to hear something from the outside world was grateful
- and a laugh brings me up to the time when Mother and Aggie were here -


Aug. // Saturday 1. 1874.
In which August drips in.
Greek and I are getting in very good terms now - We make it go a little - Smith's History of Greece is also possible of
being realized - and reproduced in one - but Chemistry and Ancient Geography are a flood to stem! I don't jump around
at my work and sing - I creep when I'm up - and I sit down pretty often - I don't call it sick yet but we'll see how we feel
tomorrow - The moment [Dannie] leaves me nights - I worry and I worry until he comes in - It makes me feel better ...
to tell you about it - If I could only look on - always - and see my brother safe there would be a rest in it a far better rest
than I know.


Aug. Sunday 2. 1874.

In which our souls today are far away - But not the next line for we think not of Russian Boys - but wherever the little
mother is . Every little tender Sunday place is missing her. All the little steps to be taken make me feel almost happy
when I'm taking them for her. It's nice to have Dannie stay in all day - The worst thing was Annie's johnny-cake - That
was flat and monotonus and its tendencies were in the direction of alkalis. None of us took it to heart but to stomach -
therefore our piece of mind is reserved - I stake my reputation as cook - in calling in an auxiliary.


Aug. Monday 3. 1874.

In which I muse - I am prepared to announce to a world that solitude has no charms - I have sat in utter and complete
silence so long that my heart bounds to ... - I am ready to be ...! These lonesome divisions of time take away from my
work - all acquired courage - and of all my ambitions one is left me - To cook something -

The achieved success of last week eliminated once - I am being taught to come down - chiefly by a stove - The ...
improved!


Aug, Tuesday 4. 1874.

In which I tell a story. I do not love to tell the story. I'll have a boiled Indian pudding to-day - brilliant idea! How I got it
into the first [bag] - the world must imagine my experience is that it [doesn't] stay in the first [bag] - It sets sail - and
empties itself in the briny deep - With all my cares there's no other way but to make a new [bag] and fish it up - This ..
in the middle of a letter to Harry Jones!

I am being called to a new felicity - neuralgia - the kind that shoots the head! - No wonder Dan is ready to scold a little
even with my boiled Indian pudding before him!


Aug. Wednesday 5. 1874.

In which Dannnie is good to me - I like him ever so much [today] and he shows me his best side in our quiet talk at
[noon] - Almost every summer of mine has had in it some intense longing - which has been put into words only in the
ear of God. And every summer he has heard. This time [it's] all for Dannie - the pain and the longing - God is God - To
doubt is still disloyalty - To ... still is sin!

My neuralgia is assuming painful proportions. It disconcerts me all ways - and sets with my spine as a center - I am
found pitying myself


Aug. Thursday 6. 1874.

In which I try a new dish. This cooking business is growing interesting - It will be so long as there is anything new to
cook - and as long as Dan is here to eat - Dan suggests a corn-starch pudding. Such a dish possesses so many mysteries
that I set apart the morning to its honor - She did it - there was nothing left except to take in quantities of loss in the ... of
a face ache - and the dreariness of talking to oneself - The monotony was not even broken by the black day ... our little
chicken. Even the day stagnating - How much longer can I stand it?


Aug. Friday 7. 1874.

In which instead of the thorn comes up the fir-tree, I can't imagine an object more worthy of pity than the girl who made
another corn-starch pudding to-day and then cleared up things and sat down to wait for four o'clock - She goes down to
the depot with her face all tied up - thinking how sorry she'll feel going back alone - for that the little mother will come
is too good [news] for her - She hardly dares to go to the door when the train comes - but somebody taps her on the
shoulder and [it's] mother. Even the ... grants a willingness to join the .... Everything is radiant - and I ... the day and all
things with ...


Aug. Saturday 8. 1874

In which I come now to my part of the journey - the best part - that which is left after it is over - The rides over the old
roads that I took with them and now I'm having the good word from the dear old friends - the little talks and the things
that can be told. This is real August weather - The sun shines through the gathered mist that that hangs on the hills -

Mother brought home some live-forever from the dear, old graves - I hardly know how to act- with a better than I at the
helm. I just sit by and think of it - and my courage comes back -


Aug. Sunday 9. 1846.

In which it might have been kept glad and heartsome - That it hasn't been makes one toss and toss -

But why do I chronicle my tossings as if they were good and pleasant things to keep - as if in God's world these things
remain with the years - as if the aches and sorries did not perish and the bright and social things only live on!- God tells
us so much about blotting out -

I sat [upstairs] a good deal and fussed around - reading old journals and the quiet made me over -
Then I wrote long and [drearily] to [Sophy] -
After that it was good to go down and visit with mother -


Aug. Monday 10. 1874.

In which I announce a poor spell - Mother lays it to the apple-pie - and there is too much inward commotion for me to
recite any outside commotion by discussing so vexatious a problem. The weather is making up for lost time -

There's nothing to do but be hot - a big cloud raises havoc in the heavens and threatens water spouts and what not - but
[its] nothing but a little wind!

I write the last French exercise in a lofty state of mind - [It's] good to come to the end - Everything at home has taken on
the most uncomforting aspect -

I do so want mother a little happy - and I think and think and plan and plan - but the night takes it all up - away from me
-


Aug. Tuesday 11. 1874.

In which mother and I walk over to David John's

I see my chapter heads at the last of the day - The story reads backward - and to liquid states - and unparralled summer
heatings up. I have a faint recollection of laying off of getting that dismal geography into a slowly evaporating brain -
When there's nothing else to have - I have a toothache -

It occurs to me that I wrote to Frank [Sanford]. Mother feels better since our walk - It has been good for us that it was
taken - Good that back of all my plans there is a God -


224. Aug. Wednesday 12 1874

In which [its] hot. I don't know any cure for it but to just sit and be it. To fan is laborious and unsatisfcatory - I take a
walk to the magnificently distant depot and my errand is one single one - those springs - I do not get cool again all day
and my brain is very much aroused! Alas not to study - That gets on by pulling and hauling - Think I'll write but I don't -
The few minutes to be given to this luxury pass while I am deciding who shall be the honored parties -

Mother is sick too - We [won't] either of us play any more - Box 1287 is having a vacation - nothing gets in it any more
-


Aug, Thursday 13. 1874.

In which I read sixty-seven lines of Greek! - These growing memoirs are receiving no small amount of variety - My
astonishing revelations are not all weather and distempers. - Tomorrow I may be able to tell you that I have finished
Book III - which must end Greek stories for the present - Don't take it cooly - the digging is yet fact -

Mary Dodd blesses me. It came in a good time - I go up to learn all the tortures of thoroughly aroused teeth - and do it
better for Mary's words - applying Mr. Beecher's lecture sermon lately read - It must be God is saying "Lie down there
and have the tooth ache for me"-


Aug, Friday 14. 1874.

In which I must fall back upon distempers. Does anybody know what ails me? I may live to know that somebody has
found out - My symptoms are various - and study is almost a ...!

My nerves are ceaseless in their protests - and night finds me miserable enough - the way I tell it Dan keeps up the
family spirits - Ennobling task! We are a pecular family - We need extenuating circumstances.

A circus is coming - it will be here tomorrow - this bodes stiller times - I can have the toothache in peace -
My diary which was a shining light flickers! -


Aug. Saturday 15. 1874.

In which I groan some. My maladies spread and my teeth perform - In the worst of my gyrations Dan comes home to
supper - His trumpet sings of fame for he bears tickets to the Great Eastern - I wouldn't be wicked to go and see the
animals - of course not besides my teeth can jump better to the sound of cornet, harp, flute, sackbut, pealtry, dulcimer,
sherwin piano and all kinds of music - So I do my conscience up very small and sweep gracefully in -

I stay and see all the animals - Dan is on the qui vive - Aggie and I are lost - lost enough -


Aug. Sunday 16. 1874.

In which [its] time Sunday came - I love the Sundays - look, long, wait for them. Most of all when I'm with mother - I
keep in my heart lovingly the memory of our Castleton Sundays - They'll be ever dearer when the little mother is gone -
What made me think of this. It must have been because she is so pale and tired and so little with us to-day - I can find a
shadow in my thought that I have one only one more Sunday at home.

I think of [Jeannie] and Helen - when I am upstairs - and I write loving messages savoring of the old days - I can think
of the things that have been more tenderly to-day than ever before for there is nothing left in Castleton to dread - I so to
begin again.


Aug. Monday 17. 1874.

In which I make great efforts to be a hero - I try various ways on different occasions - My most desperate attemps to-day
were made with two objects: - To study some and to sit up straight and still and have the toothache! I have a geat desire
to see someone who has achieved heroism by this route! I'd like also to see if two of their teeth ached -

Mips [Mouk] came up about dusk - and we chatter away - As a sure consequence my history of Greece is suffering.
The little mother is better - Her face brightens and she is her own dear little self once again. Our every day hero -


Aug. Tuesday 18. 1874.

In which mother takes another trip for [springs]. We take turns but no one has yet come home and brought the [springs]
behind them - Not one - Not one - We await the result of this trip anxiously. Aggie is regularly installed to preside over
the destinies of our household - I take myself and my tootheache up stairs and try to study myself away to everlasting
bliss - I haven't heard that she did.

I shall remind Pres. [Augell] of Maggie Ryan - My knowledge is not increased and my [much] study does not conduce.
The evening at Mifs [Mouk's] was chatty and sort of nice.


Aug. Wednesday 19 1874.

In which its what do I hear? After a wilderness come upon a goodly heritage - all of which applies to letters. Dan brings
me five. Forgive my rashness - I open the pink envelope and read that I must be in C- at once - and "take charge of
Normal School" - Forgive my credulity. I was to take the part once of Antie Credulous - long ago - I hasten down to
order one or not and walk as the head of a Normal school would be expected to walk and I dream as girls dream.
Forgive my weakness. Mother comes home [springing] and we have sweet potatoes for our supper. Our "awful
appetites" - show that the receipt woman has been here.


Aug, Thursday 20. 1874.

In which the last night comes - This day is full of hurries - There's Albany to go to -
and I am swept gracefully toward that port of entry with a new hat - The piano is all my own - I carry the fact home as a
serene triumph - and invest in berets without regard to cost - That I am to "take charge of the Normal School" sets
snugly in my consciousness and I invest accordingly - There are skies that fall down - and ships are sometimes wrecked
in tropical seas - but the ... comes down and thingslook as if I should go to-morrow - I get in bed beside mother and the
night passes as if I should always stay thus near her


Aug. Friday 21. 1874.

In which its some people and other people. My visiting will probably be done up under short notice - The last dinner at
home is cheery and I start off for the cars full of courage. Mary bears everything and sits down in the middle of it and
we proceed to visit after the most apprroved manner. My Glens Falls experience was nothing after this sort. There was
no fault with the plan but the carrying of it out is the part that dismays - I did not forsee that Helen M. Mason was in [P]
- and there was no premonition - My tooth takes it the hardest - It performs most of the night.


Aug. Saturday 22. 1874.

