Views from My Schoolroom Window: The Diary of Schoolteacher Mary Laurentine Martin

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© 2009 Editor: Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 6/18/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4259-0202-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4259-0201-8 (hc)

ISBN: 9781463451844 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005909974

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Permission to use Birdseye View of Janesville for book cover

courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society

Mary Laurentine Martin, circa 1858. Courtesy: Price family records

Contents

Mary Laurentine Martin, circa 1858. Courtesy: Price family records

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Afterword

Appendix

Notes

Bibliographic Resources

Acknowledgments

Working with the diary and subsequent writings of Mary Laurentine Martin was a profoundly enriching experience. To read and study words and thoughts originally meant to be kept privately carries responsibility for the editor well beyond that of mere attention to detail. One must care for lives led and the heartfelt implications of the meaning that their lives had on others. Researching historical subjects from 150 years ago provides a researcher and editor ample room to both speculate openly and to state what cannot be known in the absence of factual proof, in spite of wishes otherwise. The pursuit of history is far from boring, especially when relevant and worthwhile characters appear whose activities, predicaments and philosophies seem to stand the tests of time and speak to us today.

I am grateful that the staff of the University of Kansas Spencer Research Library set in motion an enlightening period of my life by referring me to Professor Cora Lee Beers Price at a time when I was researching the subject of an earlier book about Civil War veteran William H. Bradbury. Professor Price and her husband Professor G. Baley Price had been friends of William Bradbury’s granddaughter, University of Kansas Classics Professor Mary Grant. I became fond of my visits with the Price family and our conversations inevitably meandered beyond those of my original purpose in meeting them.

In her early 90’s then and in poor health, Professor Cora Lee was nonetheless a delightful hostess who regaled me with many of her own coming-of-age stories as a young educator following the Great Depression in Janesville, Wisconsin. Her inspiration to pursue higher education in hard times came from her paternal grandmother, Mary Laurentine Martin Beers. Grandparents Lee and Laurentine Beers lived in Professor Cora Lee’s home when she was growing up; she had a close relationship with Grandmother Laurentine especially. Over time I was honored to learn that Professor Cora Lee and members of her family agreed that I should be invited to research and edit the diary and writings of Mary Laurentine Martin. Aside from my great interest in learning about the mid-nineteenth century life of a female scholar and educator, I would have been pleased to work in nearly any manner with Professor Cora Lee.

It was my hope that this project would be completed during Professor Cora Lee’s lifetime. While this could not be the case sadly, it is nonetheless very satisfying to share a published copy with her partner in life, Professor G. Baley Price. Now a centenarian, he enthusiastically encouraged me forward through regular electronic mail and telephone calls. For his example of devotion to his wife and her work, his strategic philanthropic model in laying the groundwork for a legacy of scholarship for generations to come and for his sincere and true friendship and trust, I will forever be the richer.

I extend thanks and appreciation to the Spencer Research Library of the University of Kansas; the Rock County, Wisconsin Historical Society; the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives and Library; the Watertown, New York Public Library; Western Michigan State University Archives; Kalamazoo, Michigan Public Library; and Prints Old and Rare of Pacifica, California.

Additionally, I am sincerely grateful for support and encouragement of this project by educators: Lucy J. Price, Edwina C. Eisert, Cora Lee Kluge, Sallie Diane Fukunaga, Doris Burgert, Griffith B. Price, Jr., Janet Nicely and Wilmer Cabezas. Finally, this work was possible in large part due to the shared vision of my husband and education researcher, George W. Bohrnstedt.

Dedication

To Cora Lee Beers Price

There were giants in those days, [wo]men mighty

in resources, fortitude and courage.

M. L. Beers, 1893

Foreword

Mary Laurentine Martin was a woman ahead of her time. She wanted more from life than the traditional roles of women of her era, namely wife and mother, yet she wanted those roles as well. She was an accomplished teacher, author and poet and a tribute to all women. Laurentine possessed her own thoughts and was willing to speak them in a strong voice. As a teacher and principal she changed the lives of those she taught. As an author and poet, her writings influenced the lives of many others.

