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PRICE 25 CENTS. 


f , 

LEAVES 

FROM A 

Bad Girl’s Diary. 

BY 


CHICAGO: 

OWENS PUBLISHING CO. 
530 Fulton St. 








LEAVES FROM 


fl Bfln GIRL’S nWHY 


By E. E. 



CHICAGO ; 

OWENS PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
1884. 


Copyrighted, 

1884, 

By Owens Publishing Co. 
All rights reserved. 



INTRODUCTION. 


I did not intend to write any ; but find it necessary 
to say that when I first knew Eliza Jane Smith she 
was a little girl about 1 1 years old,* and her diary 
covers a space of some two years. I hear that, as she 
grew older, she occasionally wrote in another account 
book, just like the first one. I am going to see her 
and threaten to tell her real name unless she gives it 
to me, to rewrite for the benefit of humanity. How 
she did use to try my patience. Once I offered 
her $5 if she would let me give her a good whipping. 
Shg says she got the whipping, but no money. As 
she always would remember to suit herself, I have 
my doubts. Lovingly my memory turns to those 
old days and a friendship that has stood the test of 
long years of ups and downs — mostly downs, how- 
ever. 


To THE Girls, 

Old and young, wherever found : May those who 
are worn out with the trials of' life look back and 
laugh over their early days, and then have charity 
for the present crop of “bad girls.” 

To THE Young, 

With life all before you, enjoy yourselves while 
you can, and when trouble comes — as come it will — 
throw it off. “ Never grow old in spirit, but laugh 
and grow fat.” 


4 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER 1 . 

I am not a good girl, never was, and never will be. 
I like to climb trees, chase cats, play ball with the 
boys, and ride 'a bycicle. My name is IHiza Jane 
Smith, but it ain’t nobody’s business how old I am. 
Ladies never tell their age. My big sister Sally Ann 
says she will wring my neck if I tell Tim Jones, her 
beau, that she is 25, instead of 18 — so I won’t tell 
him, but I will everybody else. I got a pen and ink 
one day and scratched mine out of the big Bible. 
I’ll get an awful licking when ma finds it out, but as 
she don’t open the Bible only when the minister 
comes, I am safe for the present. John* Henry, my 
oldest brother, says I am a nuisance, and ma groans 
every time I go near her, for I am sure to tip over 
her spool box, and ask her to mend my dress. Pa 
says it costs more to keep me in clothes than all the 
rest of the family, and if I ask him for a pair of 
shoes once a month, he takes on dreadful. To-day 
when the minister’s girls came, and I put on my new 
flowered muslin, I had to fall down and tear it 
beyond all mending, besides bumping my nose. 
We had a dolls’ part^, and the old cat was my doll. 
She didn’t like to sit up nice at the table, and, when 
I tried to make her, she jumped against the big look- 
ing-glass and broke it all to smash, and tore round 
like furyation. I’ll hide that dress, and coax cook to 
mend it to-night, but what I’ll do about the looking- 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


5 


glass I don’t know. There comes John Henry. I’ll 
promise to be good, and perhaps he will go down 
town and get a new one before ma comes to tea. 
He will do anything if I’ll only let his books and 
papers alone, and pa is rich, if he is stingy, and gives 
him lots of money for clerking for him. There never 
was a girl tried so hard to be good and failed every 
time as I do. He won’t buy a new glass — says he 
hain’t any money to fool away on me. Oh, Lordy 
gracious ! what shall I do ? 

I am always in trouble up to my ears, 

And see sights of sorrow for one of my years. 

My dresses are torn, my shoes out at the toes, 

^ My hair is all fruzzled, and sore is my nose. 

I’v# spilled ink all over the floor. 

And drawn Sally’s photo on the front door. 

Made a bed for the kittens in pa’s big chair, 

And when he sits down on them how he will swear — 

— if he does belong to the church, there are some 
things that will make the best men backslide. — 

There comes ma with company for tea, 

And ain’t I a beautiful(!!) object to see. 

John Henry will tell them the mischief I’ve done — 

He is the meanest tattler under the sun. 

I’ve cried until my eyes are red. 

I’ll say I am sick, and go to bed. 

If the man in the moon should come down to tea, 

They would lay the blame right onto me. 



6 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER 11. 

My dear Diary, you don’t know how glad I am to 
see you if you are nothing but an old account book 
that pa threw away and I picked up, and tore out all 
the leaves covered with hen-tracks — pa is an awful 
writer, most as bad as I am — and put in some sheets 
of note paper that John Henry bought to write 
verses on to his girl. How he did tear round when 
he couldn’t find that paper, but I kept’ still and never 
said nothing, and then he said he would bet a cent 
(J. H. always bets his small change first) that I knew 
where it was, ’cause I kept still one minute ; just as 
if a girl can’t keep still without knowihg anything. 
He said he had a lot of lovely verses all made up in 
his head, and he would give me 5 cents if I’d hurry 
down to the store and get him a box of extra-fine, 
gilt-edge note paper. I made him pay me before I 
would stir a step, because once he promised me a 2 - 
cent piece, and I haven’t got my pay yet. I did 
hurry down, but he didn’t make me agree to hurry 
back ; so I looked at all the pretty things in the 
shop-windows, and talked to all the girls I met, and 
threw stones at Georgie Hackett and Peck’s boy, 
’cause they called me “Lazy Jane.” When I got 
home, John Henry boxed my ears for being gone 
two hours, and said he had forgot all his verses and 
must make up a lot more. That horrid, mean, old 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


7 


book-store man had given me foolscap, instead of 
gilt-edge note paper, and then J. H. boxed my ears 
again, and pulled my hair and declared I did it 
myself on purpose. He won’t never pull my hair 
again ; for I was so mad that I went right off to the 
barber that shaves pa, and coaxed him to shingle it 
all short like a boy’s, and as I hadn’t any money he 
charged it to my big brother. 

Bought a lot of candy with my 5 cents, and me 
and Georgie Hackett and Peck’s boy eat it all up 
coming home, and they said they were sorry for me, 
and wouldn’t never call me names again, for that 
was the way they were used at home themselves. 
Just then a big boy came along and saw my head, 
and he yelled out “Tom-boy,” and Peck’s boy he up 
with a brick and knocked him down, and said he 
would teach him to insult a young lady what was 
under his protection, and then I cut for home. They 
were all eating dinner, and pa says “Eliza Jane” (he 
always calls me that when I am late to dinner), 
“what in the name of common sense have you done, 
and where have you been } ” I was mad, and told 
him to put on his specs so he could see, and he called 
me a saucy girl, and wouldn’t let me have any din- 
ner ; but put me up stairs and locked the door and 
carried off the key in his pocket. I didn’t care if he 
did, for I knew how to get out, and I was bound to 
have my dinner if I died for it, for I was hungrier 


8 


LEAVES FROM A 


than all Barnum’s menagerie. I just took ma’s sew- 
ing-machine screw-driver, that she has looked all 
over the house for, and unfastened the lock, and went 
down the back stairs barefoot, so as not to make any 
noise, and grabbed a big custard pie made for des- 
sert — cook was talking to the hired man and didn’t 
see me — and scud up stairs quick as scat, put on the 
lock again, hid the screw-driver, eat the pie, and 
threw the plate out of the window into Deacon Jen- 
kins’ side yard. Pretty soon there was an awful 
row down stairs, when they found the pie gone. 
Cook and the hired man declared they hadn’t been 
out of the kitchen a minute, and guessed that the 
spirits must have taken it. Pa don’t swear, because 
he belongs to the Y. M. C. A., but he said a few big 
words then that wouldn’t have sounded well in a 
prayer meeting. He loves custard pie most as well 
as myself, and I was kinder sorry I didn’t leave him 
a little bit. No one suspected me, for I was locked 
in my room and he had the key ; and they won’t ever 
know unless they find this, and they will catch a 
whole nest of weasels sound asleep when that hap- 
pens. I don’t care — pa was real mean, he might have 
given me my dinner, and made John Henry behave 
himself, and let me alone. 

There he comes now, to let me out and give me 
some supper. Pll cry, and promise to be good, and 
he will be sorry for keeping me up here starving all 


BAD girl’s diary. 


9 


the afternoon, and give me a big chunk of fruit cake. 
If pa didn’t have such an awful quick temper,. I 
could get along with him very well, but I must go, 
so good-by my dear old book, until I get another 
chance to write. 



CHAPTER III. 

Once more, my dear Diary, I take you out of your 
hiding-place, and tell you all about my troubles. 
Aunt Nancy is here on a visit, and one day she says 
to ma, “ Susan,” — that’s ma’s name, you know, — 
“why do you let Eliza Jane run wild as she does ? 
She is old enough to knit her stockings and make 
her own clothes,” and then she went on to tell what 
she would do if I was her girl, which I am very glad 
I ain’t. So ma got a ball of yarn and some knitting- 
needles, and called me, and though I looked out of 
the window, and dropped stitclies, and snarled the 
yarn all up in what Aunt Nancy called a “puppy 
snatch,” ma kept right on like a martyr, and never 
stopped until I had learned how, and now I have to 
knit so much every day, or be whipped, and as I 
hate it as cats do wet feet, or Satan holy water, I get 
licked every day. When I have little girls, they 
shan’t knit when they don’t want to, or sew carpet 
rags either, so there ! 

Ma and Aunt Nancy are making a rag carpet, and 


10 


LEAVES FROM A 


they keep me sewing rags all the time I ain’t knit- 
ting, and I don’t have a bit of fun lately. I wish 
Aunt Nancy would go home, and stay forever. Sally 
Ann says serves me right, for scaring the wits out of 
her one night, just as though she had any to lose. 
She was at the gate telHng Tim Jones good-night 
and she was so long about it, I thought I’d hurry her 
up a little. ■ So I went to a closet and wrapped a 
sheet all around me, and snatched the tidy off pa’s 
big chair and wound it over my head, and went out 
soft and stood right behind her, and gave a horrid 
groan. She turned round and saw me, and screeched 
and fainted, and pa, and ma, and Tim Jones carried 
her into the house. I run for the back door and 
threw the sheet and tidy in the woodshed, and when 
I came in they had all the neighbors and two doc- 
tors there. Ma was crying and wringing her hands, 
and taking on generally, and pa said if he knew who 
it was that played such a trick on his darling child, 
he would annihilate them. Now, I don’t know what 
Webster says that word means, so I says : “ Pa 
Sally Ann is a fool ; it wa’n’t nobody but me.” He 
never answered a word, but just took hold of my 
arm hard, and led me up stairs, and pretty soon I 
didn’t know much of anything, for he wore out his 
riding-whip on my back. I shan’t play ghost very 
often, if I must be annihilated every time. Pa for- 
got he was ever a boy and full of mischief. 


BAD girl’s diary. 


II 


I hate Sally Ann, I do ; for she won’t let ma make 
my dresses as I want them, and scolds if pa buys 
me new ones, but makes me wear her old duds made 
over. Just wait till she is married, Aufit Nancy gone 
home, and grandma comes, then I’ll have a good 
time, and don’t .you forget it. Grandma was a little 
girl herself once, and she hain’t forgotten it. 


CHAPTER IV. 

I am more than having a good time lately, and 
am as happy as a big sunflower. As soon as Aunt 
Nancy went away, ma said she guessed I needn’t 
try to knit my stockings any more, for I knit so slow 
I’d die of old age before one pair was done, and I 
wasted yarn enough to ruin a millionaire, and it 
would be cheaper to buy them. Ma does have good 
streaks when other folks let her alone. 

The rag carpet is done and on the floor, and an 
odd piece she had left she gave to me for sewing 
such a lot of rags. Pa says it cost as much, besides 
the work, as a wool ingrain, and it don’t look half as 
nice, and after this she can let Aunt Nancy make all 
such carpets, but he will never let her try another. 
I was so glad I hugged and kissed him, and called 
him the best pa ever was, and I wouldn’t never steal 
his custard pie again, and then he made me tell all 


12 


LEAVES FROM A 


about it. He laughed, and said the big people were 
often more to blame than little ones, and if John 
Henry ever pulls my hair again to tell him for I 
shan’t be abused any more. 