In which I am fully interested as to the kind of charge I am to take to the Normal School. My reception at Castelton
partakes of warmth and ... - I am waited upon by the noblest dignitaries of the town and I myself compare myself to a
placid benignity in the hotel parlor. Developments are not tardy - I saw how by means of an intuitive perception,
entirely mental, that taking charge doesn't mean taking charge at all -
What I think of it will not now be recorded - My thinkings are prolific - and many books might not contain all I shall
think before I get through.

In the meantime observe my benign placidity


Aug. Sunday 23. 1874.

In which He strengthens my heart - I have dreaded this Sabath - for I know how it would be without the little mother -
God has not let me miss Him too - The calm stillness of regeneration and the joy I never knew of old have a place in
this, the Lord's day and I know and feel that my trust is not in princes - but in the living God - I am ready to take a place
not of my own choosing - to be intimidated and humiliated if it of His appointment. Blessed be letters - the little pieces
of me that can get to another straight and sure.


Aug. Monday 24. 1874.
In which I write mostly.
I go to the task of helping to fill up the Normal School with a vanishing courage - It is dismal even in a heroic state of
mind to go at the work as I am called upon to do it -

Lillie Clark comes along and takes me off to a ride - carries me into ... and poetry and dreams - for the day and the sky
are tender - and the hills all smile - I do not come back as I went. I am so like a child almost giving into the deeps of a
joy - and so not like a child - in my efforts to rise above the heights of a sorrow


Aug. Tuesday 25. 1874.

In which they send Mr. Sherman to talk to me. It is the old story - that is told and told to girls and women as the places
they aspire to are struck from them and they learn at every bend that they contend with men - A college boy - because
he is a boy - is preferred without experience or years - though she may have been far more worthy is passed by - Ah!
dont I know how it feels! A man as Mr. Sherman tells me "will give the school more of a name " and so it is before me
and I need not be told that already the letter is on its way that recommends Mr. Hyde to the principalship of the Normal
School - and I who have loved it so and worked for it so long am out of ... - The whole of me says as I toss and turn - "I
wil not stay"


Aug. Wednesday 26. 1874.

In which I read God's answer - It is forthcoming and it fills me with a calm that is new and strange and [welcome] - The
drawing away of the people in Castleton means - does it not that I shall realize my well-loved purpose and see
Michigan.

It certainly means something and I've prayed that He who knoweth the end of all things from the beginning would
answer me in the matter and tell me surely what it means. I know this God has a thought and a purpose "even in the fate
of one like me"

Hotel life is lovely and I enjoy it - I like Mr and Mrs [Sanford] ever so much -
Letters and school work keep me every minute busy-


Aug. Thursday 27. 1874

In which something comes straight from home.

Who knows better than my mother what girls want who are away from home - A sight of anything folded or handled by
mother's fingers has a hallowed influence. I am better for it - Annie McDonald is for once very welcome -

I visit Mrs. [Harkins] and talk the hours away - Mr. Sherman appears to talk business which he proceeds to do in ...
accents. I am becoming a celebrated screamer - It came about by being placed in a deaf ... Very few people in this
locality can hear - Stay way or expect to shout


Aug. Friday 28. 1874.

In which there is high tide and low tide. Most of my pleasures are ... a positive design - I find myself the joyful
recipient of a letter or two stating the certain coming of a student or two on the same mail - I also find myself the ...
before recipient of other letters stating the certain staying away of a student or two. Thus I rise and fall -

I cannot attain a very high degree of delight in comtemplating Normal School prospect - but I may be called to do so in
a brilliant manner yet -

[Jonas Wilder] is a comet just visible in my heavens - and R.G. Williams is vanished from my horizon: - I have lived to
see this day!


Aug. Saturday 29. 1874.

In which I do not lack for discipline. It much more abounds - It has surely come out that this is a dubious summer - It
does not bring me the usual good fortune that hitherto has attended my steps. Not at all - My discipline comes so fast
and takes every concievable shape - that I stand still and question -

The gift of foresight would prove invaluable since the recent trip to Glens Falls and South [Wallingford]. I dont get to
the ... road before I know that Eastern holds [Jennie] in its arms and not I -

But [Jennie] has a mother and if anything could be almost as good as the girl herself it is the mother. My discipline is
somewhat lightened by many sweet apples -


Aug. Sunday 30. 1874.

In which it is a day in country places - What can I tell about it:- There was a face missing that it would have been good
to see but what there was lacked only this. The mother put a joy into the day - and the sun shone over the large grassy
places - and there was plenty of chicken and cream. I could wander away in thought and come back quickly or I could
chatter and chatter.

In my room at night I could pray for Dannie and it has seemed so sure that he should b preserved from evil for my faith
grows stronger as I pray.


Aug. MOnday 31. 1874.

In which I flop. My hotel life has merged into this life of the man without a country. I'm he! I'm in the space between
the hotel and the seminary - and tonight I take refuge with Mrs. [Hawking] - the day is characterized by a novel process
of reaching the train - I sincerely hope this is not typical of my getting to the cars on the celestial Railroad - After we
reach an exciting scene transpires acted by Addie Taft - Laura and I talk over the new arangements with zest - assisted
by Laura's mother.

Such scenes as these of late have a strange tendency to unsettle me who boasts of a perfectly level summer.


Sept. Tuesday 1. 1874.

In which tendencies are domestic. I aspire to-day to make good sheets and pillow-cases - good reforming [I've] my share
of it. I locate on the upper piazza and the day is mine - It is full of the thoughts that almost always come with stitches -
The coming and the going thoughts - roll outward and inward and when its twelve o'clock I sit down at the table with
mother and the children - Some of my thinkings are restless - but those that stay are calm and full of courage. I feel so
sure that the best shall be for me - and for mine.

It comes about that one more night is spent at the hotel - and more letters are written - - So endeth!


Sept. Wednesday 2. 1874.

In which I sleep on down - away up in the fields - a house that it was pleasant to go to my first spring so long ago - a
house - keeping saved up its traces of Helen and later of Jennie - Some mothers come and each one leaves a poor
homesick girl - I move on slowly with my room fixings. - Everything I have to wait for - and nothing is done when I
inspect it so I lay in more patience than people under ordinary trials are apt to come into possession of - But the bright
side is that Delia stitches my sheets and pillow cases and curtains - and Mrs. Parsons comes to my rescue with quilts and
pillows. I have kept my word - Nothing to fix up my room has been taken from the little mother -


Sept. Thursday 3. 1874.

In which few come to her solemn feasts - normal portals swing open and we would be glad to welcome a swarming
myriad - We do not swarm - proceedings find themselves in all points more melancholy than promising - but I am
surprised to see we hope - I find a fierce straining to be content knowing that when we see not - then is the call to
patiently wait for it.

A few several ... backward take upon themselves Normal honors and I count them with a gathered courage - but my
heart it seems can never find itself sinking for the source of my trouble is in another latitude -

My thoughts rush on home - fact.


Sept. Friday 4. 1874.

In which I am at the height of all dreariness

This announces that things do not work - Its getting to be pretty well understood at last by the present individual that
things dont arrange themselves with any view to consulting me - and I must suit myself to ... as they incessantly decline
to suit themselves to me - Do you draw from all this the influence that is in my mind - that I would have the Normal
School use in a grand upward move and start with families by tens and dozens -

How am I going to get up my spirit - I should grow gray in short notice if I should not find a way to get out of this -
Come - arouse - the generations are calling - and you are not a hero


Sept. September 5. 1874.

In which I can do nothing to awaken my slumberring ambition - If I should enlarge upon this to any extent - I would
like a few other people - back readers - even the one constant reader would forsake me - This is not a pleasing
contemplation - anthing but this. Keep - I impore one faithful reader - It must follow then that to enter into the causes
and discuss to any extent the state of things described above - is not to be thought of - My ambition is in its little bed -

Life seems worth prolonging - even with ambition gone - The things that I am to live among assume a certain
pleasantness and today have promised to hurry


Sept. Sunday 6. 1874.

In which there comes a growing comfort - The Sabbath brings something that is not of earth and it will not permit things
to look the same - I wish I could make myself feel something - waydown deep - as deep as I ever feel - What is going to
come upon me to bring me out of this valley in which I find myself?

My prayers are weak and my thoughts are full of earth - The power that could bring me to Him when I first came - must
take me to Him now. All my thoughts of Him are swift but they come so seldom now - and I say O so sadly to myself
"Is it not that I must be about my Father's business?"


Sept. Monday 7. 1874.

In which the new times are not like the old times in Normal Hall.

But why must I keep writing such things: If there are ever bright times in Normal Hall again it never will come about by
asking wearily for what cannot be: the old places are being taken by new faces and it is best so - but I look so often and
so wistfully for just one of the old days - with the self-satisfied air - I was wont to don -

I'm weak in my comprehension of the work before me - It begins way down at the bottom among first principles -
I am guilty of a teacher's weakness - I am fond of teaching "smart folks" - Apply


Sept. Tuesday 8. 1874.

In which I go through another performance. I am finding myself out - It is gratifying to be given so fine and unusual an
opportunity to display to an observing world your fortitude in time of great tendencies toward wrath - If I never make
this fact clearly aparent - believe me it will not be for lack of glorious opportunities. I start out with a glow - I dare to
have full faith that I shall meet the Hamburg Chicken and Pres. Angell - I dont. I have plenty of time to muse on the
possibilities that earthly ... are not certain - I call myself several fit names - and put the child to bed after the honors are
past - Hrm


Sept. Wednesday 9. 1874

In which I am shown that all is not indeed utter delusion. I finally believed it this morning. Besides my diary troubles
me- and that of all things must not fail me or I have lost indeed - But it does show signs of dislocution . It is very sick -

The only thing this day that pins my trembling thoughts on the stability of anything which has to do with me - was the
apppearance on the scene of John Dooley who knew that his mother was dead!

I take it upon me to keep her over until morning and discussions tend toward the West Rupert business. After supper we
are found aloft - on high - way up -


Sept. Thursday 10. 1874.

In which my room-mate arrives - Now that I have seen her I understand how it will all be - We shall be happy toghether
- and I know by my few first glances.

In this I am at rest - I find mysel full of what happpened in a minute - The arrival in my school of His excellency the
Governor - and my enviable seat on needles - lest I for a moment do something unpardonable or my class appear nearly
as stupid as they are - Col. Benton sets me all a going by one word but might it at the ... - The Board have ... & it is
done - E.J. Hyde is principal - God is plainly calling me - as the general the officer to do a hard thing for him - to stay
here and take a lower place to stand here in the dark and suffer


Sept. Friday 11. 1874.

In which I begin to lay out my work - It is pretty near time that I begin to take in a realizing sense of things - I am
stupidly slow in letting things get ... and begin.

The glory of the fall is coming on. It comes slowly - and I almost excuse myself this waiting and the easy way I have
just now - when I see how slow are all of nature's processes - My tendencies are all toward ceaseless activity - and the
next new thing is done - Miss Ten Broeck finds herself remarkably homesick - and ... to profuse letters -

It seems now as if I was favored in the matter of companionship but maybe not -


Sept. Saturday 12. 1874.

