February 6 (1856).–We were awakened very early this morning by the cry of fire and the ringing of bells and could see the sky red with flames and knew it was the stores and we thought they were all burning up. Pretty soon we heard our big brass door knocker being pounded fast and Grandfather said, “Who’s there?” “Melville Arnold for the bank keys,” we heard. Grandfather handed them out and dressed as fast as he could and went down, while Anna and I just lay there and watched the flames and shook. He was gone two or three hours and when he came back he said that Mr Palmer’s hat store, Mr Underbill’s book store, Mr Shafer’s tailor shop, Mrs Smith’s millinery, Pratt & Smith’s drug store, Mr Mitchell’s dry goods store, two printing offices and a saloon were burned. It was a very handsome block. The bank escaped fire, but the wall of the next building fell on it and crushed it. After school to-night Grandmother let us go down and see how the fire looked. It looked very sad indeed. Judge Taylor offered Grandfather one of the wings of his house for the bank for the present but he has secured a place in Mr Buhre’s store in the Franklin Block.
Thursday, February 7.–Dr and Aunt Mary Carr and Uncle Field and Aunt Ann were over at our house to dinner to-day and we had a fine fish dinner, not one of Gabriel’s (the man who blows such a blast through the street, they call him Gabriel), but one that Mr Francis Granger sent to us. It was elegant. Such a large one it covered a big platter. This evening General Granger came in and brought a gentleman with him whose name was Mr. Skinner. They asked Grandfather, as one of the trustees of the church, if he had any objection to a deaf and dumb exhibition there to-morrow night. He had no objection, so they will have it and we will go.
Friday.–We went and liked it very much. The man with them could talk and he interpreted it. There were two deaf and dumb women and three children. They performed very prettily, but the smartest boy did the most. He acted out David killing Goliath and the story of the boy stealing apples and how the old man tried to get him down by throwing grass at him, but finding that would not do, he threw stones which brought the boy down pretty quick. Then he acted a boy going fishing and a man being shaved in a barber shop and several other things. I laughed out loud in school to-day and made some pictures on my slate and showed them to Clara Willson and made her laugh, and then we both had to stay after school. Anna was at Aunt Ann’s to supper to-night to meet a little girl named Helen Bristol, of Rochester. Ritie Tyler was there, too, and they had a lovely time.
February 8. – I have not written in my journal for several days, because I never like to write things down if they don’t go right. Anna and I were invited to go on a sleighride, Tuesday night, and Grandfather said he did not want us to go. We asked him if we could spend the evening with Frankie Richardson and he said yes, so we went down there and when the load stopped for her, we went too, but we did not enjoy ourselves at all and did not join in the singing. I had no idea that sleigh-rides could make any one feel so bad. It was not very cold, but I just shivered all the time. When the nine o’clock bell rang we were up by the “Northern Retreat,” and I was so glad when we got near home so we could get out. Grandfather and Grandmother asked us if we had a nice time, but we got to bed as quick as we could. The next day Grandfather went into Mr Richardson’s store and told him he was glad he did not let Frankie go on the sleigh-ride, and Mr Richardson said he did let her go and we went too. We knew how it was, when we got home from school, because they acted so sober, and, after a while, Grandmother talked with us about it. We told her we were sorry and we did not have a bit good time and would never do it again. When she prayed with us the next morning, as she always does before we go to school, she said, “Prepare us, Lord, for what thou art preparing for us,” and it seemed as though she was discouraged, but she said she forgave us. I know one thing, we will never run away to any more sleigh-rides.
February 20. – Mr Worden, Mrs Henry Chesebro’s father, was buried to-day, and Aunt Ann let Allie stay with us while she went to the funeral. I am going to Fannie Gaylord’s party to-morrow night.
I went to school this afternoon and kept the rules, so to-night I had the satisfaction of saying “perfect” when called upon, and if I did not like to keep the rules, it is some pleasure to say that.