While Laurentine’s diary is based in Janesville, Wisconsin, my own hometown, her insights and lessons in daily life could just as well have taken place in another growing western community of the mid-nineteenth century.

This diary presents the struggles that Laurentine went through on her journey through life. She vacillated between her desires and those intents attributed to the roots of her religious upbringing. Yet, as she matured, she found they were closely aligned. Her faith was strong and gave her and those around her great comfort especially in her latter life.

She started teaching at the age of fifteen in the 3rd Ward Intermediate in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1859. Janesville looked quite different then from what it does in the twenty-first century. When the Martin family and those of the Doty’s, the Smith’s, the Armstrong’s and the Parker’s bustled from countryside to town, Janesville itself was an evolving community consisting of a few dirt roads and open prairies surrounding a small downtown.

Laurentine was one of the first to attend the new high school built by town leaders after considerable contentiousness among community factions. Her diary helps us understand the complexity of building a community, in a state barely a decade old, and the important infrastructure that shaped it.

Laurentine’s diary sets an accurate portrayal of one example of the condition of education in a local community. Indeed, education was the community event during her time. As an educator, I can empathize with many of the issues she raised that led to measurement, by standards of her era, of scholars’ academic performance. Through her diary, I am reminded of the historic nature of our country’s timeless pursuit of quality education.

Students were publicly tested or examined by selected community leaders. Annual exhibitions were held where students were required to recite their compositions, and they were questioned in front of a great number of visitors.

The community itself became a forum for instructing students. We might be tempted to call these occasions ‘field trips’ today, but the Janesville High School class visits appeared to be more than sight-seeing occasions. Laurentine richly described an example of a very cold day’s visit in February of 1858 when the class went to Dr. Perkin’s office to study physiology and to examine his skeleton.

As a former teacher, I was especially interested in the 1860’s custom of teachers’ examinations and evaluations and the variety of ways in which they were conducted.

Teachers were examined and always without much warning. Sometimes notice and dates were published in the Gazette; others were just announced on the night before. All were dreaded. Examination is through and I am terribly tired. It was wholly an oral one which rendered it doubly irksome, Laurentine wrote. Yet, that was not the end of it.

The State Superintendent of Public Schools visited the classrooms along with the School Commissioners. They listened to student recitations and evaluated teachers too.

Teachers’ meetings were held regularly and became required. Failure to attend meant dismissal from duties. Laurentine grew to look forward to them and considered them instructive. I never leave them without feeling more and more my own littleness and great need of intellectual advancement, she wrote in November 19, 1864.

Teachers continued their own educational advancement by studying, often on their own, and with materials they shared with each other. Laurentine lamented in December 9, 1864 about her treadmill of duties and responsibilities and she was often exhausted. However, she was always thankful for her success. She felt sorry for those who were not, noting of one colleague in October 15, 1864: I feel really sorry for her. She has not been very successful in school, and the result is she will not be hired longer than this week.

Student discipline was also different from today. Students who were tardy to school were required to sit on the tardy bench with their faces to the wall. As a teacher, Laurentine worried about getting her students to study and wrote (September 18, 1860), I think I shall have to commence some strict usage to bring them to terms. As a principal she worried about giving out corporal punishment which was usually done with a stick or ruler. These occasions were not easy for her, though, judging by her mention of headaches and what we would now consider other indicators of stress.

Today school is not very different. As a past teacher and current principal, also in the Janesville area, I reflect upon the extra studying required for all teachers, the long days of worrying about student achievement, and the concern about student discipline. It doesn’t appear that times have changed after all! And even with a plethora of teaching strategies, we find that the time-tested methods of parent and community involvement, one-to-one instruction, and hard work held firmly by our ancestors still hold true.