I which I dream of going home - I see a yellow poster down street - It assumes a sudden worth in the eyes of me - for it
proclaims a cheap trip to the city near which I am found in my hilltown sweet thoughts - It suddenly occurs to me that I
can afford it - so I buy a dress and despatch it with my accustomed ... and announce to my mother that I'll call for the
dress next Thursday - We go on making wonderful improvements in our sitting room. We give the picture man
countless hints and suggestions - and he makes promisies for which he will not soon be forgiven - He dooms us thus to
sudden rises and and fallings of hopes and he lives a little for which we beg for his mercy


Sept. Sunday 13. 1874.

In which I am quiet a few minutes. How well for me it is! Anybody like me ought to be quiet a good deal - but my life
spins on and spins me toward the stopping point while all the time I am wishing all so still to myself that I had a little
home - and joy work could be inside of it for months - long enough for me to catch my breath! God has no doubt a
reason for making my influence large - and my work incessant - I am a bungler at all my work lately. I am passing
through an event in my life and I take the steps as in a maze for where does [it lead] -


Sept. Monday 14. 1874.

In which I try to get up a little enthusiasm. Try! Its not laid down anywhere for me to pick up - nor thrown at me to
catch - Its gone where alas are lying all the brilliant things I ought to write in this diary and don't and can't - Miss T..B's
chief aim in life just now is to sweep through time and get back to ... a Noble ambition! and mine are less - What good
does it do to be ashamed of it - We are!
Who can help us! I can't possess one of a quickening to make me absorbingly interested in the future of Mary Conley -
and Annie Ostrander and my class to teach is so small and destitute of energy - and - well you know! -


Sept. Tuesday 15. 1874.

In which a plan is afloat - It looks to getting a girl here - and at the bottom of the plan stands the stalwart form of me -
but not alone am I - there is another - a striped Hamburg chicken - who writes me solemnly and consults - I keep
thinking of a house on the corner ofWhite and [Gumer] - and a face where the wrinkles are coming that I long and long
to see - Do I go by the pretty white house and look and look? O - don't ask - do I stop doing it say - Mip Ten Broeck
says funny things - little cunning things which trip off his tongue and fall not expecting to -


Sept. Wednesday 16. 1874.

In which I make preparations on a lorge scale.

Mip L.B. finds it very funny - do I? - I sew a bottom in an antiquated bag - and insert a method of shutting it and
holding it shut - It is packed by the hands of me and then the feet of ... down street while the ... of me desire what I'll
carry to mother - How excited I get - A great day is coming for me and I am in a great jar of joy and don't think the bag
is in too!

Let me chronicle for future nights of ... and misery the record of this cheerful evening with to happy ... in room 14! - A
girl going to mother - a mother coming to a girl!


Sept. Thursday 17. 1874.

In which I vow vengeance on alarm clocks - Alas - for the morrow - what do my eyes behold: A swift-footed maiden
"with dreaming eyes" and a gallant ear - a man of noble deed - not alone are they - a boy doth journey with them - but
not merrily -

A Miss T.B. will in spite of my tears and protests gaze up in the situation with a tendency to merriment - Alas shall I ...
to tell how there was a disgraceful return and a lunch eaten in secret!

What a trial is this [to] one's faith - but did she, this girl, ever sit down instead? Ah! don't you believe it! - Somebody
another hears the bell ring - She goes to the door


Sept. Friday 18. 1874.

In which I feel and know that the summer is not over.

There's this piece of it - The little things that the cozy life at home suggests - the litttle duties that I went from so
suddenly and so reluctantly: the places where I used to study - the outlook from the windows of my room. I'm back
among these and its been kept for me to come to these once more - How grand I feel! -

I do not forget that my hopes have risen only to fall that the Ann Arbor where I was to land this morning is an Ann
Arbor of a dream - and instead of bring before
Prof. [D....] and [H...] and [O...] - I am stationed before Mip Monk's ... children - and no thought of any examination - or
dignities of the ... - It remains to tell how Mip Hasting ... us off up to the house - How [ever] did return


Sept. Saturday 19. 1874.

In which there was a great noise in our house. Gail had in her mind trunks. In mine I have in mind "the little dog" - Let
us still speak further - All of Harriet [Mouk's] pleasures were designed to be [lies] - The world as created for her exists
as a reality - she cannot enter into the subtleties of anything that involves a joke - Sufficient solemnity cannot be given
to the words as we say them - in the dog story. Emma Mouk to her mind has ... upon the family an irretrievable - She
has [sported].

We all play and are greatly assisted. We offord a pleasing picture to the man with the piano legs! - Don't be too much
startled - I ought to have mentioned it more gently - but indeed will you be too much ... to hear that ... and ... have at last
been brought up on - and the man so long- expected [dances]


Sept. Sunday 20. 1874.

In which I go from room to room mournfullly - I didn't want Sunday to come so quick this time - It begins to come over
me that I must go back to-morrow - it also finds a place in my unconsciousness that what I'm going back to is very
uncertain - It is not like the last Sunday with [Susie] before I went to Williamsport - I felt so sure and safe that day as
my prayers fell in the ear of God - that I should not go alone - that it would be better for somebody that I go - Now I
can't feel so safe and sure - After all the mistakes of the weeks since then - Must you ever hear my honest question, must
you now ... to yourself that your hold on on the ... mighty to save is one whit lessened?

Girlie, take this question into your next quiet hour -


Sept. Monday 21. 1874.

In which everbody dares laugh at me - I come back with the ... of sunlight darting in and among and around all things - I
come back with the firm prupose of making all the people possible glad that I am to live among them! - I always like the
thoughts that come to me in the cars - The time between the work we leave and the work we go to - isn't like other times
- There's an impulse in the turns of the driving wheel - I see in the upper hall a girl with a shawl on - I look rapidly and
am not mistaken - It is ...! - I don't want to hear any more about alarm clocks - Its a very uninteresting subject to myself
- And yet people do talk about it - and there's something else about early Maine - and carpet bags - and other
uninteresting things -


September. Tuesday 22. 1874

In which a dreadful thing happens - How quickly one can pass from happy time to a sudden sadness -

The news comes over us with a peculiar force - for we feel so much for Mr. Hyde and in this trouble he is speechless -
he goes about while here with an inexpressively sad face - and no words -

His father has been run over by the cars and lies very low at Mr. Langdon's - He will probably not recover - Is perfectly
unconscious and will perhaps pass away in this same state without a word or look or hand pressure for the waiting one -
his son. Our meals are very solemn - We are glad to see them over and push our chairs back -

I'll venture on this sombre page a sacrilege - It will be this - my new calico - is a garment fit to adorn the form of me -


Sept. Wednesday 23. 1874.

In which we enter into the sadness - Four o'clock this afternoon will live forever in thememory of one stricken family -
Out of that solemn speechless unconsciousness the soul of Mr. Hyde passed onto another life - and nothing came back -
no word or token - and the hour was four - I keep thinking how he looked on Tuesday when he came away from the
Seminary after keaving [Sophie] - How funny that I wondered as I looked from my window that Sophie did not say
"good bye" to him as he drove off - I was so sure that she would - There will be school to-morrow - That seems strange
too -

Satie and I go out for a walk after supper and we enjoy it - How little could I enjoy it though were the blow that had
come to some for me -


Sept. Thursday 24. 1874.

In which my hands are unequal for their budens -

I believe I never felt this more fully than I have this very suggestive fall -

I am reminded by Satie's severe sickness that I must prepare for new worries and new duties - I have no hope now of
averting the disease - It has come and may keep her in bed and me out of bed for some time - Hope comes to my rescue
- I draw on those supplies of it which my head examminer dwelled upon at so great length -

Dr. Sanford duly appears and looks the tongue over lamenting that it has been necessary to call him - like as not -
I take in all the [air] necessary and prepare myself to act in the capacity of -


Sept. Friday 25. 1874.

In which I am found in the house of mourning -

It was not a day for mourning - Can I ever forget how perfect it was - and how beautiful were all things as we went over
the [road]?

There were so many at the funeral - and it was a very solemn day for me throughout - It makes my heart grow still and
my whole being pause to be in one room with a dead body in another.

It is so different from anything else - and it makes me think of the coming of the ... guest - as nothing else can - even
waking up in the midle of the night - when my thoughts always turn to that hour of my life when I shall pass away -



In which I better not make any estimates - I quickly intuit to not making any - I lay out a sufficient amount of work to
do comfortaby and I am still further deserving of credit for I keep thinking how well I'll do it - which is dreadful to
relate. I wouldn't laught if it weren't for Mrs T.B. She is in this matter to me as an inspiriter to-day! I need a prop or two
- I always find myself hunting about for stays and props after sitting up nights with folks - I am achieving an enviable ...
as a nurse in dysenteric diseases - I can talk of "movements" to the Dr. with great zeal - and listen to his questioning
with quiet interest. - And Belle ... has come -interest



In which I better not make any estimates - I quickly intuit to not making any - I lay out a sufficient amount of work to
do comfortaby and I am still further deserving of credit for I keep thinking how well I'll do it - which is dreadful to
relate. I wouldn't laught if it weren't for Mrs T.B. She is in this matter to me as an inspiriter to-day! I need a prop or two
- I always find myself hunting about for stays and props after sitting up nights with folks - I am achieving an enviable ...
as a nurse in dysenteric diseases - I can talk of "movements" to the Dr. with great zeal - and listen to his questioning
with quiet interest. - And Belle ... has come -interest


Sept. Sept. 27. 1874.

In which I search for the theoughts that lie too deep for tears -

I feel like having Sunday after such a week - I wish I could have one of the old Sundays - Am I never to have them any
more? - I am surprised and surprised at myself - Will I never again weep over my own sins - or pray for the souls of the
straying? - Is my religion all centered on me - and will I let things remain thus - O that I might feel as in times of old! -
That one - dear Schenectady Sunday would come back -

The summer was good - Mr. Woodruff is surely inspiring - His subject was restoring the brothers and sisters in the
church -

The singing - partook less of discord than is common -


Sept. Monday 28. 1874.

In which I come down a peg or two - It takes a Monday to bring teachers down from any notches to which they may
have attached themselves - We came down with drooping lips - Mip T.B. and I talk it over mournfully -

When the work is well before the absorbing is complete - That's about the last we are seen or heard of during the circuit
of the sun - Then we collect around the ... to the tune of our melodious bell - I believe this is indeed the first time that
bell has been mentioned! My outward bound thoughts take wings to Mip E.J. Pierce - Abbie Adams appears upon the
scene - and her call sends my Greek to a more melancholy journey than Mip Stafford's from ... to ... -


Sept. Tuesday 29. 1874.

In which I search in vain for aught strange or startling - You can sort of imagine me making frantic efforts to do unheard
of and greatly to be [desired] things - but you won't hear of my doing them. Not a breath of such glorious tenuinatives to
my main fold labors - It is easy to feel myself tired - and not easy to find anything to show for it - We get settled down
to the new life but slowly - we miss out mothers - and as time goes on they come not - neither go we to them - though
we keep talking about it - Satie takes all the ... busy - which are not sacrificed to the school interests of Vermont -
Nursing is not my favorite avocation.

I am in a favor to having my patience toward health as rapidly as my classes toward graduation.


Sept. Wednesday 30. 1874.

In which Miss L.B.'s aunt has her mostly - Imagine her coming home to me after it and reporting as she does a "lovely
time". - Making a direct application as I so promptly do _ I find by the most assiduous search that my lovely times are at
once both before me and behind me! I look with expectant eyes for it - ahead and with wise eyes - for - back - and
behind!

