, 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.

_Wednesday_.--Mr. Cross had us speak pieces to-day. He calls our names,
and we walk on to the platform and toe the mark and make a bow and say
what we have got to say. He did not know what our pieces were going to
be and some of them said the same ones. Two boys spoke: "The boy stood
on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled." William Schley was
one, and he spoke his the best. When he said, "The flames that lit the
battle wreck shone round him o'er the dead," we could almost see the
fire, and when he said, "My father, must I stay?" we felt like telling
him, no, he needn't. He is going to make a good speaker. Mr. Cross said
so. Albert Murray spoke "Excelsior," and Horace Finley spoke nice, too.
My piece was, "Why, Phoebe, are you come so soon? Where are your
berries, child?" Emma Van Arsdale spoke the same one. We find them all
in our reader. Sometime I am going to speak, "How does the water come
down at Ladore?" Splashing and flashing and dashing and clashing and all
that--it rhymes, so it is easy to remember.

We played snap the whip at recess to-day and I was on the end and was
snapped off against the fence. It hurt me so, that Anna cried. It is not
a very good game for girls, especially for the one on the end.

[Illustration: Grandfather Beals, Grandmother Beals]

_Tuesday._--I could not keep a journal for two weeks, because
Grandfather and Grandmother have been very sick and we were afraid
something dreadful was going to happen. We are so glad that they are
well again. Grandmother was sick upstairs and Grandfather in the bedro