November 1st, 1861.—School had opened on the first of last month, but, after the trouble which came to us, mother let Miss Sadie go to visit her sister for a while. She came back on the 15th and the other girls have been going to school while I was away. This morning I began again, there are no others in my class so it did not really make much difference. Miss Sadie does not teach Trigonometry, so I have laid that aside until Father feels better and can help me with it. I feel so strange—and the war news hurts me as it never did before. I seem to be looking for bad news all the time. Father says I must try to overcome this feeling, he has given me a poem to learn and I think I shall copy it here:
“Let us try to be happy,
We may if we will,
Find some good in life
To o’er balance the ill.
.
“There are times when
The lightest of spirits must bow
And the sunniest face
Wear a cloud on its brow.
.
“But the deeper our own grief
The greater the need,
To try to be happy
Lest other hearts bleed.
.
“Let us each in all earnestness
Work for the best;
And leave to our God and
Our conscience the rest
.
“Still holding this truth
Both in word and in deed
That who tries to be happy
Is sure to succeed.”
Susan Bradford is 15 years old when this entry was made.