To-day is not now a strange word - it means very real things for me - Having had so favorable a start - I shall soon be
prepared to offer my services in the treatment of [dysenteric] fevers -

My morning and evening reflections are in the region of Mr. Hyde's glowing grate - or on the stairs carrying plates and
what goes with plates


Oct. Thursday 1. 1874.

In which I welcome October - I know so well the delicious dreamy ... that are in the stars for us of the gathered bounty -
full and glowing in the last spirit richnesses it will lunch upon us - tender in its patient pity - as it is hopeful even with its
precious leaves ... into the dust - It is the glad gala time for me -
the season of my new birth - My transformation in the Kingdom of His Son -
We are just now passing a through a cold snap but it doesnt mean anything -
My flannels tarry - and for heat I am at the mercy of my friend's [Hyde's] grate - I am very grateful! Is not that the
record of my pact?

No sister Aggie at this place to-morrow night - not me -



Oct. Friday 2. 1874.

In which I welcome Friday night. I wish to you I hold out my arms as though I would embrace you! This is significant.
Could some dear stingy old Vermont man just returning from paying his taxes, could he, O, could he hear my opening
statement, there would be speedy legislative enactments. A teacher who never was glad of Friday nights, one
approaching in characteristics is cast-iron would be at once engaged and a certain New York teacher sent home in
disgrace!

I have a lovely evening and there's more yet. Greek [seemed] almost a goodly [land], and French less heathenish.



Oct. Saturday 3. 1874.

In which the King comes to his own. The Lord is not in the earth quake, not in the mighty wind. How beautiful upon the
mountains are the footsteps of them that bring good tidings. How blessed the murmurs of that still, small voice!
Everything is perfect! It seemed Gods message to us when Dr. Sanford came is take us up to the lake, and out among the
hills and woods, this day of days. I can keep this day for ages, was I ever knowing to forget, my life rides. They form
epochs! I shall not see the lake again this fall and it is in its [faded] away for me.



Oct. Sunday 4. 1874.

In which I sigh, for some thing gone which should be nigh, and the [poem] goes on as my homesick girl. It follows it, "a
loss in all familiar things, in flower that blooms and bird that sings". O dear, how is this girl going to get back her
mother? Mr. [Later] was an exchange. What was written for Methodist ears, fell on our ears. It was a dreadful sermon
about a plunge, a crash and somebody was heard no more, (several times repeated) about the pearly tear on the cheek of
Jesus at the grave of [Lagarns], said the tear was kissed away by a breeze. The most startling announcement was that if a
man couldn't have a piano and an organ here, he should have a harp in heaven. The notes of the choir trembled and
made us do so too!

Think of me hidden in a big shawl.



Oct. Monday 5. 1874.

In which I forget the most important scene but Mip T.B. says she'll risk one. That I with eyes half open hurried down to
a breakfast pitcher in hand and a lamp! this begins the animated scenes. One might be safe in inferring that I was next
beheld in the plant corner grasping Liddell and Scott! Another guess would [...] on seeing me [near] to Satie, and then to
school worrying in all available mornings, and carrying meals around.

In school don't guess a sweet placid [mouth] and a benevolent beaming for the girl is a mystery unto herself. She might
be always kind tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven her, but she is far from
it. O, God help her!



Oct. Tuesday 6. 1874.

In which bad news comes and a new bad.

My home letter tells me of the dear old lady in Albany whom mother has been to see. It tells me of the sick time and
whispers, "If Grandma gets worse I will let you know".

What the new bad was need not be recorded. Why live worries twice! Satie gains slowly, so slowly. I'm afraid the blue
patient eyes will leave us and not come back. I wish I would be better and get right down close to her and kiss her like
my own dear little girl. But every time I go to do it something makes me not do it when I get there. "Teach me Lord at
length to love!"



Oct. Wednesday 7. 1874.

In which "la [bete]" only is here. [Lame] is a good ways from here, Didie! The words of the boy sends quick messages
of pain through and through me, and I can think only of the dear mother heart that is perhaps coming near to the end of
its love and its yearnings. Please pity the one of hers that is up here, thinking and thinking.

Work is a delightful solace and it must be done though I can't talk and explain. I sit in a given silence which means only
sorrow. The missionary meeting comforts me and fills me with longings to work for God. There is something
unspeakably grand in the missionary work and my whole being rises once more to say, Here am I Lord. [Send] me.



Oct. Thursday 8. 1874.

In which I see moving fingers, and hear the sounds of dead words. There are a great many years that are full of
grandma. I can see wrinkled fingers moving busy needles to and fro, and beautiful, white stockings growing nearer and
nearer completion, which shall be for me when they are done. I can hear a voice growing weaker and weaker say
Frankie as there's nobody else in the world says it, and these words are in my ears and no others.

God is so tender in this trouble, and the sadness that wraps me up is such a sweet sadness. Any glimpse of the last great
peace fills me with a restful content, and the thoughts of death as far from dreaded thoughts today.



Oct. Friday 9. 1874.

In which my evening is long and quiet to myself alone. No word comes from grandma so I rest myself thinking that no
news is good news, and let the day bear me hopefully on. The evening is full of one of my lovely times, when I can bear
to look out upon things as they are, and not lose heart and when I can live in the present and find little helps. There's a
pleasantness about the night, when the frilly things can be kept out of the day.

I am so glad Satie even begins to be better. I haven't been very good to her. There is something her eyes ask that I do not
give her and it is hers by blessed right. The dear girls heart that has been mine so long, that has always kept [tuff] for
me.



Oct. Saturday 10. 1874.

In which we hear of Mip Ryan's [...] discipline. I take this Saturday with my usual bustling spirit and hurry it along.
Have the good word from home to be glad over and it helps. Miss Underwood is [convinced], and after a protracted call
passes on and is followed by our young hero. Miss [M.Y.Ryan] of old [known]. She gives me light on the subject of
discipline, she governs by little slaps. It affords me no little comfort to know that hereafter I can always send for Maggie
Ryan.

Our Saturday dinner is almost always cheery.



Oct. Sunday 11. 1874.

In which the day is delighted in. I am getting so I tell this every time, but its always new. Sitting down in the sunshine,
or feeling its [touched] in my every fibre, seems as new to me today as if it had never been. As if I had never sat in a
cosy sitting room with the work done up, and said to my darling mother, "Isn't Sunday nice?"

A wee letter springs into existence, but today shall be long in the [land], if I don't forget that Roxbury is in N.Y.

It is easy to be homesick, but I won't let me. The leaves grow pretty, and they laugh and play in the wind. Everything
cosy even a cosy thought is a joy, and I find a few.



Oct. Monday 12. 1874.

In which I muse on "Georgy reviews". Mip Ten [Broecken]. But on finding points nobody else ever heard of, and
making them turn up funny. A sublime gift. It has been a [dimly] appointed plan that she come to shine here. When my
[teacher] gazes upon his new circulars he will se it once throught Georgy, and on to Texas. Richard Ryan is a comet, I
see him no more, and it is not a source of grief, for be it for me to hope for his [...] appearance. He is not a shining light.

My courage is slowly coming back. the old work is taken up in the old ways, and the put away things, are again taken
out. How funny all my dreams seem, I who was to be in Michigan.



Oct. Tuesdy 13. 1874.

In which one might naturally expect some eloquince at this place, and time. There is too much of [time] around Betsy to
get any thing like into eloquince from this not very amiable writer. Don't say much to her. A very pleasant beginning
consists in a protected process of scalding two feet. Manner elaborate. A metammorphosis is working. You'll hear of it.
A cross girl is to be fixed over into a sunny girl. Come and see!

My [Bent's] are still a source of alarm to me. They are here but alas not here. "My twig is bent!"

In the present system of [honors] for things you no doubt see my [benignant] features, [some] distance from the hanging
basket, so be it.



Oct. Wednesday 14. 1874.

In which we hear about Hyde's bells. They number eighteen. [We], Mip [E.T.B.] & her [compier], are about to add
several more. One for Mrs. Burke to come forthe clothes, one more for me to [...] feet, one to change the calendar, one
to water the hanging basket, one for Geoege reviews! An extended list is comtemplated. Excuse my brevity.

The girl works and clings. O, how she clings to the hand let down list a cross word come, a [worthless] word, God help
her. I think the struggle going on down here in the dark is a part of the battle for Christ. I can feel Him so much nearer
since the conflict began.



Oct. Thursday 15. 1874.

In which we hear from the professor at the breakfast table! I am approaching a melencholy subject. Most melancholy to
people who now have to go around among distracted girls and call for reports at 10 P.M.!

Miss L.B. marks Annie McDonald 2 in Arithmetic starting by way of supplement that she gave her a quarter at that.
Great consternation reigns. Lamentations are not few, and the teachers are not having their tears pissed away by breezes.
The teacher that goes around at 10 P.M. is not heard from. The day sparkles in all on October's glory! The girl thinks
she'll sweep into Ft. Edward tomorrow night but maybe she won't. The Bints worry her. Why can't they stay?



Oct. Friday 16. 1874.

In which we enter faster and faster. Mip E.T.B. has learned to eat with her eyes on her Hydes. A [difficult] [fete], but
when once acquired full of rare advantages. She by careful survey can ascertain about how fast her [cake] and such will
have to go down. With all the car whistles ringing in mine ears and the sun a shining and the leaves flinging out gala day
banners, I resolutely [turn] away mine eyes and don't go. I know now that I delight more in my conquest than I could
possibly have done even in giving joy to sis! The dark lets down light tonight. I vibrate in my arches as if it were I who
was going home insteaad of Aggie coming. The train carries a red light for me tonight. Hidden [curses] not made of [...]
are radiant and I hold my sister in my arms.



Oct. Saturday 17. 1874.

In which things work. Aggie gets her first taste of hotel life, and I a short taste of a life that is not bells. It is a kind hand
that open pleasant highways for us, one that works when we cannot see and always makes 10 times one come out just
ten! How can I tell it all. Of our ride on the lake road behind Mr. Hyde's fleet nag, and our efforts on a huge scale to
make him go, (not Mr. H.). Of our finding out that for us Winnie had come. Of our long ride to Poultney, and the
charming visit with Emily. Of the nice wood fire in the cosy sitting room still redolent of Institutes and essays! Of the
plunge, the crash and we are heard no more.



Oct. Sunday 18. 1874.

In which we take life [inside]. The day made a great attempt to be dark and dreary, but it couldn't. The rain descended
and the floods came and the winds blew. They only crossed one little plan. They kept us from the Baptist church. The
hotel was reached through windings not valleys of blessing. We were beaten and yet conquerors. No threatenings of
gates or gabs moved us (gals!). The rest of the day was lit up with a little of wild duck and what goes with it, and some
seminary. Anne McDonald was on our left and was entertained in my sister's most bounteous manner. Lack-aday. [To...]
is to be our [alarm] clock tomorrow morning. Satie came down in the evening.



Oct. Monday 19. 1874.