Sally Ann is getting ready to be married, and 
grandma is here, and don’t I have a .high old time ! 
J. H. put up a swing on a big maple-tree in the 
back yard, and I climb the rope hand over hand, 
sailor-fashion, till I reach the tree, then I go down 
the same way. I tuck my dress all around me close 
and see that ma ain’t around, and then I turn sum- 
mersets in the swing, and it is jolly fun. Me and 
the minister’s girls climb clear to the tops of all the 
trees around, and then drop from branch to branch 
till we get to the lowest ones, then we swing off on 
the ground. We can walk a tight-rope very well, 
too. Their pa is gone so much he don’t know 
what they do ; and as their ma has to go to all the 
sewing societies, prayer meetings, etc., she can’t look 
after them much. But one day their pa came home 
all of a sudden, and over to our house, when we 
wa’n’t suspecting nothing, and he caught us on a 
trapeze. The way he switched his girls was a cau- 
tion, and marched them off home like the police do 
the big people, so now we watch when we practice 
gymnastics. John Henry says we are worse than 
cats to climb, but if he ever tattles on us again he 
will find we can scratch likewise. Peck’s boy made 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


^3 


US a stove of bricks and mud, with a piece of eave- 
spout for a pipe, and we roast taters, and cook 
apples in tin cans, and to-morrow we will have a 
party. He and Georgie Hackett will bring wood 
and make a fire, and we girls will provide the eata- 
bles. I never had a party ; but the minister’s girls 
went to one once, and they know how. Cook says 
I am more bother than my head is worth, and the 
hired man calls me a combined cyclone and hornet’s 
nest. I must go to bed and get rested for to-morrow. 
Oh, dear, I can’t hardly wait for to-morrow to come. 



CHAPTER V. 

This morning pa shut me up in my room to stay 
until I could behave myself and keep out of mischief. 
Sally Ann said she didn’t know what little girls were 
made for, and I told her I couldn’t see what earthly 
use she was, and I’d like to swap her off for a veloci- 
pede. She shook me until my teeth rattled, and pa 
said, “There, there, Sarah, you mustn’t kill the 
child,” — and when he speaks like that, even she 
minds him. 

Anyhow we had the party. I took John Henry’s 
new desk for a table, and pa’s white silk handkerchief 
for a tablecloth, and ma’s big china teapot that’s 
only used when we have extra company, and cook 


H 


LEAVES FROM A 


lent me some'knives and tin teaspoons. I found a 
lot of old plates and cups on the parlor table that 
must have got there by mistake, for they wa’n’t as 
nice as cook uses in the kitchen, so I took them. 
Then I emptied the sugar bowl into my pocket, and 
filled it up with salt, so no one would know unless 
they tasted, and ma says people should keep their 
fingers out of the sugar bowl ; cut a loaf of bread and 
butter, and a half of a big fruit cake, such as ma 
always eats a piece of just before she goes to bed, to 
make her sleep well ; also a cup of marmalade. The 
minister’s girls brought a lovely cup and saucer that 
the good people gave their pa Christmas, and a jar 
of preserves and a silver spoon. One of thefn had 
on her ma’s new Paisley shawl, and the other her 
gold watch and chain, and lace collar. Then I went 
back to the house and put on ma’s black brocade, 
lace-trimmed skirt, her lace shawl, and Sally Ann’s 
bracelets, and new red parasol, besides fixing my 
hair with her frizzes bought a purpose for the wed- 
ding. Georgie Hackett, Peck’s boy, and some more 
boys and girls came. They tended the fire, and we 
got supper. Everything was lovely and the goose 
hung high, as my big brother says when he has a 
good time. We daubed preserves and butter and 
spilled coffee on pa’s handkerchief ; the boys cut 
their names on the desk, and I dropped the frizzes 
on the stove and burned them all up. We played 


BAD girl’s diary. 


15 


base-ball, but I got mad at one of the boys and 
threw my club at his head. Guess it hit pretty hard, 
for he went home, and to-day his ma came to pa 
and says he must pay the doctor’s bill, for he won't 
be well never, she thinks. I’ll risk him — such boys 
don’t die so easy. 

Ma’s china teapot was knocked over and broke 
into more than forty thousand pieces. The minis- 
ter’s girls tried to wind their watch, but it went 
w-h-i-z-z and stopped, and she grabbed my dress and 
tore more than a yard of lace all to pieces. We had 
as much fun as our cat does when she slips down 
cellar and drinks up the milk. 

All night I dreamed of parties ; but the next morn- 
ing — that’s to-day — when I went down to breakfast 
John Henry caught me, nearly shook my head off, 
and said we had whittled his forty-dollar desk all to 
bits. Ma boxed my ears, and cried, and said her 
dress cost seventy-five dollars, and it was a total 
wreck. Sally Ann pulled my hair because I burned 
up her old frizzes, and said she would “ friz my hair” 
for me. Pa assessed his handkerchief at five dollars, 
and there ain’t another like it on earth, and he fig- 
ured up that two hundred dollars wouldn’t more than 
pay for what I had destroyed, not counting the old 
cup and plates, which I broke on purpose, never 
thinking ma would care for such trash. They were 
three hundred and fifty years old, and the man that 


i6 


LEAVES FROM A 


made them is dead, so there can’t never be any more 
like them. Ma groaned over her teapot, and, oh 
Lordy, I surely thought the judgment day had 
come, and wondered if the minister’s girls were hav- 
ing such a time as I was. Made up my mind that 
there would be a coroner’s inquest in our house if 
they didn’t stop soon, and a big item in the “Daily 
Newsgatherer. ” 

Pa asked a blessing, and I hope they enjoyed break- 
fast, for I was so mad I couldn’t eat a mite. Then 
we had prayers and the way pa prayed for “ bad 
girls ” made my hair stand straight up, and it was a 
relief when he took me up to my room. Every body 
scowled at me and looked dark as a thunder-cloud, 
all but. grandma, she kissed me and said : “Poor lit- 
tle Jenny.” I tell you she is an angel, all but the 
wings, and they must be folded up somewhere, for 
she knows how to pity little folks. 



BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


17 


CHAPTER VI. 

By and by the hired man came to the window and 
whistled, and when I looked out he threw up a lot of 
apples and a paper of candy, which I caught in my 
apron — and you bet, I won’t bother him anymore. I 
am awful sorry I put thistles in his bed one time, and 
a little green snake another, and sent that horrid 
comic valentine, besides putting a wasp-nest in his 
trunk, and if I live through this I’ll ask him to for- 
give me. It was baking day, and I could smell fruit 
cake, mince pie, buns, roast chicken, and lots of good 
things, and, oh dear, ho\V hungry I was. After din- 
ner pa came in, and said I shouldn’t have anything 
to eat until I repented, and when I asked him to 
give me the Dictionary so I could learn what 
repented meant, he declared I was the worst girl on 
earth, and that there wa’n’t but one boy equal to 
me, and that was Georgie Hackett. I flew mad as 
hops, and told him that Georgie was a saint and an 
angel compared to that big boy of his he thought 
was so perfect, and the way he went out and slam- 
med the door didn’t look well for a cla*5s leader and 
pillar of the church. I lay down on the lounge and 
cried myself asleep, and was dreaming of chocolate 
.creams and custard pies, when the door opened soft 
and grandma came in. She took me up all careful, 
bathed my face, combed my hair, and talked sense, 
*2 


i8 


LEAVES FROM A 


such as I could understand, and then I knew I was a 
bad girl, though I didn’t mean to be, and I promised 
never to touch another thing unless ma said so. 
Cook came with a lot of little cakes and pies she 
made on purpose for me, and said little Jenny 
shouldn’t starve while she was around. I was so 
glad, that I told her all about putting two mice in 
the cake box, shutting the cat in the milk room, 
mixing sugar and salt in the barrel, and spoiling as 
much as fifty pounds of flour, and a lot of other 
things, including wetting all the kindling once when 
pa was in a hurry to catch the early train and wanted 
breakfast in two winks of a eat’s eye, same as men 
always do. I was so sorry, and promised never to 
play tricks on her again, that she forgave me, and 
said the hired man should also. Then grandma led 
me down stairs to ask pa and ma and the rest would 
they forgive me too, but when I tried to, I just put 
my arms around her neck and cried and couldn’t say 
a word. John Henry called me his dear little sister, 
and said he loved me better than fifty desks, but 
hoped I’d get a cheaper table for my next party. 
Pa advised the-older ones to look after me occasion- 
ally, and guessed if they did I wouldn’t get into quite 
so much mischief He told Sally Ann she might 
have a whole wig if she liked, and that made her 
madder than ever, ’cause she haint no hair to speak 
of, naturally. 


BAD girl’s diary. 


19 


Ma is going down to get a new dress, and pa told 
her to buy me* one while she was about it, and a pair 
of button shoes and a sash. As for the “Brick bats” 
— as he called the old plates and cups — he wished 
every woman that owned one was in the idiot asylum, 
’long with those that bang their hair and wear cor- 
sets. 

I’ll try hard to be good now for some days. It 
pays to have a grandma that has common sense. I 
must stop writing and go to bed, for she says I must 
sleep from 9 o’clock P. M., to 7 o’clock A. M., if I want 
to grow handsome. 





20 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER Vn 

Well, Sally Ann and Tim Jones are married and 
gone to housekeeping ; but one visitor don’t bother 
them much, and that’s this child. Everything went 
off lovely, only the coffee was strong of cloves and 
spice, because I accidentally ground both in the 
same mill ; and the chicken salad was dusted with 
snuff instead of pepper. I managed to step on her 
dress and tear it awful, but what did she have it 
trail a mile and a half for ? There were lots of pres- 
ents of no earthly account, and pretty much all 
alike. Ma says she is glad there won’t be another 
wedding in her house very soon, and pa says it is a 
clear gain of $i,ooo a year to have her gone. 

Ma went away one day, and I tried her new sew- 
ing machine. It didn’t go right, so I took it all 
apart, washed it in soap suds, and put it together 
again, but before I could sew any I saw ma coming. 
The way I locked that machine and threw the key> 
would have made a streak of lightning seem slow, 
and when she came in I was up garret reading. It 
was several days before she wanted to sew, and then 
there was one grand hunt for the key. John Henry 
went for the agent to fit a new one, and when at 
last the machine was opened, such a' row never was 
before. It was one solid mass of rust, and I had 
lost a lot of little springs and screws. The agent 


BAD girl’s diary. 


21 


lussed all day getting it apart, cleaned, and put 
together, and then he advised ma to sell it for old 
iron, ’cause it would never sew well again. She told 
him she had paid $ioo for this, only a short time 
before, and couldn’t afford another. Of course, they 
all blamed me, but why don’t she teach me to ^ew 
herself.^ I’ll learn, if I spoil a whole factory of 
machines. Pa says I may keep this one to experi- 
ment on, and ma may as well hire her sewing done 
after this. 

One day he said that every girl ought to know 
how to unharness a team ; so when the hired man 
asked me to watch the horse while he ate his dinner, 
I saw my chance. Many, many times have I seen 
him take off a harness, but somehow it wouldn’t 
come for me, so I just unfastened every strap and 
buckle until it did, then let the horse into the barn, 
where it was found in the oat-bin. He says that 
harness was all to pieces, and I heard him tell cook 
it took him two hours to put it together again ; but 
when he tried to scold me he laughed, and promised 
not to tell pa ; and J. H. says he will show me how, 
when the sign comes right. 

We keep a few hens, and cook sent me out to look 
for eggs. Found a nest full of splendid ones, but 
fell down and cracked every one ; and then she said 
they were an extra kind pa paid ever so many dollars 
for, and they would have been little chicks pretty 


22 


LEAVES FROM A 


soon if I had let them alone. Pa declares he will 
never try to have any more pets. Cook won’t let 
me help her.. J. H. drives me off, and I can’t da 
nothing to suit nobody. 

Ma says I shall go to boarding-school as soon as 
she can get me ready, for she is all wore out. 
Won’t I make it lively for the teachers, and if they 
impose on me, will wish they had let out the job. 
My big brother says they will be glad to exchange 
me for an earthquake in less than a week. He is so 
nice and proper, why wasn’t he. a girl and I a boy ; 
so I could climb trees, jump fences, take comfort, 
and not bother people Guess I am fore-ordained to 
be a torment — as the catechism says — and it ain’t a 
mite of use my trying to be good. 

