Friday.–We asked Grandmother if we could have some hoop skirts like the seminary girls and she said no, we were not old enough. When we were downtown Anna bought a reed for 10 cents and ran it into the hem of her underskirt and says she is going to wear it to school to-morrow. I think Grandmother will laugh out loud for once, when she sees it, but I don’t think Anna will wear it to school or anywhere else. She wouldn’t want to if she knew how terrible it looked.
I threaded a dozen needles on a spool of thread for Grandmother, before I went to school, so that she could slip them along and use them as she needed them. She says it is a great help.
Grandmother says I will have a great deal to answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever I say is “gospel truth.” The other day the girls at school were disputing with her about something and she said, “It is so, if it ain’t so, for Calline said so.” I shall have to “toe the mark,” as Grandfather says, if she keeps watch of me all the time and walks in my footsteps.
We asked Grandmother this evening if we could sit out in the kitchen with Bridget and Hannah and the hired man, Thomas Holleran. She said we could take turns and each stay ten minutes by the clock. It gave us a little change. I read once that “variety is the spice of life.” They sit around the table and each one has a candle, and Thomas reads aloud to the girls while they sew. He and Bridget are Catholics, but Hannah is a member of our Church. The girls have lived here always, I think, but I don’t know for sure, as I have not lived here always myself, but we have to get a new hired man sometimes. Grandmother says if you are as good to your girls as you are to yourself they will stay a long time. I am sure that is Grandmother’s rule. Mrs McCarty, who lives on Brook Street (some people call it Cat Alley but Grandmother says that is not proper), washes for us Mondays, and Grandmother always has a lunch for her at eleven o’clock and goes out herself to see that she sits down and eats it. Mrs McCarty told us Monday that Mrs Brockle’s niece was dead, who lives next door to her. Grandmother sent us over with some things for their comfort and told us to say that we were sorry they were in trouble. We went and when we came back Anna told Grandmother that I said, “Never mind, Mrs Brockle, some day we will all be dead.” I am sure that I said something better than that.
(December 10, 1852)