In which I chronicle on wonder. That for once I should hear the rising bell that at least once this winter. I should begin
in Greek before breakfast. It came about through means, which worked. I go up into this Monday or down into it,
whichever it may be, a great deal more ready for it after the rest and the visiting. Aggie goes home feeling all the better
for coming. My work calls for so much from me when it asks me to speak greatly, always, and to raise my eyes [its] of a
sure and blessed calm, always, out upon my sea. I am trying lately to let my life show what my heart longs.



Oct. Tuesday 20. 1874.

In which something is worthy of notice concerning a girl whose expectations are known to be large.



Oct. Wednesday 21. 1874.

In which there's danger of a smash up. This may refer to the girl that writes it. She's always in active anticipation of an
eruption. It may refer to the possible going to pieces of the whole establishment! Lack-aday. The girls are surging and
rising on billows. They raise lofty hands against going to bed at ten o'clock.
School work drives on. There's always something to do next and classes must be taught. Work must be put on the board
and lessons given out and Greek recited and a breath or two of time to do it in. I get into the teaching some days just as I
like to get into it but the same old wound tries me lately. If it were not for my second course class I should like my work
very much less. I have always been blessed in this class and I like it this year.



Oct. Thursday 22. 1874.

In which you must hear of me as a moving spirit. I begin on a course of drilling. This has to do with rhetorical exercises
about to be instituted. Our first rehearsal betokens success. This is a cause of some rejoicing to me, the venerable.

The October days please me in their sweetness and in their suggestions. The dear fall is staying beautiful so long. There
are minutes a few in which my thought struggles and finds room. "The thought goes, and something out of our own
selves, some real thing has met the dawn or has found the mountain or entered beforehand into the blessed summer".



Oct. Friday 23. 1874.

In which God is God my darling! Whatever else may come I think I am always sure of this, never surer than I am this
holy, blessed day, that I give to Him. As my hand feels the pressure of His greater and stronger hand, I say to him
solemnly and softly, "Dear Lord, it is ten years that my hand has lain in thine". O, ye years, full of that precious faith,
great in what there was for me to grasp of God and perfect [consideration], beautiful with the [stars] that Christ set in
years, dear years, faint, imperfect shadows of the years up there.
Let me pray tonight.



Oct. Saturday 24. 1874.

In which its hard to tell which I love best, the night or the day. It is the light that gives to each its beauty. It makes us
know how much the dear Christ meant when he called himself. Light to follow Him is never to walk in darkness, never
for once. To such it is promised they shall have the light of life.

It may keep me honorable to remember that Satie has made me feel very sorry today. I went over to her room and found
her crying and took her over to mine and made her feel better. We are not yet just where I want us to be. We shall grow
to be heart to heart little by little, and I must be tenderer and [turn] her to me, very near very near and close.



Oct. Sunday 25. 1874.

In which I live to chronicle three perfect days!

Perfect in light, as perfect as light ever is, or can be. October prepares to leave us with rich days as this, followed by rich
nights as this. I have my room all to myself today, for Mip T.B is with her mother. I am glad that I can say that I am not
alone for the Father is with me. The work that I have entered upon that of keeping myself gentle seems easier in the
quiet thought of my quiet hours. I wonder why it seem so hard other times. If this year can only show that I have grown
& in being Christlike and [succeeded] sometimes in [...] my spirit. I shall greatly praise him.



Oct. Monday 26. 1874.

In which thoughts travel homeward faster and faster, something makes me want to be home today. Sis is twenty-two. I
have to do all my part of the celebrating alone. I wish so much for her and a great deal of it. I can't tell her I want more
than anything else that she should have to [hide] her life with Christ in God. That she should come to life's years
solemnly.

The days are still lovely and full of thoughts that rise out of the [tossings], and are higher and greater.

We know so little down here of what we might rise to. "We get faint glimpses when we have been a little faithful and a
great deal helped of Him".

This night is memorable for the soiree and we hear from Mr. Dennison. The rest of it was polite.



Oct. Tuesday 27. 1874.

In which I muse on Castleton's people. I always find it necessary to come to a solemn sitting after a coming together like
last night. I call to mind for about the tenth or eleventh time that some people are not inclined to waste any of their
attentions on this lady, that the Adams do not call on me but on Mip L.B. I think a great many little things about one
thing and another that make me feel tired and sorry. There are times when it seems hard to stay here, but I believe I do a
little good, that some things are a little better because I am here.

"When my heart is warm I know as the blind know, that I am in the sunshine that I cannot see".



Oct. Wednesday 28. 1874.

In which the calendar isn't timed fast enough. We both watch it with zeal which never grows less but only one day rolls
off at once, and sometimes we get wicked and wish the days would get along quicker. We forget that they are faster, far
faster than our heroism or self-denials.

I work vigorously at school and then at French and Greek. French is quite a drain on my [...], it takes so much time and
we play over it more than there is any sense in.

I take so much comfort with some of the girls in the house and Laura is good to me. I like Julia Miller better and better
the more I see of her.



Oct. Thursday 29. 1874.

In which I enjoy a rarity. One. It comes to pass that a man dawns upon Normal Hall in the capacity of a visitor. I count it
an event of my life. I receive it with a fluttering worthy of the occasion! The History Class show off particularly, Mary
Conley who greatly congratulates herself. I spend the evening in NOrmal Hall preparing for tomorrow and what there
was left of the evening amounted to very little in the estimation of my favorite writer, the author. Almost every night I
am called upon to say Farewell, a long farewell to all my plans.



Oct. Friday 30. 1874.

In which we live in exciting times! Friday is getting to be a feast day, metaphorically considered. Everything wakes up
in Normal Hall and I fly around and much abound. Then when it stops I feel about given out. This is a rare, uncommon
state. Don't do it.

I get a large bundle from home and it makes me feel clear up. Presently I appear in my clean blue and white print. If I
feel ever so down and jogged out it always does me over to dress up. This is as it should be. I manage to get out a Greek
lesson and feel some good over it. Memorabilia is harder than I ever dreamed.



Oct. Saturday 31. 1874.

In which its very well to lay out plenty of work to do on Saturday! We shall always do it. It is so satisfactory. If one
wishes to feel most comfortable let that person instead to do a great many things on Saturday and then go to West
Rutland in the morning and to Fair Haven in the afternoon! Nothing will succeed more perfectly.

There are signs in the air and inside our shoes. The omen is frost. We were vigorously entertained by Miss Brown who
charmed us in a most striking manner with the full discription of Mr. Griswold's expected proposal to Miss Wilber and
Miss M's probable reply. Imagine me taking that home train and la [bete] getting off the second station! Take in the
heights and depths of it! I am found in a house of which I have dreamed my fancies rest among the plans of their own
creation!



Nov. Sunday 1. 1874.

In which phases are varied. I open my eyes upon splendor which I was doubtless born to but have never enjoyed! I take
it all even going up on the cupola and looking through an open glass, or taking in the length and breadth of the
magnificent parlors, as if I had never known the one little dreadful room in the house with Mrs. Bell. Satie was invited
to dinner with us. The church service is so like old Sundays and it's a dear privilege to be near the dear Lord in the silent
memorials. My first communion with little Satie.

Evening and I am at my corner by the red spread. The marble house has vanished! Miss T.B. enlarges upon the utility of
the water tank down stairs as a means of shortening our monotonous existence. She says mournfully, "The gay will
laugh when thou art gone", and I continue, "And each one as before will chase his favorite phantom". This was short-
sighted in me. Miss T.B. at once [expands], yes, their favorite phantom Miss Bromley. They will gather around the
trunk & knock & knock & say Miss Bromley may I go to the [Parks] [Office]! May Miss Stafford go with me?



Nov. Monday 2. 1874.

In which the leaves go and the comforts begin to take their place. This like the titles of many books has no connection
whatever with what I am going to say. This is indicative of great gain's. It always is!

Mip T.B. tells a funny story about Katie Fallon, it occurred when Katie was on a visit to the room adjoining ours. While
there after [...] ghost stories, Katie proclaims, "O, I am all of a shiver". Miss T.B. adds as a memorable supplement,
"May Miss Stafford be all of a shiver too." The day ran away with us but we did lots of things we meant to do, which is
at least a spark to be added to our zeal! Miss [Withington] shows as yet no signs of a [drouth]. She is still accessible by
fords.

I pronounce French audibly. I am going to be obliged to stop here but this is as far as the list goes, only this and nothing
more. A lovely birthday comes from my darling "In memory of the time we used to sing it in the home of blessed
memory."



Nov.Tuesday 3. 1874.

In which the girl wonders how so many happy things could come at once. Think of it ye barren days without voice or
language. Think of my three letters and what they say to me as my heart reads and reads! Think of the beautiful motto
that I love so that shall bless my eyes, always and for ages. There was a charming part of an evening for me at Dr.
Sandord's with Mr. and Mrs. Hall of Pittsford. I can tell myself how nice it was and she will understand!

Mip T.B. says interestedly "Come Miss Bromley aren't you going to take that little frolic in the Normal tonight. Go over
in the Normal and have some fun". And with haste I dip out leaving her in the midst of a kerosene bath.



Nov.Wednesday 4. 1874.

In which mine is the deep joy, the unspoken fervor, the sacred fury of the fight. This is one of the days when Fannie
likes to talk to herself, and to God. What she says in the still moments which she must talk, let us hope will make her
waht she finds it so hard to be, "tender and pitiful, ever the same".

Sue's first letter from Chebanse blesses me, and I welcome it with all my birthday cheer. A surprise gives the signal for
the rapid flight of my senses, it involves the shelling up of sundry parties in the clothes-pins even to Remember
[Murphy] against when we have locked up, these many nights, for whose benefit we have grown so inconsistent! We go
skirmishing round for a place to put the lovely toilet, [...] I, to put in words in response in being told that one of the
quaint little pieces is for kinder Mary Conley immediately goes distracted to think [of] Mip B's using [handles] &
[needing] that [dish].

Satie sent in some flowers & a little note before breakfast by [E...].



Nov.Thursday 5. 1874.

In which a beautiful surprise comes by mail. There is one who has a loving thought for me certainly, so says my darling
little ring of four pearls. Miss T.B and Miss Brown love it to the lower hall and called me down that I might open to
them my gifts not of gold frankincense & myrrh but gold and pearls. I wore it back up stairs with a step pretty light,
some of the girls in the second course afterwards related that they saw it the moment Miss B. came in. Yes, says wise
Satie Rising. Miss B. cast her pearls before. Miss T.B. is beginnig a series of distinguishing feats. The first in the course
opened by our knocking vigorously at her own door. She was greatly abashed on being discovered. The great scene of
the evening proved to be our letter, postmarked & delivered to Miss Miller.



Nov.Friday 6. 1874.

In which we go smelling around. Mip T.B. aroused me by saying as we seat ourselves around the red spread "How stale
tonight. Things are [beaming stagnant], for lack of something exciting like the arrival of toilet sets or little rings by
marl!"

Odoriferous breezes are wafted to us from the lower regions and we all seize our pitchers and went down in search of
warm water. Candy and an invitation to it.

All along of this we stand on waiting posture to have the hours cheered by some performances in light gymnastics. They
grow exciting when our worthy gymnast vibrates between the two floors! You must have heard of the big hole there.
You'll hear of her yet.