Good-by, my dear, old friend, while I get straw, 
make an air castle, and a big muss and get another 
scolding. 



BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


23 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Pa said his expenses had been so heavy the last 
year, that he couldn’t afford to send me to school, 
and I must go into the country a few weeks. Ma 
said she didn’t care where I went, so she had a 
chance to rest. Pa and John Henry went to the 
depot with me, asked the conductor to see me there 
safe, gave me candy, figs, peanuts and cake, and 
told me to behave myself for once in my life. Pa 
said he would be real lonesome without me, but J. 
H. thought it would be a good lonesome. They do 
lov6 me a little, if I am worse than the seven-year 
itch, as the neighbors say. I kept real still for three 
minutes and two and a half seconds ; then a nice old 
man sat down ’long side of me, and began to ask 
questions, which always, stirs me up. I told him I 
came from Boston and was going to San Francisco ; 
that I had seven brothers, and ten sisters, and a 
step-mother ; gave my age as anywhere between six 
and sixty, and that I belonged to the Church, and 
was a sanctified Christian, but all the rest were poor, 
miserable sinners. Just then the conductor came' 
along and said the next station was mine, and for 
me to be ready. The man looked solemn, and told 
me that little girls that told lies would never go to 
heaven ; and I answered that big people, who asked 
questions that wa’n’t none of their business, wouldn’t 


24 


LEAVES FROM A 


neither ; that my pa told me not to talk to strangers, 
and perhaps he would think three or five times 
before putting another girl through the catechism. 

He looked out of the window as I stood on the plat- 
form, and I threw kisses at him. You ought to have 
seen him hold up his hands in holy horror and shut 
that window. Uncle Charlie saw me, and was so ^ 
vexed, for that old man was one of the great big 
ministers of his church. I don’t care if he was the 
President. We drove six miles over a fearful rough 
road that shook me worse than Sally Ann ever did. 
But Aunt May had a boss supper ready, and was so 
glad to see me, I didn’t mind it much. Peck’s ’boy 
works for Uncle Charlie in hopes of reforming him ; 
the minister’s girls are visiting at the next farm, and 
now if Georgie Hackett would only come we would 
wake up the natives. Aunt May says it is not proper 
to use slang, and Pll make a desperate attempt not 
to, to please her. When Uncle had prayers, he read 
that chapter in Job, what tells about missing some- 
thing by the skin of his teeth, and if such a good old 
patriarch used slang, people must not be too hard on 
a little girl that never had a chance to learn how to 
talk. 



BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


25 


• CHAPTER IX. 

The R. R. runs close to the house, and I scared 
Aunt May into hysterics, by putting pins on the 
track for the cars to run over, and made the R. R. 
men swear in 17 languages, ’cause I waved a red rag, 
and hollered. They thought there was trouble 
ahead. Then I went to breakfast. Aunty says I’ll 
get killed on the track ; but I don’t worry] Sally 
Ann says nothing will kill me, for such girls are not 
wanted in heaven ; and I won’t go to the other place, 
for fear of meeting her. 

I found an old cat with five kittens, and dressed 
them all up in dolls’ clothes and paper shoes, put 
Uncle Charlie’s nose glasses and Aunt May’s night- 
cap on the old cat, and it was as good as a circus to 
see them perform. Then I cut their wiskers, clipped 
their hair and toe nails, let them go, and went to the 
barn to help Peck’s boy catch a hen that had set 
three weeks on two bricks and an aid ax without 
hatching them. We tied long red rags to her head^ 
and shooed her off. She run all over the farm, hop- 
ped to the top of every tree and bean-pole, and 
squawked until she scared the other hens out of a 
year’s growth. You never saw such a funny hen. 
Uncle said he guessed she wouldn’t sit anymore, but 
the next morning she was on the bricks again. 
Don’t know whether she hatched them or not, but 


26 


LEAVES FRDM A 


she was trying to when I came home. It beats all 
how obstinate a hen can be — almost as bad as* big 
people. 

The minister’s girls came over, and we went up 
garret to play. Found a spinning-wheel and a lot 
of rolls for yarn. We tried to spin, but didn’t have, 
very good success, and I hope I’ll not be around 
when Aunty finds her rolls, for we snarled them up 
pretty muchly. Then we took a bag of feathers, and 
scattered them out of the window to see them fly. 
Mixed all the dried herbs — sage, boneset, blue ver- 
vain, catnip, summersavory, and wormwood. Ran- 
sacked all the old boxes, and had a high time till 
supper. Uncle called us good little girls, but I bet a 
cookie he changes his mind when he sees that garret. 
The girls went home, and I went to the milk house 
to help Aunty, but she called me more trouble than 
profit, and sent me out to bring in the new milk. 
Tried to carry a pail full, but fell down and spilled it 
all over me, so I looked like a drowned rat, and had 
to put on my night-dress and go to bed. When all 
were sound asleep, I went down for a drink of water. 
Of course, every chair in the house stood in the way 
and I tumbled over them, nearly breaking my neck. 
Uncle heard me fussing at the door, and thought it 
was a burglar, and fired his pistol at my head. The 
way I screamed would have put to shame all the fog 
whistles on earth. Everybody ran to see what wa,s 


BAD girl’s diary. 


27 


the matter, and they louked so coijiical, I laughed. 
Uncle said it was a pity I couldn’t go to bed like 
folks, instead of roaming over the house like an 
uneasy spirit. Guess I wa’n’t going to choke, with a 
well of water under my nose, and if he can’t tell a 
little girl from an old burglar, he don’t know much. 
Peck’s boy said he was behaving and reforming him- 
self, and he should think I might try to. That made 
me mad, and I slapped his face, pulled his hair, and 
wondered “ how long since..” Uncle shook me, and 
put me in bed with Auntie, where I lay and planned 
mischief the rest of the night. 



28 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER X. 

The minister’s girls and a lot of others came over, 
and we went to the barn so as not to bother Auntie 
while she was baking. We pulled the hens all off 
their nests, and put the chickens in the water tank, 
so they could learn to swim, bat the silly creatures 
drownded. Why won’t they be sensible and swim 
like the ducks did ? Tried to catch the goslings, but 
the old gander flew at us, and bit our hands, so we 
let them go. Then we played meeting. Georgie 
Hackett came, by good luck, and made the opening 
prayer. We sang “Hold the Fort,” and said our 
S. S. verses, and then sang “John Brown,” and 
“ Dixie.” One of the boys stood on the oat-bin to 
preach, and I got the big hew bible off the parlor table 
so he could find a text. After he had preached a while, 
we sang “ The Star Spangled Banner,” and told our 
experience same as our fathers and mothers do, and 
I guess it would pass, about as well as theirs. We 
cried, promised to be good next week, and to wait 
until we got out of church before we slandered our 
neighbors. Qne of the girls got happy and shouted, 
and you couldn’t have told our meeting from the real 
article if you had been blind. Just then Peck’s boy 
came to the barn on an errand, and he had to climb 
up over head, and drop a lot of live squabbling mice 
right down on our heads. The way we screeched 


BAD GIRi.’S DIARY. 


29 


and run was a caution to express trains behind time. 
We fell down, and tore our dresses awful, and if he 
hadn’t made himself minus, there wouldn’t have been 
much left of him in about three seconds, we were 
that mad. Uncle rushed out to see what was the 
matter, sent the rest off home, and marched me into 
the house. Such a lecture as he gave me ; but when 
I told him “ we only acted as big folks do, only we 
orgot to take up a collection, and Georgie Hackett 
said chickens would swim, give them a chance,” he 
laughed until he cried. Lucky the big bible wa’n’t 
spoiled as we expected, and Aunty said the age of 
miracles had returned, but that if Job had had me, 
he would have preferred his boils. 

She asked me to mend Peck’s boy’s coat, which I 
did. Sewed up every buttonhole solid, filled the 
pockets with corn and beans — ’cause he likes succo- 
tash — and sewed them up. He will have a time get- 
ting that coat on, and don’t you forget it. I*can iron 
real nice for a little girl, so Aunty said I might do 
up his Sunday shirt. You bet I did, and he won’t 
want me to iron for him again soon. Took especial 
pains with all but the bosom ; that I covered with 
pictures of mice, done with pen and ink. Hid this 
necktie and Sunday shoes — first filling them with 
burs ; mended his white socks with red yarn, and 
was not careful to slip my hand in. Found the photo 
of his girl, and tacked it on the bed-post, with a tack 


30 


LEAVES FROM A 


in each eye and one on her nose. Then we had sup- 
per, and I was so sweet he asked me to fix his coffee, 
which I did. Under pretense of filling up the coffee- 
pot, I started for the kitchen, knocking off his cup as 
I went ; but he said another would do. It was a 
lovely cup of steaming coffee I handed him in just 
one minute after, but the first mouthful he took, he 
jumped up like a lunatic, threw the cup across the 
room out of the window, and said he wondered what 
in creation I’d do next. He howled and danced like 
a drunken Indian. Auntie fetched the olive oil bot- 
tle, and advised him to cool his coffee next time, but 
he declared he would live on toast and gruel the rest 
of his life. I was so innocent no one knew I put a 
big spoonful of cayenne pepper and some concen- 
‘trated lye in the cup. I’ll teach him to throw mice 
at me. He will think several times before he plays 
any more tricks while I am around. 

Uncle^says it would try the patience of all the 
saints to have me about. Those old saints were 
horrid old sinners while on earth, and if they ain’t *• 
no better now, I don’t want their company. I read 
history and politics, and know more than people 
thirjk I do. 



BAD girl’s diary. 


31 


CHAPTER XL 

Auntie has a young Theological student boarding 
with her, and he is so awful pious he goes up stairs 
without bending his knees. Should think he would 
yank off all his suspender buttons. The day after he 
came, I was trying to go upstairs the same way, and 
he caught me at it. I made faces at him and 
run. He is solemn as a graveyard, and it makes the 
cold shivers go up my back just to look at him. He 
discounts a patent refrigerator any day. Once the 
’ butter wouldn’t come, so I told Aunt May to ask her 
boarder to sit in the same room a while, and he 
would fetch it, if coldness was all she wanted. He 
never hurries, but measures every step exactly so 
long, no matter what happens. I have to “ take 
sight” to know whether he is moving or standing 
still. 

Georgie Hackett had to go back home, but he 
gave me a bunch of fire-crackers to remember him 
by. I called him the best boy in the world, and 
promised to have acres of fun with them. The next 
Sunday morning when we were all going to church, I 
watched my chance, lit the bunch in a dozen places, 
and slipped it into the young divinity’s coat-tail 
pocket, just as he went into church, then I went and 
sat down with my S. S. teacher, like a good little 
girl. Pretty soon there was a pop, and he jumped 


32 


LEAVES FROM A 


like he had set down on a pin, and in about two 
wjnks they all went off. He yelled “ Murder ! Holy 
Moses, I am killed ! ” and run for the door as though 
the fast mail was after him. The Deacons and class- 
leaders caught him as he fainted, and the people 
crowded around until its a wonder he didn’t die sure. 
One good sister threw a pail of water in his face, and 
another spilled a pint of ammonia in his hair. Such 
a scene never was before. “ It beggars description,” 
as the “dime novels” say. I never owned a “dime 
novel, ” but borrow them from the minister’s girls. 

I wanted to laugh, but kept my face long as a * 
fence-rail, and advised the sisters not to drown 
Bro. Smith. His name is Smith, but he ain’t any 
relation to me, and I know he is glad of it, anyhow I 
am. After a while he came to, and they took him 
in a class-room to find where he was wounded, but 
only found the remains of the fire-crackers. They 
laid the blame on Peck’s boy, but I wouldn’t let him 
suffer for my sins, goodness knows he has enough of 
his own to answer for ; so I told them that he was 
home sick abed, and to lay the blame elsewhere, and 
“give my friend a rest.” Deacon Smiley called the 
congregation together and dissmissed them, while 
Uncle Charlie borrowed a carriage and took Bro. 
Smith home, for he was wet as though he had been 
immersed. Auntie went ahead to have dry clothes 
and a cup of tea ready. For once in his life our 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


33 


young Sanctification had hurried, and I wa’n’t sorry 
one bit ; but wouldn’t I catch fits if folks knew what 
I knew. I told Peck’s boy, and he laughed until he 
- couldn’t laugh any more, and promised not to give 
me away. When he promises, his word is good as a 
Pennsylvania judgment note, which is more than can 
be said of some people, who think they have a pal- 
ace-car through-ticket for heaven. 