Laurentine’s diary reminds us of all of this. When I now look across Janesville, I think I will be able to see the scurrying of cloaks and hooped skirts of those who went courting down Main Street and those who went flying across the prairie to reach the schoolhouse before the bell. Bohrnstedt has brought us a valuable historical document of Laurentine’s times that teaches us to pause, reflect on our surroundings, be grateful for our blessings, and continually strive to learn more, sometimes by looking back in time.

Margaret Thomas, PhD

Introduction

The second half of the nineteenth century was a critical turning point in American women’s history. Documented by well-known writers of the time -– Louisa May Alcott, Frances Willard, and Sarah Moore Grimké among them –- the era of the country’s westward migration provided opportunities for women to assume greater roles and responsibilities as customs and population growth dictated. Fortunate to be born at such a progressive time, Mary Laurentine Martin brought the influence of an educated New England family to frequent diary writings reflecting her subsequent life on the Wisconsin prairie.

In 1856 when Laurentine (as she was often called) was eleven years old and just another Janesville, Wisconsin school girl, she began keeping a diary of the events and activities in her daily life at Pa’s request. Quite faithfully she continued this task for more than a decade — a decade during which she completed school, began a teaching career (at just fifteen-years-old), and traveled within the state of Wisconsin and to New York and New Jersey.

Laurentine’s diary, or journal as she called it,¹ reveals the coming-of-age account of a woman educator framed inside a rich look into her life through her perspectives on education as a student, then as a teacher, on family, culture, and experiences in the new west. What did a career in teaching mean to a young woman in the 1850’s? Laurentine sometimes viewed her vocational choice as a necessary evil while at other times she felt it was her inner duty or calling. Importantly, she was avoiding the dreaded plague that seemed to have broken down the bodies and spirits of her girlfriends -– marriage. She wrote of a friend’s impending marriage:

"I wonder if she realized the risk she was

running for I think that marriage is veritably

a leap in the dark."

September 17, 1860

Laurentine’s quest for independent thought, expression and business arrangements –- even at home — place her as an unexpected modern woman living in the mid-nineteenth century.

This schoolteacher shared much about her toils and internal struggles to stay competitive in her chosen field. From her diary entries about students’ recitations before packed rooms of community members, we know something about one form of performance-based learning –- a relevant education issue that remains in the public forefront nearly one-hundred and fifty years later. Her nervous anticipation of dreaded teachers’ examinations could transport readers (who are teachers) across time; many of Laurentine’s issues and remarks seem to resonate with the twenty-first century as well as the nineteenth:

"Tomorrow is the dreaded Teacher’s examination.

I hope I shall pass through unscathed." August 25, 1864

While teachers and policymakers publish essays about education topics frequently today, we rarely have a look inside private diaries to know either the angst or zest behind their sentiments. With Laurentine’s Views from my schoolroom window, we have candid access to intimate thoughts about an educator’s views on education.

Laurentine taught at all levels (grammar, intermediate, and high school), becoming a principal along the way too. Her experience as a schoolteacher working with other teachers, participating in teachers’ meetings, visiting with university review boards, and meeting with state education officials help historians frame a better understanding of the evolution of the primary and secondary teaching professions.

As the population of the United States was growing rapidly, public education for the public good was nearly becoming a mantra.² Laurentine was part of society’s delivery plan; she and many others composed the burgeoning pin-striped brigade of teachers, humble public servants and female agents of future social change in local communities.

However, the core of this writing is a diary that reflected the life of a young woman growing up in the mid 1800’s. We have a window on the ways in which families and social relations were managed, sometimes with frustration. And, independent thinker that she was, Laurentine also revealed to her diary depths of self-doubt at times and her own internal questioning of fundamental matters like religion.

The reader becomes intimately acquainted with the author and her family and friends through the very personal jottings, as she called her diary’s contents. An observant scholar of her surroundings, Laurentine drew readers into her world with acute awareness of her sensitivities and philosophies. Her writing was well-known among the extended community at the time. Her poetry and compositions were read aloud and were often published in newspapers and journals throughout her life.