I mustn't forget to tell how Miss Julia spoke her little piece and she did not mention "put your head & c.." There's more
to say.



Nov. Saturday 7. 1874.

In which Mip T.B. continues to distinguish herself. No serious results of last nights fall are as yet apparent. The day
being withal so perfect in all its parts, suggests a ride might invigorate. It will be Mip T.B. who will ask, say this girl. At
last she asks, and Mr. Hyde's exciting "certainly" comes pouring up the register. That was all there was of it. In despair
we wait for the vision of a horse and it gets to be decidedly, ye "non cheval". Then it comes about in the course of things
that it becomes [neccesary] for me to look upon a new baby. The baby's face will be a [haunt] for an indefinite period, as
it prepared to cry at the vision of me! My companion is slightly amused at baby and I!



Nov.Sunday 8. 1874.

In which it is hard telling what I am up to! or done to, which would describe it better. On the event of taking my first
mouthful I am heard asking to be excused and next seen looking into the green pail!

It is now decreed by those stirring scenes that I keep quiet and blessed can't begin to describe it. The pain going leaves
me hushed and tranquil! The holy ministries fill me with thoughts tender and far away. Such honors. I feel some of the
tendencies of the heart that bled and broke. I feel more like receiving the Kingdom of God as a little child. Comfort one
another with His words!



Nov.Monday 9. 1874.

In which my cold assumes the character of an imagination.

Indescribable sensations give my otherwise quiet life a new charm. Breathing is performed chiefly by my mouth and
ears, and the rest of the entertainment takes place in my back. Its too bad that all this suffering can have no higher
sounding name than a cold. It ought to call forth more sympathy. I commence a new method of frolic, by sitting the first
course at their written examination. This means new [terrors] to me! I have queer kinds of fun.

Mip T.B.'s second distinguishing feat was too much for her. She is sick enough to go off early to bed. I then enjoy the
[feliciters] of a name both and it makes me feel O, so much better.



Nov. Tuesday 10. 1874.

In which I don't like it much! I don't like so much spice in my life. As I feel now I'd like a little "even tenor". An
existence flavored with a successful cold and a written examination partakes no longer of any thing to desire.

Others have work beside me. It will be a long time ere I shall forget the little sad voice which said over and over so
pitifully last night "I want mamma". When I got into bed she took my hand and held it O, so tight and went to sleep
thinking that it was mothers! Beautiful delusion!

The evening of this day, November 10, made Mip Ten Broeck a little more free from pain, and a little hungry. It made
us both desire an independent pleasure and gave us the felicity of skirmishing round for a plate, a fork, some vinegar,
some pepper, some salt. A few of the oysters are spared for the morning repast.



Nov.Wednesday 11. 1874.

In which I am called upon to announce the close of the first quarter. I am clasped in the cold arms of Duty. This is why I
am not on my way to Michigan. You find me a favorite phantom [chased], and not a graceful Sophomore. I am learning
how slow to expect all things to move for one girl! Mip T.B.'s smile again illuminates our abode. She no longer needs
pillows for her feet or looking glasses tied on to a chair.

We miss Miss Fallon. Nobody can take her place wherever she drift in life, my good wishes follow her. May peace be
around and Mip Stafford ever go with her!

I am happy to announce a settlement with H.H. Shaw, and a few minutes of composure following.



Nov.Thursday 12. 1874.

In which I am not at a loss for little worries. I suppose there's as many worries in one day as another, if one has on the
right mind to hunt them up. I meet a few rought angles, and some things not to suit me! Alas, Who don't? Mr. Preston
needn't have risen as an armed man because I told him how the matter of charging interest looked to me and James
Adams, needn't have shown me what he knows about cutting matters short. These things move me! I count my good
nature dear into myself.

Inside the bower it's different, though I return to it with an empty purse!

Good cheer smiles upon me and Mip T.B. in her funniest mood! I play be good, and to smooth me I sew. My evening
almost always means that.



Nov.Friday 13. 1874.

In which we begin to talk up Alumnae gatherings! It begins by a prolonged consultation of the two learned ones. It is
resumed in the afternoon in the Normal Hall by the calling into honor a prolific swarm of standing committees. My part
of the project will give me room for vast [measures]. Madame Worcester is to report my present dispositon is to say
excusey-moi. This important occurence having been disposed of by me there remains for me the lingering echoes of "
vous etes tres cunning", the painful mutterings of Miss Miller's tooth and the consequent dejection, the growing alarm
as to what we are going to do when our aspiring ivy reaches the top of the string, the arrrival in our midst of Miss
Fallon, the growing attachment to Mr. Hyde's rocking chair!

I write along tender letter to Satie to draw her [woo] her to me again.



Nov.Saturday 14. 1874.

In which no day was ever more worthy of a chronicle. It has been replete in chapters of incidents and chapters of
accidents! We now possess some knowledge about our worthy cheval that we did not enjoy before. He is a dark lane!
We distinguished ourselves by arriving at a worsing promptly with every train. We reversed ourselves and the buggy
only once and not quite that, or, I shouldn't be here to tell of it. We put all of the day together and call it a fete. We eat
dinner at Laura's and we sing going home in the moonlight. All this is strangely like some of the old days when I was a
part of the old Seminary before. We sit down to the waiting cheer in the Bower, and shake hands metaphorically, calling
it a good time.

Satie meets me at the door, her face perfectly lit up [...] [hold her to] [...] [close & earnest].



Nov.Sunday 15. 1874.

In which we take on new airs. Apropos of this, was the fact that we are escorted to lunch in the most extraordinary
manner and shown in to our seats in a way "quite new". "Yes, it is quite new". Mr. Woodruff improves. Who can doubt
it or does? I wish the church would raise his salary and let him do the singing too. The rest of the day hasn't much to
say. I wish it had and would speak loud enough for me to hear. It's an increasing trial to keep these pages, lately.

Our talk tonight my Satie girl is the first real good one to me. I come back from it with almost the anointing of a prayer
meeting.

I wish I might eat Sunday dinners somewhere else.



Nov.Monday 16. 1874.

In which new things conspire! My French and Greek drag wearily along crowding themselves into days already full.
The next new thing to distract me is the unexpected honor of assisting to decorate our most worthy Town Hall.
Somebody who ought to didn't. Whereupon we marched ourselves to the "forward march". It results in a [beam] for Mip
Ten Broeck but none for me! I have had a long campaign of permitting other girls to enjoy such luxuries, and ask
pitiously "Where is mine?". My [festive] turns out a misfortune, much labor to a bad purpose. Mine is too fat, and
causes our worthy Smith to make mental comments. We are called by Mary Conley to lunch in a distance of the house.
Then Laura beckons my [steriously] and [lures] us to a tempting quaff of ice-water.



Nov.Tuesday 17. 1874.

In which we have fallen upon strange times. Not that it should rain. This is wise, and well. But that Mr. [Domson]
should read Shakespeare, that we should be blessed with free tickets, a large delegation goeth not from our time-
honored institution! A close observer would notice that I frown as to this, but frown because the divine Shakespeare
should fall into such hands! I've not watched Fannie close today and I feel as if it would never be helped. Have I not
stood in the desolation that comes after such a day so that I know full well it's sunless depths!

Am I never going to be helped or must I [needs] be shown and shown and shown that without Him I can do nothing!
and that such goeth not out but by fasting and prayer!



Nov.Wednesday 18. 1874.

In which "Madame De [Ruyt...] will appear once more. She will not only appear but sing!" So says our worthy head, by
request! It now devolves upon me to chronicle that to Miss T.B. fell the mournful duty of sending the girls on ahead!
Their after account of this was that they "went on the day before". A few can appreciate this! The concert lacked not in
distinguishing traits, neither our rendering of it on our return! A form stands in the centre of our room. It holds a
cracker, it [murmurs]. Mip Ten Broeck will now appear. She will not only appear but eat it!

I forgot to be [fond] and make a note on the lively dinner graced by the Misses Hyde. We open our most blue eyes to
hear our worthy head of the table addressed as "Eddie" and talked to [fine] and easy!



Nov.Thursday 19. 1874.

In which I am still distracted. Tonight meant party. It is to be feared the wholr day meant nothing less. Between times
we cracked! This meant crack away. It was alarming to behold how much one paper bag would hold! I gave the
finishing touch to our table by covering it with a pillow slip! I wake up too late to find that I am once more conspired
against. I am given over to hardness of heart and Mr. Castle. Have I your tenderest pity? I am an orphan and away from
home!

When I get back to our invited guests I find concealed agitation. It is soon explained by my surreptitious glances in the
direction of the bureau. I gaze upon mats, a great many, nor on mats alone, a picture case! I am in a most receiving state
of mind. I invite them all again!



Nov.Friday 20. 1874.

In which for a wee while I am the "girl I knew of old" and I do the old things. I seem back, away back tonight and once
more I am holding my Satie in my arms, and whispering to her of God and heaven. The girl that I was when I stood
pleading her to Christ's [stood] to be [recounted] to God, that girl I am almost once more, as I stand and hold her hands,
and thank God that He has done the blessed work, and made her say, softly and solemnly "Jesus is so near tonight".

The work of the Kingdom seems such a blessed work tonight. My heart warms and expands at the thought of the
hundred-fold in this life that it brings, and of "in the world to come, life everlasting!".

It is so sweet to pray once more with Satie, and to know as I know tonight that we are not alone for the Father is with us.



Nov. Saturday 21. 1874.

In which I meet the most ardent expectations of my friends! Nobody expected me to do full justice to motto cards today
but I am certain I deserve most well selected praise. I make unexpected progress. Satie leaves with the eyes of the
family upon her and I come upstairs and feel a great empty place!

It comes about that once more we eat oysters. This in itself is not wrong, but it violates a point of order to go strewing
vinegar cruets around the hall and making people come not in horror to see.

Mip Brown in the act of distinguishing herself falls down stairs and sprains her ankle. This is a crowning catastrophe.
My turn awaits me. Fall I may, and fall I must!



Nov.Sunday 22. 1874.

In which the day is full of II Corinthians 5. It seems as if every verse of that chapter has shone and sparkled for me
today. It is so above and beyond the things I move among. Take courage, heart. This is the shadow that the substance!

The door of the tent has looked toward the quiet meadow and across the meadow has been light. I am so sure that the
Lord will bear me through.

Some of the sweets of Sunday night are missing. The voices that sing are all growing a thing to miss. Laura is sprained,
Satie and Mary Conley away, Minnie sick, Julia's last Sunday, and she comes in for a Sunday talk.

Has the girl told herself yet whether the little home shall see her, or does she pulsate to and fro, just yet awhile!



Nov.Monday 23. 1874.

In which the girl passes through an experience. This does not surprise you. Her states and stages of experience are as
manifold as are Mary Conley's visits for a subject! The present experience turns over hard chapters involving as it does
more self denial than she likes. I have it in my heart now to believe that she will come out of it all right. That she will in
a surer sense take up the cross!

Not much of anything helped. The weather was dubious. Everything whistled and rattled and drifted.
Two letters went on their way. It said to the little mother, "Mustn't" and to my precious Satie "Can't".
How gladly will I sit through these coming days so full of what I shall miss if only I can know once for sure that I am
ruling my spirit, that I am stronger to deny myself.