CHAPTER XII. 

One day I wanted to be good, and made a pud- 
ding Uncle Charlie said was fit for the President to 
eat, and a loaf of bread as light as my head, also a 
pan of currant buns that would have made even a 
ghost hungry to look at. Aunty said I had helped 
her all day, and she believed in time Pd settle down, 
and be a No. i housekeeper. The way Bro. Smith 
ate, I knew he would live in spite of his daily trials, 
and that if he had consumption, as the sisters say, it 
was consumption of victuals. After I had been so 
good all day, I wanted my peg puzzle for a quiet 
game. Looked in every impossible comer — upstairs, 
downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber, but no puzzle 
could I find. As a last resort, I asked Bro. Smith 
had he seen it. He looked up to the sky like a duck 
in a thunder shower, and said, “ Yes, he found it in 
his room, and had burned it, for he considered it 
wicked to^play puzzles.” Oh, Lordy, wa’n’t I mad — 
*3 


34 


LEAVES FROM A 


mad as a frog with dry feet— mad as hops — mad as a 
whole nest of hornets ; and I snapped out that “ I 
hoped to glory he would never commit a worse sin 
than solve a few puzzles,” then slammed the door till 
every shingle on the roof jingled, went to my room, 
lay down on the floor, and cried myself to sleep. 

Next morning my head ached, my throat was sorci 
and the doctor came and said I wouldn’t do any more 
mischief for several days, as I had the diphtheria bad. 
I couldn’t tell how I came to lie on the floor all night, 
for I didn’t know much of anything for a week or 
two. It is all over now, and I am worth a dozen 
dead girls ; but if I don’t make Bro. Smith pray for 
grace, it won’t be my fault. When I cook good 
things for him again, he will eat them, that’s all. 
Aunt May is good, so is Uncle Charlie, and grandma 
is an angel all but the wings. I’ll be good to them, 
and find their specs, slippers, etc., but my friends 
can bet their last five-cent piece I’ll pay him for 
burning up that puzzle board. - He bought me a new 
one when I was getting well, but I threw it at his 
head, and told him to use it for kindling wood. 
CHAPTER XIII. 

Once more I am at home, and keeping our folks 
on tenter-hooks as of old. Bro. Smith tried to con- 
vert me, and-, to please him I went to a speaking 
meeting. He said I must be honest, an;d., tell just 
what I thought. After all the rest had got up, con- 


BAD girl’s diary. 


35 


fessed their sins, and promised to behave in the 
future, he called on little Jenny for a few words. I 
said I never told my faults, for every one knew them^ 
and as for my good qualities, it would take a double- 
back-action microscope to find them ; that not even 
salt-peter would save me, and I wouldn’t promise to 
be good, for I never told lies when truth came handi- 
est, and then I sat down. The people all stared at 
me as though I was one of Barnum’s escaped curios- 
ities. Guess I don’t know how to talk in meeting. 
Bro. S. called on all those that belonged to the 
Lord’s church to rise; and they all did, except me. 
Then he said if there were any that belonged to the 
Devil’s church to also rise ; and I rose. The young 
people giggled; the saints in the “Amen corner” 
coughed hard. Brother Smith hid his face in his 
handkerchief about two minutes, then said, “ We will 
consider ourselves dismissed,” and Peck’s boy and I 
went ’cross lots home. Uncle Charlie said I was past 
redemption ; but his eyes laughed when he said so. 

I have hidden Bro. Smith’s sermons, and substi- 
tuted (found that word in the dictionary, and it 
sounds nice, so I use it,) novels ; filled his coat pock- 
ets with “Family Story Papers” and “Police Ga- 
zettes,” instead of lesson leaves, and he never knew it 
until he pulled them out in S. S. ; covered the kit- 
tens up in his easy chair, and he jumped a rod, more 
or less, when he sat down and they squirmed and 


36 


LEAVES FROM A 


miawed ; filled his inkstand with raw kerosene, 
besides asking him questions enough to drive a wood- 
en man crazy, and coating the soles of his boots 
with varnish, which made them slippery as glass, and 
squeek-squawk every time he moved. He told Aunt 
May that those boots tried his patience the most of 
anything in the world. Once when a lot of company 
called, and he was going off with them, I pretended 
to brush a speck of dust off his coat collar, and 
dropped a caterpillar down his back — a big fuzzy 
one — and it thoroughly surveyed his spine before he 
got it off. Uncle said his back looked like a R. R. 
map of the United States. If there is anything 
I haven’t done to fit Bro. S. for the kingdom, I 
have forgotten it. . He didn’t put on mourning when 
I came home. He has gained ffcy pounds in 
weight since I left, and got married to — who do 
you suppose ? One of the quiet, mild-temp^ered 
sisters ? Not muchly ! but to my friend, the old- 
est minister’s girl —a crazy-head worse than my- 
self — in fact, I am a gentle zephyr compared to her. 
They invited me to be bridesmaid, but I didn’t go. 
Pa and ma and John Henry went ; but I sent regrets, 
a saw-dust fruit cake, and bottle of soothing syrup ; 
they will need some. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


37 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Ma has been having me go to market, and learn 
what it costs to live. You should see our city mar- 
ket. It is held in the street twice a week, and peo- 
ple pile everything on the sidewalk, from the park 
to half a mile south, and pay twenty-five cents each 
for the privilege. In summer, the sun melts them ; 
in winter, the cold freezes, and the wind blows a tor- 
nado occasionally, but the city is too poor to build a 
market-house. Brags of its big factories, 40,000 peo- 
ple, churches, machine-shops, and saw-mills, yet can’t 
afford a few boards to protect its “ meat and taters ” 
until they are sold. There is always smear-case, stale 
fish, onions, little round Dutch cheeses — green with 
mold — beer, tobacco, limburger, and bologna sausage 
for sale, and a crowd of Germans, Irish, and Poland- 
ers, besides a few from every other nation on earth, 
as buyers. When you visit our city, take my advice, 
and leave your noses at home, or else put them in 
your pocket. You can buy anything there — from a 
shoe-strirg to an interest in a goose pasture. 

The first time I went, John Henry wondered the 
cows didn’t eat me, I was so precious green. He 
judges others by himself, you know. I picked out a 
nice old lady to trade with ; but when I had lugged 
that heavy basket clear home, there wa’n’t a thing in 
it fit to eat. The green com was hardly out of the 


38 


LEAVES FROM A 


blow, the cucumbers were bitter, the tomatoes all 
had specks on them, the butter was nothing but lard 
and tallow colored to look nice, and ma gave it to 
the hired man to grease the carriage wheels with,, 
and the rest of the stuff went to Pat Nolan’s pig. 
Bought a spring chicken, and J. H. declared it was 
the first one made in the Garden of Eden, and that 
the eggs were some it had laid in the Ark during the 
deluge, five or six thousand years ago. I vowed to 
goodness that the next time I would shuck every 
ear of corn, break every egg to see if it was good, and 
bite every apple so I’d know whether they were sour 
enough to make a pig squeal, or tasteless as white 
wood chips. 

There was a man selling all-silk handkerchiefs at 
two for a quarter, and I invested. Ma said the silk 
grew on a cotton bush, and she could buy a ton of 
them down town for 5j cen^s apiece. Pa declared 
we would all starve to death if they depended on me 
to do the marketing. Anyhow, I didn’t buy white 
carrots for parsnips, nor grated turnips for horse- 
radish, nor a lot of cracked glassware because it was 
cheap, as he did once. They make an awful fuss 
over my mistakes, but forget their own. If pa was 
to bring home a live alligator, or John Henry a white 
elephant, it would be all right ; but if I make a wee, 
teenty, little blunder, the universe stops revolving. 

One day a friend asked me to tend her things 


BAD GIRi^’S DIARY. 


39 


while she got a bill changed ; and I did. One 
woman asked if the eggs were fresh, and I said, “ No, 
they were salted ready to cook.” She called me an 
“ impudent creature, ” and then I advised her to look 
in the glass when she got home. Another wanted 
to know how long the potatoes had been dug, and I 
told her, “Just twice as long again as half.” She 
shrieked out, “ Lord, what a girl you are,” and I told 
her not to call on strangers another time, for I didn’t 
believe she knew the Lord half as well as she did the 
other chap. One old hag tried to beat me down in 
the price of everything, but I shook my head and 
only said, “Nixey, nixey.” She hoped I’d fall out of 
the wagon and break my neck going home, and then 
I advised her to hurry on, for the health officer was 
coming, and he would arrest her for a walking dirt- 
pile ; offered her five cents to buy a bar of cheap 
soap with, and told her anyone would lend her a tub 
of water, but she mustn’t throw it into the lake, for 
the authorities didn’t want it filled up. She was that 
mad, she couldn’t say a word, but marched off. I 
sold everything, and when my friend got back, she 
said she guessed folks liked to trade with me — if my 
tongue was like a two-edged sword. I had lots of fun, 
anyhow. She gave me a paper of chocolate drops, 
and I promised to help her again some time. 


40 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHARTER XV. 

Ma says I am almost a young lady ; J. H. calls me 
“Sis,” and pa says I am a “ cross between an angel 
and a panther.” Set their blood circulating the other 
day, though. Ma was having a general clean up of 
the parlor, and she looked like one of Shakespeare’s 
witches, with her old loose dress, a towel over her 
head, and a beauty spot on her nose. She told me 
not to let even the President in, until she was through, 
but to tell callers she had gone to the country, and 
wouldn’t be back for a week. She boxes my ears 
when I lie on my own account, and I wa’n’t going to 
lie on hers — not muchly, Hanner Maria. I told every- 
body the honest truth, and it did seem like people 
were possessed to call that day. At last I got tired, 
and when the minister called, showed him in. You 
should have seen ma. She will take a smoke now 
and then when very tired, and no one around, and 
there she sat in a big easy chair, smoking a two-for- 
a-cent clay pipe as happy as a clam. The minister 
raised his hands, and ejaculated (that’s another dic- 
tionary word), “ Sister Smith ! ” so horrified ; and ma 
tried to apologize, but I just got another pipe, filled 
it with her “ Good Cheer,” lit it, and offered it to 
him, remarking that “ nothing was so social as a good 
smoke, especially for old people.” Ma looked a 
whole United States arsenal at me; but when I calmly 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


41 


produced a snuff-box and offered each of them a 
pinch, taking one myself, she went into spasmodic 
paroxysms, ♦and ordered me out of the room. He 
made a short call, and didn’t know, until he got 
home, that I had stuck that pipe in his hat band. 
He was so upset he didn’t notice. 

At tea ma told pa, and he laughed ; said the minis- 
ter was the most inveterate smoker on earth ; that 
his wife never combs her hair fill callers come, and she 
takes snuff by wholesale. Ma wanted to know how 
he knew so much, and he told her that one of their 
boys clerks for him. Pa kept laughing so he couldn’t 
hardly eat any supper, and when he went down town 
slipped a gold dollar in my hand, and whispered that 
if I’d offer the parson a pack of cards, next time he 
called, he would give me a new silk dress, and I am 
bound to have the dress. They went to college 
together ; and were both pretty wild, Iguess. 

I must go and spend, my dollar for a neck ribbon 
and some candy ; it has burned a hole in my pocket 
long enough. 

The other girls chew gum ; but my jaws get tired 
enough talking. When I was at Uncle Charlie’s, the 
cows all chewed a cud, and since then I never see a 
girl with her mouth full of gum but I want to call, 
“ Bossy! Bossy!” John Henry says I have one sensi- 
ble streak about me, and that I am like a singed cat 
• — better than I look. 