The Civil War is framed within the diary’s time-span. Laurentine reflected a unique perspective as an educator who watched the War’s impact upon her community of students, fellow teachers and even to her brother and sister. The law-abiding, civic-minded Martin family, in the midst of Wisconsin’s willing military volunteers who made Civil War history, did not share the majority opinion found in local sentiments for the War’s campaigns. In spite of this Laurentine made no apology. We cannot know with certainty how widespread her family’s feelings were known among the community.

Yet other subjects figure more prominently than the War in the diary: education; the literary and publishing world; community enrichment and entertainment; illness; more than twenty more cases of death and discussions about the meaning of dying; the life and work of Wisconsin farmers and homemakers; treatment of women and domestic abuse; morality; charitable organizations or mite societies; fashion and wearing apparel; religion; Masonry; Temperance lodges; friendships; and the importance of family bonds. In short, the diary presents a full panorama of the everyday lives of people in a Wisconsin community a century and a half ago.

Whether she was sailing on Lake Koshkonong, visiting the Blind Asylum (later to be known as the State Institute for the Blind), sleigh-riding to cousins in Monroe, attending any of the many churches of Janesville as she was apt to do, or boating on the Rock River, Laurentine’s written record of more than six-hundred twenty-five entries provide a colorful look at historic places in times that would otherwise be frozen in the black and white of dryer prose.

Above all, Laurentine’s writing reveals an intense love of nature and appreciation of its beauties. She was a keen observer of the natural wonders and grandeur of the world in which she lived. Describing in rich detail nature’s various moods, the serene as well as the violent ones, she noted, by personifications, how her own moods were affected by laughing spring and old Sol.

Her diary was a friend and confidante with whom Laurentine shared joyful or painful personal experiences, and to whom she confessed the achievements or frustrations and disappointments of her youthful years. However, a diary had its limits. Whether she knew for certain that others would read it, she kept some subjects guarded because her diary could not become her full-fledged father confessor.

Laurentine presented her voice in the diary critically and at times in a self-rebuking tone. Readers might believe, for example, from her self-deprecating comments that she was physically unattractive. On the contrary, when family photographs appeared, they countered Laurentine’s critical self-assessment.

On occasion she presumed that someone might read her diary, so this undetermined level of public scrutiny likely served to censor some of Laurentine’s writing. However, in spite of that, she revealed much of her own inadequacies and upsets with friends and family, while she held, in reserve, the actual name of a potential (or desired) suitor.

By employing the devices of copious detail, faithfulness to the task of writing (or an explanation of why periods were missed), intellectual capacity as a true scholar and sharing with readers authentic insights to strong personality traits (confidence, tenacity, and engaging humor), Laurentine created a vibrant personae for herself, the schoolmarm.³

With any biographical account, though, we are enriched by knowing the full story, not merely the frames of time left by records that seem relatively easily located. So it was with Laurentine that more about her later life (found in the Afterword and Appendix sections), helped encapsulate the richness of her story that was her life. It was though she felt a need to leave one more thoughtful trail of information for the reader that unfolds much like those pages with her very own words that claimed Pa’s old ledgers as the backbone of her diary recorded from 1856 - 1867.