Nov. Tuesday 24. 1874.

In which there are pangs in car whistles. There's a girl here that is wanting to go home. Some days she don't hear the
cars, scarcely at all. Today every car ring goes through her. She felt as bad as she could before the H.B. letter came. I
don't believe she is sorry down in her heart for this hard day. The pain it brings is so sweet and the savior is so precious.

It was so much easier to kiss Mip Withington and to be patient to the girls in their little worries.

The home letter [bans] the child to come. [Darwine], bless the loving boy heart, sends dear words to me. And still the
cars whistle by, and send me shouts of [songs] which are almost pain.



Nov.Wednesday 25. 1874.

In which this looks pretty hard! I know that the dreaded moment has come. I know just how it feels. There are no little
things to be learned about it that I do not understand. The joy that I can do it makes my face bright as I kiss the girls off
and watch the trains go.

How sort of nice life is, even such times!

I find so many little last things to do. Then there's Satie's Alter to read a great many times and a cracker supper in my
rocking chair. It is dark when Winnie comes, but the moonlight will bless us out of its bigness and Mrs. Lloyd makes
me forget everything but her sweetness and her loving thought.



Nov.Thursday 26. 1874.

In which there are paths of peace. Quiet ways into which I have strayed. I hear His voice and I know Him, it is not a
stranger that I follow. Think of me in the putty sitting room by the big wood-stove, which makes a big noise whenever I
turn the little draft. Think of the bright rag carpet, the seven stages in the life of woman and man, and the girl there
playing with examination. Don't think of the little empty place by mother's table, and the little words about a girl that is
away from [the day]!

[Lived] to the realization of a [genious] English plum-pudding. I realize now how little space there was left for it.

It's a luxury to find a stray minute to George McDonald. And I thank the dear father all the way through. He [crowneth]
the [fear] with His [...].



Nov.Friday 27. 1874.

In which I have a strange experience with a strange young man. I am straying on to a "quite new" theme for the
deliberation of my mature years. He was worthy of it all. Should I exhaust myself he is still worthy of it. He hails from
Andover Theological Seminary with all his blushing honors thick upon him! He considers me a person discerning a few
well-timed suggestions. The [Misses] [Allord] are present and mobile. At the tea the learned sir being asked if he would
partake of a certain article replies savagely "No I'm full". All remarks made forcible by a sweet smile.

I must not forget how holy was the little bedtime hour. There was a [veiled] [finest] in the star-light-dim. It was Christ,
the Lord!



Nov.Saturday 28. 1874.

In which the Father knoweth. I count it happy for me that there should be in store for me the quiet pleasant dinner visit
and after it a ride. That out of the calculation should be kept all strange young men. Mr. Allard meets me with a
staggering question in theology. He thinks I'm the chap his daughters took tea with last night. The dinner to which I was
called made it necessary for a fool to be brought to the slaughter. Since I came to Vermont many a chicken has left
Vermont. Our ride and then evening, the long evening full of lessons to be learned for this world I go back to and full of
the light that shineth in darkness.



Nov. Sunday 29. 1874.

In which I find myself feeling sorry. It feels now as if I should always be sorry, as if this dear afternoon when I came
back so happy with Winnie would always be filled with the sorriest sorry, when I think of it, always after. It's about the
little picture that I sent for.

My room looks up at me with a bright face. All the little things smile so, but I don't stay only to warm me and to think
and then I dawn upon my friend the doctor. This is a new made of existence, this flopping, but I can't do anything or be
any where but I come across some comforts, some nice things kept bright for me.



Nov.Monday 30. 1874.

In which I get sorrier, but I keep thinking about the little picture, till the scene is completed and then I go in to teach a
few benches, which distracts all the struggling sunshine there was in me, or in my clothes. The author of some of my
sorrows [answers] but darling appears not at all. This increases my powers of being agreeable to such an extent that my
society is eagerly sought. "You'll hear of her yet'. She's better to Mip T.B. than I'd think she'd be.

A postal card cheers me not from the great responder. There are tw darling letters from home, and they say not to scold
mother, but she has gone and brought home for the girl a new silk. They think down there its time that she had one.



Dec. Tuesday 1. 1874.

In which there's a better. The world is a better place to live in and sunshine comes, on the evening train. There are the
old laughs again in our room and I try to be good and not think of laying up little hard things. Surely I haven't time for
this in my short life. I have only time to be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving, even as God for Christ-sake has forgiven
me.

I am glad to see sunshine back, it comes like a prayed for blessing and makes me know there are hours of love laid up
for me.

The girls all seem very jolly after their home trip and they have lots to tell. Isn't my story, the still story best of all?



Dec. Wednesday 2. 1874.

In which I make the world a little brighter for some people. I am thoroughly out of my Monday night mood and go to
work with a will to see what there is for me to do. Take some time to [...] that I have downs as well as ups. This is a
source of regret too, allow me to say, to those who have to be with me. I stand the girl up straight and I say, "Are you
comfortable to have about?" This is what she must tell me, and then I shall know how much of a Christian she is. I tell
you what, you may believe it or not, but I'm good today. I have embraced Mip Withington. Could there be proof,
beyond this? I try to radiate geography tribulations and make the highway's of grammar and arithmetic glorious! Hard
job!



Dec. Thursday 3. 1874.

In which I faint and pursue. You will judge at me by the tone of this that the key note strikes some lower than
yesterdays. You may say this and not be mistaken. When you hear from me possible suggestions of fainting and
pursuing you'll guess first that my back aches and you'll be right. You'll think of me twisting about and writhing early in
the afternoon wondering how I am ever to drag myself through the five unsuitable second course classes. You'll know
that I couldn't go to bed after supper, but the evening lay through hedges and ditches. No wonder I faint. I am glad to
hear you pursue.



Dec. Friday 4. 1874.

In which I record an arrival. The first of it was a trunk in the hall. Pretty soon voices from Mr. Hdye's room and the
rattle of plates. (A new way of spelling his name!) We guess from our locality that the new teacher has arrived but
nothing definite rewards our activity at guessing, and the Professor is very silent.

The one busines of life now has to do with a Normal Reunion. Nothing else can demand or expect attention. We must
for awhile postpone preparing for heaven.

I work on mottos mostly and send thoughts out after a poem. They come back finding no rest for the [sobs] of their
[feels]. It is not known where the poem is to come from.



Dec. Saturday 5. 1874.

In which its about so. A spots not in any way picturesque marks the haven't of a would be poet. It is not a shady work
where fancies might give birth to fancies, for an empire that might propagate a "flow". I have hallowed it and the first
part of my immortal verses is brought into this terrible world. Then I go visiting. I find there's another great world all
about my little one. It quite surprises me. I thought the Seminary and the park was all there was of it. There's things
outside and people. Homes full of sunny beginnings and radiant with baby faces. And, I told you just now I went
visiting. It was visiting. Does Lora guess how much she has done for me. And her words make me proud. "I have been
reading Patience Strong's Outings and it sounds as if Miss Bromley wrote it!"



Dec. Sunday 6. 1874.

In which we met Jesus by the way. I didn't get to church. I did not forsake the assembling of myself together by an
intentional deviation. Far from it. You need not develop, nor state further, nor bring out several points, unless you
greatly desire it which you don't. I have a salutary washing. As Mr. Tator would say, "There was a plunger a [wash]".
When Sunshine comes we have a talk. It is about "the King and our Elder Brother" not a long but a dear and holy talk. I
go out of it down into the supper room as I fancy the dsciples way have come down from the mount. My heart is humble
and full of tender pity, and in it there is malice toward none and charity to all. It was the look in his dear eye that
humbled.



Dec. Monday 7. 1874.

In which I become my favorite author. I am found no more in my accustomed haunts, and there is given silence around
the red spread, where of old the voice of France and Frances was heard in our land, and lispings of what was once the
tongue of Athens and Sparta! Strange doings are afloat. I mostly engage myself in rhyming and unlike Mr. Poet
[Laureate]. I do not find myself a perfect master of rhythm. So I command the aids of spade and shovel and dig. This
grows wearing.

All [unusual] [words] of spirit my friends I have no doubt will gladly excuse, attributing it of course to my poetry.
Seminary breakfasts have entered upon a buckwheat campaign.



Dec. Tuesday 8. 1874.

In which [Venus] transits. This is a great day to the favored beings who live in Asia and Australia. Very. In eight years
more it transits again and its next performance will then be witnessed in the year 2004. I cannot impart a vast amount of
information to my one reader, on this lofty topic, but I'll appoint eight years from now as the time, and then I'll "bring
out several points!"

This side of the world was very still today. Its transits were unobserved. I might have been found moving about among
Normals, or filling the blackboard, or leaking "from peak, to peak the salting crags among" in search of live thunder.
(It doesn't often thunder in rhyme.)



Dec. Wednesday 9. 1874.

In which times grow exciting. The village of C. rises to the merits of things. Two or three teams have been seen in the
street! You never saw a place so alive! This evening most every body goes to a party at Mrs. Jackman's. This is like a
tidal wave over the town! The debate calls forth the eager ones at the Sem. One of whom we have before heard, makes a
party in Normal Hull and goes to it, to the sound of the trumpet that sings of fame. I have a little frolic in the Normal
very often lately.

Spirits from the vasty deep do not come by calling. So it comes to pass that the poem grows slowly, and the wherewith
to make it is in the vasty deep and won't come.



Dec. Thursday 10. 1874.

In which we go to an oyster party and meet no oysters. It isn't my fault. I made known the message as it came from the
anxious Dr. to my severest critic Mip E.L.B., and the interpretation thereof consisted of meat and potatoes! I humbly ask
her to consider that just as much as the baby was nicer than she expected. Just so much must she place to the side that
lacks oysters. I owe up that visiting isn't the nicest thing in the world to me. I am ready to pledge myself not to go again
until I get up or down into the spirit of it. I'm just distracted sitting prim and trying to be nice. I [reconvinced] this [state]
for those who write poetry! It's well to practise a little.



Dec. Friday 11. 1874.

In which I pause among life's solemn hours. The last dear anniversary day of the year. I keep everything out of it that the
day itself did not ask. And I enter into the sea, calm. It came over my restlessness, solemnly, and the blood of Jesus
came over my sins!

The day tells me that I have been planted in the likeness of His death. It gives me sweet and tender promise of a coming
resurrection and in that resurrection I am to be planted in His likeness! "It doth not yet appear what we shall be but we
know that when He appeareth we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is".



Dec. Saturday 12. 1874.

In which I am not at my brightest! Indications around the eyes are threatening. That's the place to look! The black
streaks are a warning. Mip E.T.B. takes up her residence in the Seminary school-room having begun on an existence [to]
[trim]! I begin on an existence to flop and find rhyming and flopping antagonistic! After Herculanean efforts I give up
poetry, and go at mother's motto. It was wise. The school-room trimmer comes up stairs supperless and I haste to the
rescue with a pitcher fresh from the precincts of Langdon's. Responses take the following form. Vous êtes très bonne. Je
vous remercie, remercie, remercie!



Dec. Sunday 13. 1874.