42 


LEAVES FROM A 


After I come back from the store I must get the 
dictionary, and study up the meaning of the big 
words I have written lately. They look^ell, at any 
rate. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

I have grown so fast lately that John Henry 
advised me to sit for a “ Goddess of Liberty,” or a 
“ Yankee Doodle,” so I chose the latter. 

Last Wednesday night the family all went out to 
tea, leaving me alone in my glory. When the first 
bell rang, I dressed up in a suit of J. H.’s, stuck on a 
mustache and side whiskers that he wore once to a 
masquerade, let my hair fall loose, took his new gold- 
headed Lawrence cane, put on his stove-pipe hat, 
and, just as the people were singing the opening 
hymn, I walked up the aisle, and into Judge Thomp- 
son’s pew, and sat down ’long side his niece from 
Boston. Didn’t I make a sensation ! She handed 
me a hymn book, and we flirted like sixty, all the 
evening. The other girls made handkerchief sig- 
nals ; but I wouldn’t notice them. Going out, I took 
her arm, like I owned her, and marched off as grand 
as Jumbo. I told her the longest way round was 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


43 


the nearest way home, and gave her taffy by the ton. 
The way she swallowed it astonished even me, and 
you could have heard our good-night kiss a mile off. 
She asked me to call and see her, and I promised. 
Gave my name as James Howard, of Colorado. 

When I got home all was dark as a stack of black 
cats ; but I climbed on the woodshed, walked the 
eave-trough to my room, opened the window got in, 
and slept the sleep of the righteous. 

Next morning, they were all wondering who “that 
nice little fellow was that was so struck with the 
Judge’s niece,” and I wondered also. 

Last night I dressed up again, and went to see her ; 
but as I was making love at one hundred miles an 
hour, J. H. came poking in. He had suspected some- 
thing, and followed me ; but made me understand he 
would keep mum. Then a lot more young folks 
came, and he introduced me as his old schoolmate 
the year he spent “ out West,” and we had a gay 
time. This morning I sent her an offer of my hand 
and heart, which was accepted; but I dropped her 
note, and ma found it, and she made a horrid row — 
said I’d be the death of her yet — and went right over 
to Judge Thompson’s and told them all about it. Ma 
does try my patience awful ! Now it is all over town, 
and I’ll never hear the last of Colorado. Miss Boston ^ 
is going right off home, and the Judge says he will 
vote against pa next time he runs for School Direc- 
tor. John Henry takes my part ; says I acted the 


44 


LEAVES FROM A 


love-sick beau to perfection, and she so evidently- 
liked it that he hadn’t the heart to stop me. Pa 
told ma to remember her own young days ; and if I 
am rattle-headed I came honestly by it. 

I am going away off among some of ma’s relations 
and pick hops till this blows over, and when I come 
back I’ll go to school and improve my mind. 



BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


45 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Here I am, miles and miles away from home, with 
a lot of old maids and school girls. Six of us sleep 
in one room. I am the youngest of all, and my nose 
snubbed awful ; but some one is going to repent it 
in sackcldth and coal-dust pretty soon. 

We left style at home, and are in for fun. Wear 
old bonnets and dresses, cornb our heads over night, 
get up before daylight and work till dark. 

Hadn’t been in the yard an hour before I found 
twenty-five thousand worms and a million bugs in 
my eyes and hair, down my back, up my arms, and 
exploring my ears. A hop-yard is the paradise of 
such animals. At first, I screamedblue murder, and 
forty or fifty people run to see what was the matter. 
Their remarks were not consoling, and I shan’t holler 
again if I see snakes big as school-houses and long 
as from New York to China. 

Have an, appetite like an alligator, and sleep like 
Rip Van Winkle. Get paid so much a box, no mat- 
ter if it weighs ten pounds or ten tons, and it beats 
the Dutch how hops will settle down. My first one 
weighed twenty tons, I know it did ; but I know how 
now, and can beat any old hand at making them lie 
light. 

Have only been here two days. Yesterday, tipped 
a box-tender into an empty box, and nearly broke his 
neck ; asked an old maid the price of paint and hair 


46 


LEAVES FROM A 


dye ; told the boss- what the girls said about him 
behind his back, and read politics to the old grandpa 
in the evening. One old maid threatened to write to 
my ma. Told her to hurry up before she forgot it^ 
and rd buy the stamps. Then she shook me, but I 
pulled off her wig, jerked out her false teeth, and 
threw a pail of water in her face, for which she 
reported me at headquarters. 

To-day, me and the girls have snarled vines, hid 
bonnets, made scarecrows of coats, hats, shawls, etc. 
miewed like cats, barked like dogs, sung like owls, sat 
down in boxes almost full, and their owners had to 
work an hour longer to fill them up. Have strung 
vines across the paths, and raised the mischief gener- 
ally. We have been called names, chased with poles? 
scolded at, and prayed over. I found two vines and 
poles together, climbed to the top, sang “ Come, ye 
sinners, poor and needy,” preached a Hard-Shell 
Baptist sermon that brought the whole yard to a 
stand-still, referred my hearers to the lamentations of 
Job, told my box-tender to catch me, and jumped, 
then went to work like forty wild-cats and picked a 
box in no time. 

One of our girls writes poetry. Such sickish stuff ! 
I have got her book, and writ some of mine in it, and 
won’t there be a lovely row when she finds it } Asked 
her to-day would she please talk English, as I can’t 
understand foreign languages, and she scared me out 
of a year’s growth with her big words. 


BAD girl’s diary. 


47 


Here is what I wrote in her book : 

“ Fifteen old maids all stood in a row, 

Saying, ‘ We want to a hop-picking go,’ 

While five young girls — full of fun as kittens — 

Were making up their doeskin mittens. 

And fixing their old bonnets, dresses, and shoes. 

Besides telling each other the latest news. 

See them now in the yard, as they stand and work. 

With a bug in each ear and a worm on their noses. 

Their dresses and faces all covered with dirt. 

And their tongues running faster than a herd of wild horses." 

If you wane to be able to eat tenpenny nails, 

A cord of wood, a load of rails. 

To sleep at night like a thousand tops — 

Go in September and pick hops. 

If you are a young man conceited as sin. 

And want a good place to show off in. 

Or wish to be fitted for heaven — or most any other place, 

And learn how the martyrs prayed for grace. 

Just wait on a crowd of six or eight girls — 

Cut vines, pull poles, and run errands till your head whirls, 

Then be sassed and tormented. 

Until you’re demented. 

They will read your love-letters and answer them too. 

Put toads in your bed, and pins iti your shoe. 

From Sunday till Saturday you are kept in a stew. 

There is nothing on earth that they wo’ n’t do — 

The wildest, the craziest, the j oiliest crew ” 

— Gracious Peter ! here she comes, and I’ve broke 
down. Never mind, if the machine is a little out of 
rig, it is better than her sentimental trash. I’ll cover 
my head, and pretend to be asleep. There’ goes her 
old book under the bed, and she will be a wise woman 
when she knows how it got there. 


48 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

To-day it rained and we couldn’t work, so we all 
went visiting. I went to see a woman whose husband 
is an inventor, and I’d rather live alone on a desert 
island, than in a civilized land with an inventor. She 
has been married twenty years, and kept as close as 
a prisoner in State’s prison. Has helped him till she 
‘can’t make her clothes nor talk like other folks ; but 
she knows more about boilers, engines, cog-wheels, 
and machinery than any man living. He never talks 
anything else, and when he votes it’s a cast-iron 
ticket. She has forgot how other people eat, and 
says she feels like an old engine ready to fall apart> 
or a worn-out boiler ready to burst, or a buzz-saw 
that hain’t been filed in ages. I am awful sorry for 
her. All she has to read is the “ Scientific Ameri- 
can” and “ Inventor’s Magazine.” 

Here is her bill of fare, just as she wrote it, what 
she has had twenty years, and will have for twenty 
more, if she lives : 

Breakfast. 

Cast-iron hash. Boiler steak. Rip-saw coffee. 
Patent butter. Wrought iron bread. 
Steam-gauge sauce. 

Dinner. 

Roasted planer. Stewed chisels. Fried car-steps, 
Pickled pulleys. Engine pie. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


49 


Supper. 

Patent Office cake, Hydraulic biscuit, 
Preserved thread-winders, Chopped up belting, 
Non-combustible tea. High-pressure milk, and 
Low-pressure sugar. 

She hangs her clothes on a line of shafting, fastens 
them with set screws, and irons with automatic dou. 
ble self-acting irons. When the fire is low, she calls 
for more steam ; when too much, she opens a safety 
valve and starts the pump. Her children play with 
little rail-roads, saw-mills, etc., and her marriage cer- 
tificate came from the Patent Office. The parlor 
walls are hung with diplomas that her husband has 
received from Agi'icultural Societies. For amuse- 
ment, she draws plans for a new-fangled what-is-it ^ 
and makes models of them, for her other half to make 
big ones by. Somehow, I think she does all the work 
and he gets all the credit. I do hope that when she 
gets to heaven she will be allowed to live like othei* 
folks. When my beau comes, Pll switch him off, if 
he knows an ax-handle from a liberty pole. 

I’ll live alone all the clays of my life, 

Before I’ll be an inventor’s wite. 



LEAVES FROM A 


SO 


CHAPTER XIX. 

I was away three weeks, tanned my face black as a 
squaw, sunburnt my hands, went to a dance, and was 
glad to get home. I helped ma get me ready for 
school, and was so good she cried when I came away- 
John Henry says there is always a calm after a storm. 

I only came here last night, but it seems like a 
million years. I am so homesick, I could fill Lake 
Erie with tears, if my head held so many. Have a 
little tucked-up room, away in the northwest corner 
of a re . en-story building, and my chum is so proper 
she will sit on a picket of ceremony until she wears 
the skirts of her dresses all out. She has said, “ Don’t 
do this, that, or t’other,” nine hundred and ninety- 
nine times to-day. 

Bro. Smith is Head Center of this institution, and 
when he examined me to see if I knew anything, I 
was so nervous I just gave the first answers I thought 
of Expect I’ll be put down in the ABC class, but 
I don’t care. I’d be glad to see even Sally Ann or 
Aunt Nancy. I’ll write down that examination, to 
look at when I graduate. 

What are the principal productions of the United 
States ? 

Politicians, saloon-keepers, and tramps. 

Name the President and Vice President ^ 

Jay Gould and Frank James. 

Where is the center of the earth } 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


51 


St. Joseph, Missouri. 

How is the Western Continent divided ? 

Into Democrats, Republicans, and Prohibitionists. 

How many pounds in a ton of coal ^ 

Depends upon who you deal with. 

Where is genuine butter made ? 

Nowhere. It is one of the lost arts. 

How many cents in a dollar ? 

If gold, 100 ; if silver, 85 ; and if city shinplaster, 
just what the groceryman sees fit to give. 

Who was the author of secession ? 

Adam. He seceded from the Garden of Eden. 

Who discovered North America ? 

Noah, during a big rain, and his ship rests on 
Pike’s Peak, with a United States flag at the top- 
mast. 

Where did Solomon get the silver and gold for his 
temple ? 

From California, Arizona, and Nevada. 

What is a quarter of two ? 

Forty-five minutes past one. 

Who is the most noted man of the nineteenth cen- 
tury ? 

Jesse James. 

What is an unknown quantity ? 

The verdict of a jury. 

There, thank the Lord, my chum is asleep. I’ll go 
blow tobacco smoke through the key-hole of Bro. 
Smith’s room, climb the belfry, and muffle the bell, so 


52 


LEAVES FROM A 


we can sleep to-morrow morning, then say my prayer^ 
and go to bed. 


CHAPTER XX. 

Our arithmetic lesson comes at 8 A. M., and some 
of the girls don’t stop to slick up much. Their heads 
generally look like a brush fence. This morning the 
teacher said that, hereafter, his young ladies were to 
wash their faces and comb their hair before coming 
to recitation. As I am not a young lady, his rules 
don’t apply to me, but when he said, “ Miss Smith,, 
when did you comb your hair last I was too mad 
to live, and snapped out, “The year before Adam 
was born, and shan’t again until the next day after 
never, when two Sundays come together.” He shut 
his book with a bang, and sent us all to our rooms. 
When a cross Professor and a sassy girl meet, the 
result is five black marks and no supper for her. 