With any diary, letter collection or memoir, we are intrigued to imagine what the author would think of our studying her or his words. As we begin to read Laurentine’s words -– that of an eleven-year-old schoolgirl on her way to becoming an exemplary educator in the growing country of the mid-19th century –- keeping her own concerns at the forefront will guide us well. The diligent scholar did not fail to think of us on our own commencement of studying her life’s journey:

"These pages will doubtless be very dear to

me, years hence, and perhaps someone else will

be interested in them, after I have lain my

weary body down to rest in the grave. Still,

I should dislike to think, that any careless

eye was ever going to criticize these writings,

for no one knows how I have often performed

this self-imposed duty, when brain and body were

both wearied and worn out by the tread-mill

duties of the school-teacher…"

September 15, 1861

Main Characters

Members of Mary Laurentine Martin’s family who are most frequently named in her diary:

Laurentine’s closest friends, neighbors, and fellow educators (judged by frequency of mention): little sister Amoret Search, Fayette Smith, Rosa Dewey, Phoebe Fish, Ed. E. Woodman, Nellie Smith, Mrs. DeGroat, Warren Parker, Rosellen Moon, Belle Armstrong, Miss Rockfellow, Miss Morgan, Miss Kellogg, Mr. Cass, Mr. Lockwood, Mr. Richardson and Professor Hutchins.

Chapter One

God Willing, I Will Teach!

April 20, 1856 - July 12, 1859

Mary Laurentine Martin was born on July 19, 1844 in Depauville, near Watertown in upper New York State. Her father, Dr. Stephen G. Martin (1805-1885) was born in Walpole, New Hampshire.⁴ Stephen was an 1829 graduate of Bowdoin College, Maine, having earned a degree in medicine. Subsequently he was a physician in Maine and in northern New York, and was said to have been successful in this professional career. A man of literary interests, he was for a number of years editor of the Democratic Standard of Watertown, New York and correspondent for several medical journals.⁵ In 1833 Stephen Martin married Miss Elrena Martin (the same surname but unrelated), from Cooperstown, New York.⁶ While less is known of Elrena’s early life, she was described as, a lady possessing more than ordinary culture.⁷ There were six children born to Stephen and Elrena, three of whom died in infancy. Mary Laurentine (she was called variously Mary, Laurentine, Laurie, Launie, Mamie, or Mollie) was the fifth of these children, and after the marriages of her older brother Forestus and sister Flora, she lived as if an only child with her parents. It was then that her diary became an outlet for her observations, thoughts and feelings.

Stephen Martin moved his family to a homestead near Milton Avenue, Janesville, Wisconsin in 1850 when Laurentine was six years old. While the precipitating reason for their move isn’t known, the mid-nineteenth century was a time of great migration west. Homesteading land made it very attractive for people to pioneer the West even if meant leaving successful careers and uprooting from ancestral homes and kin. The future, for many, held greater opportunity in the unplowed prairies and new towns of the West, the land of promise.

Laurentine does not inform us of all that we want to know, particularly in the beginning. She was after all, just eleven years old when the diary began. Girls of eleven years old like Laurentine, would regale their ‘friend,’ their diary, with a spectrum of feelings about mistreatment, affection, sorrow, and worry. In this early chapter, though, she is jettisoned through one of the most tumultuous times of life for any girl – puberty – with readers on her shoulders.

At school with other scholars, as students were honorably called, we begin to know more about the landscape of education in the classroom just as well as that of the community itself. While we may not know a myriad of details about the Martins’ lives, because of Laurentine’s persistent writing we can begin to see the formative elements of the character and grit behind a future educator.

April 20, 1856

Pa wished me long ago to commence a diary and I have at last determined to comply with his wishes.⁸ It is thus I dedicate my journal this calm Sabbath afternoon.

I attended church this morning as is our usual custom, though it was a pretty long walk from our new home on the prairie. When I arrived at Flora’s I found Mr. and Mrs. Doty’s father and mother there. They soon went away, however, and I found out that Flora was not going to church until evening. I went to church and heard an excellent sermon by Mr. Douglass. The text was the 1st verse of the fifth chapter of 2nd Corinthians.

When I got to Flo’s coming home from church, I stopped and had some crackers and syrup, and then Flo and Brother Will came home with me. Before we started, Martha Doty and Mary and little Ida and Willie and Frankie Bostwick and Ellis Doty came there and stayed a little while.