February 21.–We had a very nice time at Fannie Gaylord’s party and a splendid supper. Lucilla Field laughed herself almost to pieces when she found on going home that she had worn her leggins all the evening. We had a pleasant walk home but did not stay till it was out. Some one asked me if I danced every set and I told them no, I set every dance. I told Grandmother and she was very much pleased. Some one told us that Grandfather and Grandmother first met at a ball in the early settlement of Canandaigua. I asked her if it was so and she said she never had danced since she became a professing Christian and that was more than fifty years ago.
Grandfather heard to-day of the death of his sister, Lydia, who was Mrs Lyman Beecher. She was Rev. Dr Lyman Beecher’s third wife. Grandmother says that they visited her once and she was quite nervous thinking about having such a great man as Dr Lyman Beecher for her guest, as he was considered one of the greatest men of his day, but she said she soon got over this feeling, for he was so genial and pleasant and she noticed particularly how he ran up and down stairs like a boy. I think that is very apt to be the way for “men are only boys grown tall.”
There was a Know Nothing convention in town to-day. They don’t want any one but Americans to hold office, but I guess they will find that foreigners will get in. Our hired man is an Irishman and I think he would just as soon be “Prisidint” as not.
February 22.–This is such a beautiful day, the girls wanted a holiday, but Mr Richards would not grant it. We told him it was Washington’s birthday and we felt very patriotic, but he was inexorable. We had a musical review and literary exercises instead in the afternoon and I put on my blue merino dress and my other shoes. Anna dressed up, too, and I curled her hair. The Primary scholars sit upstairs this term and do not have to pay any more. Anna and Emma Wheeler like it very much, but they do not sit together. We are seated alphabetically, and I sit with Mary Reznor and Anna with Mittie Smith. They thought she would behave better, I suppose, if they put her with one of the older girls, but I do not know as it will have the “desired effect,” as Grandmother says. Miss Mary Howell and Miss Carrie Hart and Miss Lizzie and Miss Mollie Bull were visitors this afternoon. Gertrude Monier played and sang. Mrs Anderson is the singing teacher. Marion Maddox and Pussie Harris and Mary Daniels played on the piano. Mr Hardick is the teacher, and he played too. You would think he was trying to pound the piano all to pieces but he is a good player. We have two papers kept up at school, The Snow Bird and The Waif-– one for the younger and the other for the older girls. Miss Jones, the composition teacher, corrects them both. Kate Buell and Anna Maria Chapin read The Waif to-day and Gusta Buell and I read The Snow Bird. She has beautiful curls and has two nice brothers also, Albert and Arthur, and the girls all like them. They have not lived in town very long.
February 25.–I guess I won’t fill up my journal any more by saying I arose this morning at the usual time, for I don’t think it is a matter of life or death whether I get up at the usual time or a few minutes later and when I am older and read over the account of the manner in which I occupied my time in my younger days I don’t think it will add particularly to the interest to know whether I used to get up at 7 or at a quarter before. I think Miss Sprague, our schoolroom teacher, would have been glad if none of us had got up at all this morning for we acted so in school. She does not want any noise during the three minute recess, but there has been a good deal all day. In singing class they disturbed Mr Kimball by blowing through combs. We took off our round combs and put paper over them and then blew – Mary Wheeler and Lottie Lapham and Anna sat nearest me and we all tried to do it, but Lottie was the only one who could make it go. He thought we all did, so he made us come up and sit by him. I did not want to a bit. He told Miss Sprague of us and she told the whole school if there was as much noise another day she would keep every one of us an hour after half-past 4. As soon as she said this they all began to groan. She said “Silence.” I only made the least speck of a noise that no one heard.
February 26.–To-night, after singing class, Mr Richards asked all who blew through combs to rise. I did not, because I could not make it go, but when he said all who groaned could rise, I did, and some others, but not half who did it. He kept us very late and we all had to sign an apology to Miss Sprague.
Grandfather made me a present of a beautiful blue stone to-day called Malachite. Anna said she always thought Malachite was one of the prophets.