The organ wouldn’t go to-night at prayers, and the 
skeleton is missing from the physiology room, so that 
lesson was a failure. I might answer for both, but I 
won’t. 

There is the worst, meanest lot of old gossips in 
this town, of any place on earth, and no one escapes 
their vicious tongues. To-day in “ English-Compo- 
sition-class,” I read the following truthful lines : 


BAD girl’s diary. 


53 


THE GOSSIPS’ WALK. 

^‘It was a warm summer night, 

And the moon shone bright, 

When two gossips went out for a walk ; 

And thinking no wrong, I followed along, 

To hear these gossips talk. 

Said Number One, to Number Two, 

‘ I’ll tell you, dear, just what to do ; 

Let’s hide behind this old pine tree. 

It’s a splendid place to hear and see.’ 

Number Two did thus reply, 

‘ With all my heart indeed will I ; 

I have a pair of slippers nice. 

In which I’ll walk as still as mice. 

And there’s a porch right handy by. 

With windows large, not very high. 

Through which we will watch the folks within— 
I am sure it can’t be any sin. 

The moon shone bright, that summer night. 

And the gossips’ hearts were very light. 

As they looked and listened for quite a spell, ^ 
In hopes of getting some news to tell. 

I followed these creatures up and down, 

Until they had gone all over town. 

They listened and squinted here and there. 

At doors and windows everywhere. 

It was enough to make most any one swear 
To see these old witches put on airs. 

And mind so close their neighbors’ affairs. 

Of all the horrid, awful things. 

That walk, or crawl, or go with wings. 

That inhabit the earth, the sea, or air. 

In meanness, nothing can compare — 

With gossips. 


54 


LEAVES FROM A 


To own a tiger would be a pleasure, 

A panther or hyena would be a treasure, 

Compared to living for a single day. 

With these worse than wild beasts of prey. ’ ’ 

The girls say I have stirred up a hornet’s nest, 
for the reporter of the “ Weekly News” was listen- 
ing, and he says he will publish them to-morrow, if 
he leaves out all the rest of the paper. Scattered 
shot hits the most birds, and my poor verses are 
likely to scatter a good deal. 


CHAPTER XXL 

The thermometer has froze up, and the religion 
thawed out, and every night we all go to a distracted 
meeting. Curious how religious folks melt in winter 
and freeze in summer. 

My chum went to a dance last night, on the sly, 
and to-night she made the opening prayer in meet- 
ing, and sang and talked like a regim.ent of saints. I 
told her she ought to be spanked, and she laughed. 

The minister’s girls are here, and they get back 
among us sinners in church, and write love-letters to 
the “boys, whisper, chew gum, eat peanuts and candy^ 
make fun of Bro. A. and Sister T., then get up and 
tell their experience with faces long as telegraph 
poles and sober as gravestones. They repeat Elder 


BAD GIRL’S DlAkV. 


55 


Jones’ prayer, groan like Miss W., and sigh like Sis- 
ter H., and act like all possessed. Then folks blame 
us poor little sinners, who sit still and behave our- 
selves. 

There is Bro. M. who shouts “ Glory, Hallelujah !’’ 
loud enough to be heard from Maine to Texas, rubs 
his hands, and sees the New Jerusalem ; but the other 
day, when a poor, sick widow wanted him to dfaw 
her a load of wood from his well-filled yard, he 
insulted her the meanest kind. And old Bro. D. 
who is too stingy to shoe a flea in midwinter, and 
whose soul is so small that forty thousand such could 
dance cotillions on the point of a cambric needle 
and have room to spare, he gets up and tells that he 
has served the Lord twenty-five years, and it hain’t 
cost him twenty-five cents, and calls on all us sinners 
to get religion, it is so cheap ! He always talks 
about the gold and silver of the other world. 
To-night he asked me if I enjoyed religion, and I 
spoke up loud, and said, “ No, I don’t ; and I don’t 
want to, if it will make me as stingy and mean as 
you are.” 

Once I “went forward,” and one woman, who has 
prayed exactly the same words for fifty years, boxed 
my ears, ’cause I began to say them over when she 
did, and got a little ahead of her. I saw whole 
solar systems without glasses, and it made me so 
mad I just said to her, “ Mrs. , is that the only 


56 


LEAVES FROM A 


prayer you have ? If it is, I’ll buy you a new one, 
for this is about wore out,” and went back among 
the girls before she could wink. 

They sing long meter hymns through their noses, 
have the power, talk about the pleasures of a world 
none of them ever saw, close their eyes when the 
contribution box comes, and they have refused me a 
few old papers for the poor wretches in the jail ! 
Wanted them to put under their carpets or build fires 
with, they said. 

There is a family of motherless children here that 
need looking after, the worst way, but I’ll never ask 
another pious woman to do it, and be abused as I 
was yesterday. They ask the Lord to show them 
work to do for Him, but when He shows it under their 
very noses, and dings it into their ears, they are 
deaf, dumb, and blind. The young folks go to meet- 
ing to catch a beau, and the old ones to get a new 
stock of scandal. 

To-night some one turned off the gas, put out the 
fire, an.d cris-crossed the brooms in the entry-way, 
so the congregation had a good time getting out. 

One of the ministers is going to organize a literary 
society, to keep the young converts together. He 
says they mustn’t think about religion too much. 
There are sixty or eighty of them, and I’ll bet two 
and three-fourths cents, that in six months there won’t 
be a Corporal’s guard left, and the old ones will be 
converted over next winter same as usual. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


57 


They tell me that this ain’t nothing to a camp- 
meeting. I told Bro. Smith that this is as good as a 
museum to me, and I’d be an outsider and have fun. 

It strikes me that such meetings do more harm 
than good. I know that the boys and girls get 
together in their rooms and ridicule it all, perfectly 
awful. I want a religion that is put on Monday, and 
will wear in sun, wind, and rain, and not fade ; that 
will make a man honest in deal, and generous to the 
poor. My» opinion is, that what people can’t sell, 
they use lor themselves, and what is left, the Lord 
gets — and often it is a mighty small lot of musty 
nubbins. 

There goes the recitation bell ; I’ll learn my lesson 
going down stairs, and get there in class first one — 
you see I will. 



58 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER XXIL 

The fire is out, the wood green, and it’s cold as the 
North Pole ; but I don’t care — must tell about that 
“circle,” if I die for it. 

There are lots of Spiritualists in town, and some of 
them know me, and to-night I went to a “ circle,” as 
they call their meetings. The room was made dark 
so the spirits could see to come ; then we all sat 
down, took hold of hands, and waited. Pretty soon 
a medium jumped up and began to dance and howl • 
said she was controlled by the spirit of an old Indian 
Chief, and for us all to ask questions. I asked if it 
was “ Old Antoine,” and she said yes, that he was a 
great Western Chief, and died peacefully in his wig- 
wam, and was awful happy now. I told him he 
was “ the wrong Indian ; the right one was hung for 
fifty or sixty murders in Central New York about 
forty years ago, and is in purgatory, sure.” Then 
that medium sat down, and said I had spoiled the 
circle for her, when she was having a good time. 

An old woman rose, and hugged and kissed me; 
said she was the spirit of my oldest sister, and I 
must be good, so Pd go where she is. Now I never 
had but one sister, and that’s Sally Ann, and I told 
the medium she was mixed, and had better try 
again. 

One female spirit sat down in a man’s lap, and 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


59 


pretended to be his first wife, and he hugged her for 
keeps. If I tell the wife he has. now, she will send 
him to the happy land of Canaan, by fast express, 
and snatch that medium bald-headed. 

Lots of spirits came, knocked over chairs, boxed 
peoples’ ears, wrote letters, and raised the Old Nick 
generally. 

After a while, they lit a lamp, and went into 
trances. If the spirits talk as ugly about people as 
they did, I prefer this world for the present. Pretty 
soon I sighed, shut my eyes, and had a trance like- 
wise, but my communications didn’t suit, so they 
made me stop ; said I was possessed of the devil, 
and that was the reason only bad spirits had come. 

Then they built a fire on the floor, and all gathered 
around it, and they would have been burned to deaths 
if I hadn’t run to the door and hollered, “Fire ! 
fire ! ” They didn’t notice nothing, till the hose- 
cart came, and the fireman began to drag them out* 
There ain’t much left of that house ; but instead of 
thanking me for saving their lives, they abused me- 
Said if I had kept still, the spirits would have put 
out the fire themselves, and that I needn’t never go 
into another circle if I can’t let it alone. Anyhowr 
if I can’t make a better speech than any of their 
spirits did. I’ll treat the crowd. I’ll be blessed if I 
know which is the worst, a revival meeting or spirit- 
ual circle. I know how they tell fortunes with cards. 


6o 


LEAVES FROM A 


cups of water, and tea grounds, and one of these 
days I’ll set up on my own account, and run opposi- 
tion to them. 

There goes a Professor prowling round to see if 
lights are out, and I’ll be called to the office in the 
morning, for there’s a big crack in my door, and he 
can’t help seeing my light. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

A lot of us girls have been to a spelling-school in 
the country, and we won’t hear the last of it for six 
or eight months. 

We had a big sleigh with the box full of straw, and 
we cuddled down in it wrapped up like mummies, 
with Bro. Smith and Madam to keep order. 

The school-house is out ten miles, and is a little 
rickety, old, red shebang, about as big as ma’s wood- 
shed, but not half as comfortable, and not a tree or 
house within sight. It is warmed by a funny little 
box stove, that gives out almost as much heat as a 
kerosene lamp. Those that sit near it are roasted, 
while the rest freeze, and the teacher’s desk is off to 
the far end. It was full when we got there, but they 
made room for us. The teacher made a short 
address, and then they chose sides. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


6t 


My chum was selected for one of the leaders, ’cause 
she is tall and looks wise, but as a speller she is one 
grand failure. It is enough to make the ghost of 
Noah Webster sick to* hear her stumble over words 
of three letters. After all on one side had been 
chosen over on the other, we all stood up and spelled 
down, and it’s a disgraceful fact that we city folks 
went down first. In fact, we dropped like leaves 
after a frost, while those country chaps spelled, and 
spelled. Ragged little boys, that never saw a circus, 
nor the cars, nor nothing else, stood there and 
spelled every blessed word in the big dictionary, and 
gave the definitions, accent marks, rules for pro- 
nouncing, and capital letters, while we girls that 
study the Ologies sat dumb. After they had spelled 
up, down, and sideways. several times, there came a 
general review of common English branches. 

Little atoms of girls not bigger than Kansas grass- 
hoppers repeated the multiplication table up to four 
hundred times four hundred, backwards, forwards, 
and every other way. The larger scholars told 
where every river, creek, and mill-pond is on earth, 
what direction they run, and named every town near 
them ; gave the boundaries of the United States, 
their own State, county, and township, and gave the 
population of every city in the world, according to 
the last five censuses. Then they spoke pieces, and 
there the fun came in. One big boy with a voice like 


62 


LEAVES FROM A 


a buzz-saw gave “ Rienzi’s address to the Romans, ’ 
and a great big giant of a fellow began “ Mary had 
a little lamb,” in a little squeaky voice, that made 
every one laugh, and confused, him so, he sat down. 
Every scholar, however, had a word of some kind, 
from “Mother Goose ” to Shakespeare, and the girl’s 
compositions were killingly funny — almost as bad as 
some of mine. 

There was an alphabet in rhyme, that brought in 
all their names, and began like this : 

“ A is for Albert with a big nose, 

The longer he lives, the taller he grows.” 

— Now, Albert is only six feet, four inches tall, and 
the idea of his growing any taller is rich — 

“ B is for Bennie, who never keeps still. 

And lives in a house on top of a hill. 

C is for Clara, who makes love to the teacher. 

And when he ain’t nigh, she goes for the preacher,” 

— and so on to X, Y, Z. Every verse hit the one 
named fair and square. They parodied “ Casabi- 
anca ” like this : 

“ The boy stood on the burning deck. 