Mother went to work and got dinner and after we had all eaten we saw Alta and Philo and Anna and Piersol coming. They all crawled through a hole in the fairground fence to see Mr. Davis’s house. When they came out Pa hailed them and they all came over here. After having a pleasant chat they all, with Flo and Will wended their way homeward. After they had gone, I sat down and wrote a long letter to Brother, and then Mother and I put on our things and walked down past our house. When I came back, I disrobed myself and laid me down in my cozy little bed, thankful that I had been preserved through the long day.

Monday, April 21st, 1856

Mother and I worked all the forenoon. Mother put down the carpet in our room this afternoon. I went down to the post office to put a letter in. When I came home, Flora came with me after some eggs. I went around and gathered them. We got only eleven. It has been a very pleasant day. While I was gone downtown, Mother put down the carpet upstairs in my room. It looks real nice. Pa wheeled the pig up squealing loud.

My Journal

Commenced May 13th, 1856, when I was 11 years of age.

All is still and quiet in our home on the prairie as I sit here dedicating my journal. The north wind blows drearily without, but all is calm and happy by the side of our hearth-stone, and the Angel of Peace reigns supreme.

Wednesday, May 14th, 1856

I arose bright and early this morning; the weather was not very pleasant this forenoon as it looked very dark and it rained a little while, but this afternoon the sun came out like a welcome messenger of light as it was.

I attended school today; nothing happened more than the usual routine of studies only us girls, Olive, Belle, Ev, Anna, Helen Sinclair (she is the last and least in my opinion) and myself all wrote to Jennie Norton, dear good girl, as she was going East tomorrow. Anna was going to give her the notes to read on the cars.

I had a headache in the latter part of the afternoon and walked slowly home little thinking what pleasure awaited me. When I reached Flora’s, I saw a new pink dress lying over a chair. She said it was mine, and then said that somebody was up to our house. I guessed it was Fet, and sure enough it was him. I waited for him a long time, and at last concluding that he had gone past and was most likely at home, I started, but had gone on but a little ways when I saw him coming. I walked slowly on thinking that after finding out I had gone he would follow, but on looking around to see if he was coming, I saw Flora and him standing out in the yard beckoning to me. I hurried back and greeted him with great pleasure; after reading awhile we came home and ate a nice good supper of eggs and other good things too numerous to mention. Fet has already bought me a new dress and I am going to have a new pair of shoes and hat. He is a dear good brother. God bless him.

Thursday, May 15th, 1856

It has been a very pleasant day today and I would have enjoyed myself much were it not for Anna, Jennie, and Helen Sinclair. They are rich, and because I am poor they slight me. I shall content myself with the thought that I am as good a girl and perhaps better than they are with all their riches.

Jennie and folks did not go East as they intended as Mr. Norton was sick, but they expect to go in a few weeks if all are well and Anna Norton will go too. I expected to have a hat and shoes bought for me today, but was very much disappointed on coming home to find that neither had been got. I was all tired out, and it did not serve to raise my spirits much so I had a little squall which I felt very much ashamed of afterwards and that ended it.

Friday, May 16th, 1856

As pleasant as usual and nothing in particular has happened today. This noon Ollie and Ev and I went to meet Belle though, to tell the truth, I guess we all thought more of seeing her Cousin Nelson than Belle. She says he is real good. Well, I am glad of it.

This afternoon we had Rhetorical Exercises. I read my Composition, and they all, that said anything about it, pronounced it first best. Dear me! I do get so tired of hearing wishes that they could write as well as I, that I sometimes almost wish I couldn’t write at all. Then I am so bothered with requests to write something for such and such a person, but I suppose I shall have to stand it.

I am not going to have a hat as we thought, they cost too much, but I am going to have a green sunbonnet. I think I shall like that much better.

Saturday, May 17th, 1856

School was not kept today, but I have busied myself at home. Early this morning I went down with Fet as far as Flora’s. I stayed there until noon. Flora came up home before dinner and left me there to take care of the house. She went down to Anna’s this afternoon as Anna is sick, and I went home and spent the afternoon in reading and writing. Flora finished trimming my bonnet today, and I expect I shall wear it tomorrow to church.