In which the beauty and glory are hidden. We all get up late and feel like nothing in particular. My room calls loudly for
a broom and Satie breaks the Sabbath and flourishes the broom in "immortal vigor". I don't go to church at all and the
rest go most of the evening, up to the last prayer. Each church in town gets a few, but not at the earliest moment. I
managed to get washed once more and wrote a little and read a little, and slept a little. At supper the girls laughed and
the Sunday [thus] strayed around somewhere out of our reach.

Something hid its [banner] from us.



Dec. Monday 14. 1874.

In which some people are called to work under difficulties. This has been the story for some time, and I am some
people. With everybody's mind wandering through space, and ideas floating in mystic realms, I am set up to call these
spirits from the vasty deep, and proceed to work as if everything wasn't about to happen! I stand it! (In more senses than
one!)

The evening spoke of closing exercises in the seminary, and many people up there to see! "They done very well".

My roommate comes up stairs with life at low ebb. She is quite ready to put herself away for the time being, and does. I
write poems.



Dec. Tuesday 15. 1874.

In which some people are given a chance to distinguish themselves. This time it isn't me. I flutter away behind the
scenes, and hurry the thing along! The Normals are seen and heard, (some of them are heard) and then things are hurried
together, and once more the Seminary is still. I come up stairs with my life ebbing about as low as it ever has, and
eveybody is too tired to think about me, but the dear Christ. I put myself in His dear care and He gives me rest. Mip
T.B. tells me in such a solemn way that she "isn't coming to this room to live when she comes back". She tells it in such
a way that it hurts some.



Dec. Wednesday 16. 1874.

In which I come to a stand-still. Very. I don my big apron and go to work as chirp as any one could possibly
order, but I don't stay donned and chirp! I write geography on the board until pretty soon you don't see me.

Up in Winnie's room I lie down and I stay. It is now that I begin a little to know Mip Hastings. She comes in and her
talk brightens me. It is like what hasn't been in the old Sem. since that June day in the corner room.

There's always something for us, even in the days and hours when we find ourselves asking for light. God takes care that
we do not dash our feet against the stairs!



Dec. Thursday 17. 1874.

In which times grow more and more toward a wake up. I go around with about as much energy as George Stone. I have
got when I can't go on much farther at present and I've a mountain and an Atlantic to cross before I see my mother!
Don't go to fretting about it Miss B. I can't cheer you much, wish I could. Your little hands were never made to write
poems!

I have distracted Mip Hastings, who volunteers to serve in the capacity of amanuensis! We are glad to leave the pieces
and be comforted by the drama. It was a perfect success and Laura can rise out of sight in her [scarrings] over the
Captain. How glad I am to see Dannie, and the dear package fresh from mother's blessed hands!



Dec. Friday 18. 1874.

In which I read a [pome]. Yes yes, You will at once infer that to me this was the prominent [feature] of the day. How
very interesting we are to ourselves! I have been kept awake over this poem. This is a delight in which there was a
single participant. [Me]. There'll never be any more. Our alumnae dinner was like the feasts of Zion, few came, but
those that appeared ate! I was radiant at the reception, helped along by a black silk.

In brief expressive pauses I had little visits with Dr. French, whom it was a treat to see. Again after a great day, the
Seminary grew still and solemn in its stillness, and then Jennie and I enjoyed each other until morning. Who could sleep
feeling as we did?



Dec. Saturday 19. 1874.

In which I embrace my mother. This is a cheerful close to a long chapter of life which I have been taking mixed. I see
the trunks go one by one and the sleigh go off with the girls, and every thing and everybody is happy, happy. As the
11.25 train moved off, Mr. Hyde turned to a friend & remarked that that car-load belonged to him! I pick up whats to go
and stow away what's to stay, and while I'm doing it I sing away to myself, or chat away in a most lively manner to Miss
Hastings. There's a train for me at last & Satie and Dannie and I [sing] our flight southward. The little home looks up at
me and smiles, and I have entered safely into its rest.



Dec. Sunday 20. 1874.

In which no bells ring. The iron tongue in the town at the Sem. is still for there's no one to molest her ancient solitary
reign. The Church bells of this my present city could not awake a girl who has not slept for a week, and so it came to
pass that our eyes opened out upon this world of ours between eleven and twelve, and we came to a realizing sense of
things at a period somewhat later. Just so before us lay the whole day, time to do everything in and nobody to make us
hurry. Dr. Webber preached in the Refomred Church and we enjoyed the service very much indeed. He took that ever
dear text, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do".

The night was too beautiful for words.



Dec. Monday 21. 1874.

In which the ways are ways of pleasantness. There's a new order of things. We fall in with it naturally enough, strange
as it is. The breakfast is appointed for an hour when we can conveniently attend to it, and the back parlor makes itself
particularly cosy for us. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps also had our interest in view, for she wrote the "Silent Partner". I read it
to Satie and the little pretty sentences which I like fell in with the day, like the "light of the maple leaves".

The Board of Hope entertained us in Harmony Hall in a royal manner. Their echoes roll!



Dec. Tuesday 22. 1874.

In which I go back in the years. We have come to a quiet day. It is full of what has been, and of this we can talk
solemnly and tenderly together. It began in the young people's prayer meeting. Though we did not know a single person
in the room, we fell not strangers. How could we when the dearest Guest was Christ the Lord?

We take out the little girl letters and read them. Very sweet and tender they seem, and very sad too, in the little appeals.
"Please pray for me". How glad we are that the "light about the Head is shining on her as she goes". Satie can talk
tonight, and she tells me about the trouble that has come into her life, and the love that made her able to bear it.



Dec. Wednesday 23. 1874.

In which we find and enter into the Christmas joys. If anybody wants to see what from there is in having Christmas let
that body present himself in the Albany stores! That is what we did. We were a part of the jolly crowd for we had
presents to buy, and a great many things to be shown before we could make the all important decisions. We come home
and find mother glad to see us and find oysters to [...] hungry girls!

We betake [ourselves] to the speedy enjoyment of each other, when we are waited upon by a caller in the person of Mip
Monk. We leave from her all the important [advantages] of at once learning to dance!



Dec. Thursday 24. 1874.

In which we all feel good. The last little quiet talk and read is over, and Satie must go. I try to keep her, but she goes.
Aggie goes as far as Troy with her to see her safely on the other train, and at home we get ready to find full enjoyment
in ourselves. The distribution of Christmas gifts takes place in the evening, amidst general enthusiasm. We are all
pleased, and we are very much in love with all of us. I bought a little book for me in Albany which is going to help me
in the upward path. "The Imitation of Christ", by Thomasa Kempsis.



Dec. Friday 25. 1874.

In which we are called upon to be merry. It isn't very easy to be anything we are expected to be. Most of us are not
fashioned after that sort. To sit down a whole day and make an attempt to be "merrie" is about as cheerful a mode of
existence as teaching Tedie Drake. We don't go to work any such way. We are glad enough of all the little pleasant
things that come, make the best of every drop of cheer that trickles down and there's a good deal after all. Some of it
mother [wows] in and some of it Aggie scolds in, and I chat mine in, or work it up in [torn] motto cards.

We have a cosy chicken dinner and the day is hereby honored.



Dec. Saturday 26. 1874.

In which I brood. I talk about things a little and then I keep still and ponder. I recommend the latter. So does mother.

In the evening the Episcopal Sunday School designed to make our pleasures more. An important [feature] was my [hat].
It was introduced to the rector's wife. Hers was not like it! Aggie wishes I'd get another one ready to wear. Mother says,
"yes, but your hair always looks so."

I will gratify their most unexpected demands before Mrs. Cook gets through with me.
The evening mail brings a letter from Satie. Very sweet and full of her best love.



In which I come to a great calm. It isn't quite as good as the Sundays in the white house with mother all to myself, but
its nearer to those darling days than I've been since they were no more. There's a sacredness about everything, even the
little things we touch and handle.



Dec. Monday 28. 1874.

In which I do just as I have a mind to! I have better success in this when I practise chiefly on the one girl. Circumstances
and other people are not so easily managed to my mind!

Mother doesn't recommend the European plan in all families. We eat one at a time and each one eats a great many times.
It keeps the general supervisor stewing in more senses than one! I don't do anything long at a time, so to properly decide
what I would probably be doing at a stated minute could involve much integral calculus.

Mother sets her foot down that Aggie must trim my hat. So I sit down like poor Mr. Briggs.

If I had an Aunt Glegg and an Aunt Pillet they would be summoned and asked what is to be done with Fannie's hair.



Dec. Tuesday 29. 1874.

In which I have hurries to stay. I feel like as if I didn't want to go back. The things I fled from do not awaken in me a
desire to depart and be with them. This is indeed valiant! How brave you are getting to be Fannie!

I am trying to impress on mother the advantage of taking Mip Withington in this winter, but mother won't be convinced!
I've been trying to tell her that she won't need to prime the cistern. All this labor can be avoided with Flora here. Besides
she could suds the clothes in a new and novel way. Mother little knows all her advantages.

I go to a Social Sing and it makes me feel good all over. Real good soul-stirring hymns you know. What did I care
though the wind blew in my face all the way home!



Dec. Wednesday 30. 1874.

In which my thought rests itself in a present Help. This suggests time to think. This long breathing space does me good.
The thoughts that come to me out of the stillness are full of Jesus. I have felt all day like saying "My Lord and my God".

For the outer parts, there have been things to hinder as well as things to help. Aggie whews around like a March wind
getting in readiness for the [Reunion] doings at Albany. I have finished my course as regards Reunion doings and am
content to stay at home and have the pain across me in peace. Mother stands ready to take all the little stitches or little
[jawings] just whichever comes and by and by the girls get off.

Mother tugs up coal and rakes fires, is scarcely ever seen without a pail of ashes. This is her poetry of life. Also fixes
over old socks.



Dec. Thursday 31. 1874.

In which the last beam glitters on the rail. We go farther back than the page and remember that the chapter closes. The
year now dying, has been in some ways a significant one to me. I think I have learned more than ever before the
weakness of myself. I think I have learned to ask more than ever before to be gentle, and lowly in spirit. I have gone
through sorry valleys to learn.

I grow tenderer as the year goes from us. I think indeed we all grow closer to each other. This year has kept us all to one
another, and we bless it with all the blessing of our hearts. There may be a desolate place next New Year's Eve, only
God can tell. To Him we connect the past and from Him shall come the help for the days to come. "As thy days so shall
thy strength be."




















Cash Account - December.

Fare to Ann Arbor
By Saratoga 17.18
By Troy 15.19
Invitation of Christ
Thomasa Kempis.
Lee and Shepard.
A.L. Stewart
Broadway
4th Avenue
9 and 10th Sts.


Abutilon striatum
Yellow cup-like
leaf-some like
maple
sedum ternatum,
white dark [s...]
bones small
three of a [node].


9
Jan. Friday 9. 1874
What ... we live to -
Sister Nichols and Sister Croft are making their... more brilliant by adding to their faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge
- and to their knowledge a first hand .. - We hear that mostly.

The smiling face of Providence is not hid.- We are blessed with a mild, ... temperature and to folks whose mothers are
gone and to whom the Morning Light is soverign - it is a blessed thing -

After school it is so pleasant that Gertie and I walk - In the happy manner of Geoffrey Chaucer I give not to a Cantebury
Tale - Subject of the prayer