Peeling taters by the peck.” 

And even “ Excelsior ” was turned into rhyme, tell- 
ing about the courtship of the teacher and Clara. 

To wind up with, Bro. Smith was called on for a 
few remarks, and then I rose, and said that we had 
come out there to astonish them, but that they had 
turned the tables, and astonished us ; that if they 
did dress old-fashioned, and were awkward in man- 


BAD girl’s diary. 


63 


ners, they knew a mighty sight the most, and pro- 
posed that we swap places, and let us come to dis- 
trict school, and learn a few common, everyday 
things. I apologized for our hideous spelling, and 
just then a little sassy imp handed me his spelling- 
book, and said that I had better begin at Baker* 
Everybody stamped their feet and cheered, and in the 
confusion we girls got into our sleigh and started 
for home. 

It is almost morning, so I won’t go to bed, but 
will write to pa, and tell him I have just found out 
how little I know. 




64 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

I can’t keep the rules, and it ain’t any use to try. 
I learn my lessons once reading over, then must do 
something or bust. Should starve to death on 
boarding-house fare, only I coaxed Madam to change 
my room for one down stairs, and after all are asleep, 
I slip out, get into the pantry-window, and help my- 
self to rations — pie, cake, pickles, and preserves. 
The steward complains that the rats bother him 
dreadful. 

A few days ago, I sent invitations to two hundred 
and fifty people to attend a tea party in Madam’s' 
room the next night. Promised the post-ofihce clerk 
my photograph if he wouldn’t tell who did it. There 
was a time, and don’t you forget it. The bell kept 
ringing, and ringing, and Madam wondered that she 
had such a lot of callers. When seventy-five or 
eighty had come, she found out what was the matter, 
and wa’n’t she mad ! There were explanations all 
around, and the folks went home, and she went to 
bed ; but until midnight that old bell kept ringing ; 
and the next morning she put a card in the papers 
telling how it was the work of some evil-minded per- 
son. Yesterday and to-day she has been hatefuller 
than an old hyena, and cross as a dog with a sore 
head. 

I went over to the Dutch butcher’s this P. M., and 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


65 


coaxed his big dog back with me ; (a dog will follow 
you anywhere for a piece of sweet*cake.) My room 
key fits Madam’s, and she is ’fraid as death of dogs, 
so I opened her door, and let him in. She was out 
late to a concert, and had just begun to sleep, when 
he smelled a rat, and began to chase it, and bark 
and growl. How she did scream, and when all the 
faculty and the students got to her room, and found 
a key that would open it, there she stood on the bed, 
with a great frilled night-cap on, her teeth and hair 
off, screeching enough to wake the^seven sleepers. 
The dog had got the rat, and lay on the floor, growl- 
ing and showing his teeth. Everybody talked at 
once, but none dared to touch the dog. Pretty soon 
the Dutch butcher rushed in, calling, “ Vere is mine 
dog ! Vere is mine dog ! ” and when he saw him in 
the room, he just whistled, and that animal walked 
out, quiet as Moses. The girls hollered and run as 
if a menagerie was loose ; Madam shut her door 
quick, and the crowd finally dispersed. And after 
all, that dog is the best-natured animal, and never 
hurts anything but rats and cats. I tremble to think 
what will happen to me, if Madam finds out who 
brought him here. 

Our Professor in Chemistry will be mad to-morrow, 
for I offered to fill his water-pitcher, and dropped in 
just enough nitrate of silver to make his face and 
hands a nice shade of brown. He is very vain of his 
pretty hands and nice complexion. 

*5 


66 


LEAVES FROM A 


Now, ril slip into the chapei and scatter powder 
and sand under the seats, and jn the aisles — not 
enough to do any harm, only wake us all up when 
we slide our feet walking in. One of the girls always 
walks like an elephant, and sits in front, and I ache 
to see her to-morrow. Teach her to stoplight ; and 
those that scuff their feet will learn to lift them after 
this. 

One of the girls is having a party in her room 
to-night. There is some of the college boys there, 
and they are playing euchre, eating oranges, cakes, 
etc., and having a jolly time. Now, if they don’t all 
get a lecture in the office to-morrow morning, my 
name ain’t Eliza Jane Smith, for the steward is peek- 
ing through the key-hole and writing down their 
names to give to Bro. Smith. He thinks he has 
found the rats that steal his rations, but circumstan- 
tial evidence is poor proof. They wouldn’t ask me 
to their party, so I wouldn’t warn them when I saw 
him coming. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


67 


■ CHAPTER XXV. 

I’ve got a beau. All the other girls had one, and 
I wanted to be in fashion. He clerks for his pa in a 
general notion store, and buys me ice cream and 
soda water when we go out walking, keeps me sup- 
plied with note paper and stamps, so I can write 
home often — which I do — and once we went to the 
opera. He took my chum along so she wouldn’t tell, 
and gave the janitor a box of cigars to let us in 
afterwards — and that is all a beau is good for. 

Last night he got me some of this stage fire that is 
used in theatres to make a big blaze and smoke, but 
don’t burn nothing. About 2 o’clock, A. M., I lit it 
in the parlor, reception room, and chapel, then 
sounded the fire alarm. The fire department was 
here in less than five minutes, and just flooding this 
old rat-trap with water, pitching furniture out doors, 
and getting the girls out. V/hen they had worked 
about half an hour, one of them found a stick of that 
theatre stuff that I had dropped, and he knew what 
it was, and told the ma'n to stop, that it was a false 
alarm. They felt cheap, ’cause they had been fooled, 
but vow to lynch the one that did it. They don’t 
suspect me, for I was so scared at what I’d done, that 
I fell down and sprained my ankle, and must walk on 
crutches a week or two.' 

To-day there wa’n’t any school on account of the 


68 


LEAVES FROM A 


fire, and the police are offered fifty cents each to find 
the author of this and several other things. My beau 
has gone to New York to get goods, and, as he took 
the train last evening, he is safe. I’ll get permission 
to go home awhile ; it is almost vacation, anyhow, 
and my ankle is a good excuse. 

P. S. — Madam says I may go, and I needn’t ever 
come back if I don’t want to ; but Bro. Smith says, 
‘‘Jenny, come back and let folks know you can 
behave yourself.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

My lame foot has kept me at home all vacation, 
and as I didn’t have any fun, ma said she and I would 
go out in the country to a quilting bee, and visit 
some of her old friends. So we went. 

They set us down at Station B, 

The city itself we couldn’t see ; 

No house or depot — not even a tree — 

Only a wood -pile and telegraph pole 
Comprise the horrid little hole. 

It takes a telescope to find 

The town named Station B, you mind. 

— But by the way that brakeman yelled out the name, 
I thought it was big as the state of Maine, or Dela- 
ware, at least. 


BAD girl’s diary. 


69 

The people hugged ma, and took off her bonnet,' 
and gave her the big chair, but let me wait on my- 
self, and when I said to the woman of the house, 
“ Ain’t you glad to see me, too } ” she said, “ No, not 
specially, that she had seen young ones before.” 

There were two quilts on the frames; and ma and 
a few other old ladies went to work, while the young 
folks gossiped about their beaux, asked me for the 
pattern of my dress, and wished the rest would hurry 
and come, so the quilts would be done, and they 
could have supper. They asked me to sew ; and I 
did. No one said how it should be done, so I made 
circles, triangles, roses, leaves, men, women, houses, 
etc. ; then the other girls took pattern after me, and 
began to make cats, dogs, pigs, hens, churns, and 
wagons, and we were having a big time, when one 
old woman put on her specs to see our stitches. She 
called to ma, “ Susan,‘for the good, gracious Lord’s 
sake, come here, and see what your gal is a doin’ ! ” 
Then she hit us all, right and left, and told us to 
leave the quilt for those to finish, as wa’n’t fuller of 
Satan than an egg of meat,” as we was. Said that 
“ Laura Melindy had worked apiecing that since she 
wa’n’t bigger than a pint of cider, and now us imps 
had spiled it ! ” How she did take on — worse than 
Mrs. Caudle over the umbrella. If she had let us 
alone, we would have had a whole Noah’s Ark quilted 
in, in a little while. 


70 


LEAVES FROM A 


There were about thirty woman folks there, but 
the most of them didn’t come till just before supper. 
Not a man or boy dared to be seen until after the 
old ladies had eat and gone home ; then twenty or 
thirty came in and helped the girls. For once in my 
life, I’d nothing to say. 

There were four kinds of cake — ail made after one 
receipt, but baked in different shaped tins ; ten kinds 
of preserves ; and six kinds of pie, besides ginger- 
bread and cookies ; fried pork, mashed potatoes, 
onions, cabbage, and eight kinds of pickles, washed 
down with green tea — strong as lye. It was “Jane, 
heave that sass this way,” “John, if I was a pig. I’d go 
out doors, and not come in among white folks ; what 
for did you take that last piece of cake, when you 
knew it’s the only thing I hankered after.” They 
joked, laughed, told how Mrs. So-and-so always had 
dish-water tea, and scrimped her sugar ; how long the 
light shone in the school ma’am’s window, Sunday 
night, etc. When the table was cleared, the boys 
and girls washed the dishes, and had a dance. I 
laid aside my city airs, and joined in, but made one 
of the girls mad, because her beau said he could 
dance with me forever, and not get tired, I was so 
little and spry. I don’t want him or any other man, 
and told her so ; but she cried and went off home — 
afoot and alone, ’cross lots — crying ; and he tagged 
on after her. Hope they made up for my sake. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


71 


Ma.and I visited around some days, then came 
home, and as I have hurt my left arm at the skating- 
rink, so it is in a sling, she says I needn’t go back to 
school this term. John Henry advises me to go now, 
before I break my neck, for if I wait much longer to 
begin my education, I’ll die of old age before I grad- 
uate. Don’t know what I’ll do. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Times are dull, and pa has kept up such an inces- 
sant worry, lately, for fear that he would die in the 
Poor-house, that I concluded I’d go back to school, 
and see if I could learn how to earn my own living, 
and ask no odds of my relations. Besides, John 
Henry is in love for the forty-third time, and spends 
all his salary in hair oil, neckties, and tight boots. 
It beats me how he can make a No. 9 foot go into a 
No. 6 boot ; but he manages it somehow. I don’t 
mean to say that he has big feet, oh, no ; but he is 
six feet, two inches tall, and weighs two hundred and 
seven and one-half pounds, so I guess a No. 9 would 
just about fit him. 

' Bro. Smith greeted me with smiles and good 
words ; but Madam — well, she shrugged her should- 
ers, and looked sour as a vinegar factory. 


72 


LEAVES FROM A 


I study music, and the Professor drove me wild 
with his scolding to-day. You see I only came yes- 
terday, and as there was a mouse in my room, I con- 
trived to catch it, and when I went to take my les- 
son it was sound asleep in my handkerchief. After 
awhile, I got tired practicing those old scales, and 
took my handkerchief out to wipe my eyes, when> 
what should that deluded mouse do, but jump right 
into the piano, and run all over the internal fixings, 
and squeak so I couldn’t sound a note. How mad 
that old Professor was ! He danced round the 
room as if he was strung on wires, and sputtered 
in French and English, like a lunatic. Madam came 
in and shut me up for the rest of the day ; but I 
didn’t stay shut up all the same. Suppose Pd lose 
the rest of my lessons, just to please that sour- faced 
old maid, who has tried forty-five years to get mar- 
ried, and failed every time ? Not any ! I took a 
refreshing bath, crimped my hair killingly, put on my 
rose-colored cashmere dress, opened the window, and 
dropped down — blessing my lucky stars that Bro. 
Smith had given me a room on the first floor. Then 
I went to vocal music lesson and behaved like an 
angel. ’ I love to sing, and did my level best ; and I 
know that rose-colored dress set off my complexion 
perfectly. Madam hates it, ’cause she is so tormented 
black, such colors only make her look blacker, which 
is useless ; and her hair won’t crimp any more than 


BAD girl’s diary. • 73 

a telegraph pole will, so, of course, she is “ down” on 
crimps. 