It has been very unpleasant out and rained quite hard this morning.

Sunday, May 18th, 1856

We arose pretty early, and Fet and I started early for church. Flora dressed all up in her nice fixin’s and we started off. We heard a miserable sermon from a man by the name of Martin. What a pity he is of the same name as us, for about everyone made fun of him.

After church Flora and Will came up here to dinner. We had a nice chicken with some jelly-cake and lots of other good things. After dinner Mother, Flora, Will and I went and took a walk, but Fet went up to bed. We had a very pleasant walk, going down in sight of the depot. Flora gathered a bouquet of flowers. We had a nice sing after our return home, but it did not last long as Flora had to return home. I spent the rest of the day in reading and thinking, which is very pleasant occupation for me.

Monday, May 19th, 1856

It has been very warm today, and I felt glad that I did not attend school as I should have most roasted. I got ready early, in fact immediately after breakfast that morning and went down to Flo’s with Fet with the intention of waiting until about 10 o’clock when Flora and I were going to the printing office to see the circus come in. We were disappointed as they came earlier than usual.

Fet hired a nice livery carriage and went up after Louisa Smith, but she was washing and couldn’t go. He then went down after Mary Gillet, but they were cleaning house and she could not be spared, so he was disappointed in both. But Flo and I did not feel very much disappointed, as we had a nice ride over town. Flora, Will and I went over and saw the girl walk up the wire. She did it very well.

Along towards night, Sabra Vosburgh with little Ida and Willie came up to Flora’s and sat a while. I soon returned home, having been gone down to Flora’s all day.

I came pretty near forgetting to write about my new shoes. I do not like them very well; they are so large. I look forward with sadness to Fet’s departure. I wish he would never go away again.

Tuesday, May 20th, 1856

I got up rather early this morning and cleared off the table for breakfast. Fet and Pa were busy all the morning putting up eavestrough. But they finished at last and Fet came in and packed his trunk. Mother cried most all the time. I do wish she wouldn’t cry so hard; she makes me feel real bad. When he went off he kissed Mother and I really affectionately. I soon got ready and went off to school.

Nothing happened at school any more than usual, only we have decided upon having a picnic Saturday.

Wednesday, May 21st, 1856

Nothing happened today more than the usual routine of daily duties. The picnic is now the all absorbing topic of conversation.

Thursday, May 22nd, 1856

I attended school today as usual, but I guess I did not learn a great deal. When I came home, I stopped at Flo’s and found my Mother and Mother Doty there. I stayed to tea, and we had a first rate one.

It is very warm now, and have been all day. There is prospect of its being warm tomorrow.

Friday, May 23rd, 1856

Nothing happened of much consequence today, only this afternoon there was a free lecture delivered on astronomy at the Academy. I stayed and heard it. It was very interesting especially the sight of the Magic Lantern⁹ which I have never witnessed before. The room had to be darkened and the windows shut down. We, all of us, nearly suffocated.

We heard today that a party of boys were intending to go up to our picnic grounds and come down upon us while we were in the midst of our enjoyment, and break it all up. We are going to find a new place, and won’t they be nicely outwitted.

Saturday, May 24th, 1856

I arose in time for breakfast this morning, and immediately after eating, commenced getting ready for the picnic. I then went down to Flora’s, and leaving my bundles of railroad cake¹⁰ and lemon cake at Flora’s, I went over after Ev. She was not ready so I waited for her.

She had a regular fuss about what she should wear, just as I do sometimes. She fussed all the forenoon, till at last she told me to go off without her, so I went. I went directly over to Belle’s, and she told me that they had decided not to go to the picnic grounds until it began to cool, so I stayed there at Belle’s until about three o’clock. When Ev, Ollie and Ad had come, we started.