At supper, there was cheese on the table, and as 
it had several more inhabitants than the moon is 
supposed to have, I asked a girl at the far end of the 
table, if she would like some. She said, “Yes, if I’d 
please pass it to her.”' Then in my sweete&t voice I 
replied, “Just whistle and it will come to you.” 
Every one saw the point and began to laugh. In 
vain Madam ordered silence ; she might as well have 
tried to stop a cyclone. But I am mistaken if we 
see any more such victuals while I board here. 

There goes the bell for lights out, and I’ve tipped 
over the ink bottle. Good night. There goes my 
pen to smash ; and the lamp also. I am asleep. 



74 


LEAVES FROM A 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Talk about earthquakes and whirlwinds ! Why, 
they are nothing to the row I’ve raised in this 
“ Institution of Knowledge.” 

One of the lads in the business department has 
someho'\^ learned somebody’s system of short-hand 
writing, and showed his girl enough so she can read 
his letters, and they correspond all the time in the 
angle-worm style. ’Tother day, he gave me a letter 
to give to her, and as it was open, I wanted to know 
what was in it. I’ll be blessed if there was one word 
of United States writing there ; so I put it in my 
pocket, and showed it ’round among all the girls, and 
we tried and tried to read it, but couldn’t. Then, of 
course, I had to drop the epistle on the recitation 
room floor ; and one of the professors picked it up, 
read it, and the consequence is the awfulest row 
ever was. That poor girl was called up before the 
whole school, and asked to confess ; but she was so 
scared that she just cried; and her beau, he looked 
at me like he wanted to kill me. Now, I ain’t a 
coward, if I am the worst girl in school, so I got up 
before all of them, and told the honest, up-and-down 
truth. I don’t know what happened then, for I 
expected to be expelled right off and sent home in 
disgrace, and I just fainted dead away. The next 
morning, at prayers, Bro. Smith talked the matter 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


75 


over, and said that I’d confessed my wrongdoing- 
without being asked, and that was more than any of 
the rest of them would have done, so all the punish- 
ment he would give would be to condemn me to 
study some system of Phonography, and I might 
have a month to decide which I’d take ; also, that he 
had sent my address to eight hundred or one thou- 
sand authors of as many different systems. * * ^ 
One week later. — Every day I get a bushel of mail 
about that abominable short-hand writing, and if I 
didn’t want to graduate so dreadfully. I’d run away 
to the mountains and be a hermit ; besides the girls 
all twit me about it — but I’ll be even all around^ 
they can bet their old shoes, I will. * * 4^ Six 
weeks later. — Hurrah for Eliza Jane Smith ! Who 
gets the start of her, gets up early in the ‘morning, 
and goes to bed late in the evening. I’ve invented 
a system of my own, and now defy teachers, schol- 
ars, curious neighbors, and even my sister Sally Ann, 
to read my writing. Oh, but it is fun to see them 
study over scraps of my M.S.S., which I leave 
around accidentally. No need to hide my diary 
under lock and key, and then hide the key and forget 
myself where it is ; I just let my papers lie in my 
desk open. No body on earth can read them, and 
perhaps I can’t when I get old and lose my eyesight. 

The girls who used to copy their lessons from mine 
can’t do so now, and even mathematics have had to 


LEAVES FROM A 


76 

change. Madam says that I am a disgrace to young- 
lady-ism ; but she would give a bottle of hair dye and 
throw in a box of face powder, to get the key to my 
system. 

Tim Jones, my brother-in-law, sent me word that 
there was a baby boy at his house, and he would like 
for “Aunt Jenny” to come and see who he looked 
like. “Aunt Jenny!” Dear me, how old I feel; 
but if that boy takes after his pa and ma, he won’t 
get many favors from me. I wrote a beautiful letter 
of congratulation, in my new system, and ma was so 
mad that she says I sha’n’t go to the christening 
next week. She was going to g^t me anew blue silk 
dress, and have me for godmother, but now I may 
stay at school. I’d rather take a dose of boneset tea 
than to go anyhow, and as for the dress. I’ll earn my 
own one of these days, and she may give hers to 
ally Ann. John Henry says that I don’t deserve to be 
aunt to such a sweet baby. I don’t want to be, and 
he can rest his soul in peace. If the child lives, like 
as not he will be a Congressman, or Star-route con- 
tractor, or school-director, or do some other awful 
thing to disgrace his family. Perhaps he will edit a 
political paper, and run against his grandpa for 
Mayor or Postmaster. If he is like his mother, he 
will vote on the contrary side of everybody. 

I believe they call him William Henry Percival 
Lincoln Douglas Harrison John Jones. Seems like I 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


77 


forgot a few names — but never mind ; he has enough 
to kill him. Sally Ann says she never expects to 
have another son, and she will give this one names 
enough for a dozen. Won’t the school teachers have 
a time reading off his name one of these days. 
Gracious sakes ! They will have to begin the day 
before-hand. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

“ There never was a goose so grey, 

But soon or late, 

An honest gander came that way 
And chose her for his mate.” 

I wrote that at the head of my composition this 
week, and then went on to tell about old maids. 
There are seventy-five or eighty of them at school 
here, and every mother’s daughter of them declares 
I meant her ; and they have shaken the teeth all 
loose in my head, so I am nearly starved to death. 
Now, I will write about old bachelors, and see if they 
will finish killing me. I am a perfect martyr, and 
instead of graduating. I’ll be chief cook in a funeral 
procession ; then they will all be sorry they treated 
me so when I was upon earth. I know I’d look 
sweet ; and I have picked out the text for the minis- 


LEAVES FROM A 


78 

ter, and the hymns, and written my epitaph, and 
what kind of a head-stone I want, and put all into a 
big envelope, and given it to John Henry for safe 
keeping ; besides, I made my will, but nobody won’t 
know what that is, until I am an angel in heaven. If 
girls only knew the misery of boarding-school, they 
would die before going to one. ^. * * * * * 

^ ^ * I ain’t dead yet- not by any means, and 

am worth fifty ghosts at one hundred cents on the 
dollar, and I shan’t die either, until I am great-great 
aunty. I’ll live just for spite. 

I was pretty sick, and a doctor came, and coughed 
a few times, then wrote three'words of hog Latin on 
a big sheet of paper, which he charged pa $25.00 for, 
and the girls came in and ransacked my room, and I 
got so mad, I crawled off that bed, and scolded until 
they were glad to leave. The nurse-woman put me 
back and poured a gallon of oat-meal gruel down my 
throat, which I hate like sixty ; and the flies buzzed ; 
and the doctor came and cut off my hair, which was 
worse than all the rest. Madam softened her heart 
and read the “ Christian Advocate” to me for fifteen 
minutes, and I know now how it feels to be burned 
at the stake ; but I forgive her, for she meant it for 
my good — besides, she took some of my hair and had 
it made into a lovely bracelet for me. If she will 
have a watch-chain made to match, she may read 
the “Advocate” all day next time I’m sick, and I’ll 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY, 


79 

listen to every word. But I don’t see why that 
paper can’t be just as good, and still be a little wee 
bit interesting. A man may be a number one 
preacher, and a below zero editor. Shakespeare or 
Job, I forget which, says that “ editors are born, not 
made.” Now, I know I’d make a good editor. 

But I have paid off that doctor in his own coin. 
Since I got able to be around, I do millinery work 
on the sly for one of the bon ton shops ; and the 
head work-woman is my special friend. We took 
one square inch of foundation, a few scraps of old 
lace — renewed with logwood and vinegar — curled 
over three old plumes, added a bunch of roses, and 
three-quarters yard of black ribbon that had lain 
around the shop a century, five cents’ worth of scar- 
let red, and then made the doctor’s wife believe it 
had just come from Paris ; and she paid thirty dollars 
for it, and brags about her bargain. We charged 
her forty dollars, at first, but kept coming down fifty 
cents at a time, until we got thirty dollars. Pa has 
been over to see me, and I told him ; but we don’t 
dare let ma know, for she thinks it the sum of all sin 
for a girl to work for money. Pa, he laughed, and 
says that for every dollar I earn, he will give me 
another ; and he thinks it a good plan for me to 
know how to help myself, for John Henry costs so 
much to keep, and ma ain’t as economical as she 
used to be, and he is getting old. Poor pa, he is 


So 


LEAVES FROM A 


worth five hundred thousand dollars, including his 
debts. Don’t know how much he would be worth if 
they were paid, but probably enough to keep him off 
the county. But, then, pa always did have to fret 
and stew, and worry about something, and it may as 
well be that as anything. Ma always gets a novel, 
and stops up her ears when he talks business to her ; 
and John Henry starts off to Sally Ann’s house, and 
there ain’t a living soul that will listen to him, but 
me. I always say, “ Pa, don’t worry, for I’ll take care 
of you,” and that seems to comfort him. Ain’t he 
proud of his little grandson, though ? and I wouldn’t 
have even the mice know it, but he brought me that 
blue silk dress, with real lace trimmings. Ma don’t 
know it, and I don’t intend she shall, for his sake, for 
he would never hear the last of it. 



BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


8i 


CHAPTER XXX. 

I have graduated. Thank the stars, it is over at 
last. The other girls wore the usual white, but I 
was dressed in the precious blue silk ; and they were 
all mad because I out-shone them ; and that pleased 
me most of all ; besides, I had a handsome beau — one 
whom they have tried all summer to get, and couldn’t. 
I didn’t try, for I hate boys ; but he came and asked 
for me, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to make 
those girls jealous of me once more. We had a big 
ball at night, and he paid me exclusive attention. I 
may not know as rnuch about abstract Ology as some 
girls do, but I can dance like a bird, and never lack 
for partners. We took pains to exchange photos in 
such a way, that the girls would all see us, and we 
acted the moon-struck lovers to perfection — so much 
so, that they think we are engaged. Uncle Charlie 
couldn’t come, so he and Aunt Mary bought a lovely 
ring, and sent with grandma to me, and I made folks 
believe it was an engagement ring. He is a nice 
man, but I don’t want to marry any one, for twenty- 
five or thirty years yet — perhaps never. 

Grandma cried over me, and ma said she hoped I’d 
settle down now, and act like other girls. Bro. Smith 
gave me his blessing, and I sent a dozen tin whistles 
and a drum to his twin boys, and an accordion to his 
girl. Every time he goes home, he will remember 

me for several weeks to come. 

*6 


82 


LEAVES FROM A 


Unknown to any one, I have hired out to teach a 
district school back in the woods, and board around, - 
for ten dollars per month. Am to begin in two 
months, and until then I’ll rest, and get my clothes » 
mended ; also study up on addition and division, and 
practice on spelling and grammar — things I’ve sadly 
neglected lately. ^ ^*44.** 

“Ye gods, and little fishes!” What will happen 
next ? John Henry is married, and gone into part- 
nership with his father-in-law, who has asked me to 
marry him 1 Does the old sap-head think I want to 
be mother to my own brother, and aunt to my own 
children } And all for a Brussels carpet and some 
silverware ? I slapped him in the face, and said that 
pa had a brother and sister do that once, and I’d see 
every man on earth deader than Pharaoh, before I’d 
marry the best one living ; and if I did, it wouldn’t 
be an old grey-headed sinner like him — that had one 
foot in the grave and t’other one on the edge. 
I’ll be an old maid and take comfort, and teach school 
for a living. 

Goodbye, my old Diary, lor a season, for I am .too 
upset to read or write any more ; besides, ma has 
found out about that district school, and a whole 
edition of Dictionaries couldn’t tell how she acts 
about it ; likewise, she is mad because I won’t get 
married. It is awful to be an old maid, but worse 
yet to be an unhappy wife. 


BAD GIRL’S DIARY. 


83 


NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 

The aforesaid was all written in her peculiar system 
of short-hand writing, but when I was determined to 
translate it, she kindly gave me the key ; and though 
I may have made some mistakes, it is substantially 
as she wrote it years ago. She don’t tell that she 
was a general favorite at school, in spite of all, and 
that she graduated with credit to herself and family, 
much to my surprise. Her life as a school-teacher, 
her trials and sorrows, boarding around, and about 
one hundred thousand other things in her eventful 
life are still to be translated, and one of these days, 
when I have time, I’ll make another search through 
her old papers. 


E. E. B. 


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