January 1, 1842. Bellfield, Connecticut. To-day I am fifteen years old, and as it is New Year's day too, I want to celebrate it in some special way. Of course all my birthdays have come on the first day of the year, but none of them has been so important. I am not going to be a little girl any more, but a real young lady; my frock is made four inches longer. So I am going to keep a journal and write down what I do and what I think. That is my special celebration, to begin my journal.
I have a little room all to myself, up-stairs, and first I will describe that, not because it is the best thing I have, but because I am beginning my journal here, and I am always going to keep it here.
Our house has a gambrel roof, so they had to make the windows stick out of the roof to make room inside, and my room has one of these windows and one at the end that doesn't stick out. The end window opens toward the south, and the other toward the east. That is the one I love best, and I printed the word PEACE on stiff cardboard, in big letters, and put it over the window. My brother Mark hung it up for me, because he is so tall and I couldn't reach. The reason I printed PEACE is because that the name of the chamber where Christian stayed, that opened toward the east, in that dear book of "Pilgrim's Progress" that Mr. Bunyan wrote when he was shut up in Bedford jail. When my mother saw that word she said, "Dear child, peace comes from within. Don't forget that," and her eyes were so blue and sweet when she said it that I hugged her.
I must write down some of the things I see from my window. We live on a farm a mile from the village street. Our house is on the side of a hill, and as I look out I see the road in the valley that winds around another hill and looks as if it came to an end in that place. We call it the "bend o' the road," and I always look there for Mark as he comes from the village, and run to meet him when I can. The whole valley is many miles wide, green in summer, and in winter, after a snowstorm, white as the clouds. The hills on the other side of the valley are far away and often purple at evening, but in the early morning a rain of rosy light falls on them just as the sun rises. It sometimes makes me almost cry. Far away I see the gleaming of the river here and there.
My room is so dear! It has white muslin curtains at the windows, and on the bed a blue and white coverlet that my father's mother wove. I am named for her. Her sampler hangs on the wall, with birds and trees and the alphabet worked on it in cross-stitch, and her name; Doris Mary, at the bottom. Mother said, long ago, that when I grew up I should have it. I am now grown up, but my hair will curl all over my head, whatever I do, and I can't make that look grown up a bit.
Keren hates her hair because it is straight and red, but Mark and I think it is beautiful. It has dark shadows in it, but when the sun shines on it it looks like gold. Mother says there was a great painter once, whose name was Titian, who always painted girls' hair that color. She has dark brown eyes, but she does not know that they are beautiful too. They are soft and full of light.
Keren is my friend, and I love her very much, but not best. Oh, no! My mother, Amelia and Mark are my very bestest best. Mother is the sweetest that ever lived, but I always knew, even when I was little, that I must never disobey her, and I feel just the same now that I am grown up. Mother says that it was very hard to teach me to mind. One day, when I was only two years old, my father told me to kneel down beside him when they had prayers, and I said, "No, no, other chair!" It took him two hours to get me to be willing to do it, naughty little me!
I do not remember my dear father; he died long ago. Mark looks just like him, mother says, with his fair hair and great gray eyes. Mark is grand and he knows a great deal. He always takes care of mother and me (he is three years older than I am), but he is a dreadful tease sometimes. He calls me Crinkles because my hair is so curly - it is dark brown like mother's - and sets me down in the most unexpected places, perhaps in the middle of the big feather bed, and goes off looking as solemn as an owl. Then I have to fix that bed all over again, for mother is so very particular! He used to put on her white cap and dance all over the room. He looked dreadfully funny and we laughed until it hurt; but he is too big for that now. But if I set down all the funny things Mark does my journal will have no room for anything about me, and that is what I am keeping this journal for.
Jan. 15. I did not finish about my best. 'Melia is one dearest, and her twinny boys are five years old, such dears! They call me "Nantie," and that does make me feel grown up indeed. They both have little white heads, but Jimmy Brewster has brown eyes and Johnny Brewster has blue eyes, or we could never tell them apart, for they are as alike as two peas. I don't know 'Melia's husband very well, but he must be nice or she wouldn't love him. They live in Wellboro, Massachusetts, and we do not see them very often. It seems to me a sad world sometimes, because people who love each other have to live so far apart. I asked mother once if there was not a great deal of far-ness in the world, and she said, "Yes, child, but more near-ness after all, because distance can never separate loving hearts."
I know it must be so, but I do not like the cruel miles that lie between. At any rate I have mother and Mark every day, and we will never, never let each other go. Mark learns Greek, Latin and Mathematics and recites to our minister, Mr. Mather. He has so much work to do on the farm that he cannot study as much as he would like, but he does the best he can, and Mr. Mather says he has a fine mind and is an excellent scholar. Mark is going to college some day. I want to go too, for I am sure girls can learn Greek and Latin as well as boys. Why may I not?
Jan. 16. I did not finish about my dears. Keren is next to my best. She is an orphan, "bound out" to our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Jones until she is eighteen. We do not know, but mother thinks she must have come of a very good family, she is so naturally refined. She has not a relation in the world. I cannot think of anything more dreadful. She is so well behaved that mother says she is glad for me to have her for a friend.
Poor Keren is so mother-hungry! She thinks our mother, with her dark hair under her white cap, her deep blue eyes, and a kerchief, white as snow, folded over the bosom of her dress, the loveliest thing in the world. So do I.
Mrs. Jones is very kind, but she doesn't know how to mother. She thinks the queer old uncle who named Keren forgot about the thousand dollars he was going to give her, for he died long ago. The name is a great affliction to her, as well as her straight red hair and freckled nose. But the worst of all is that she cannot even remember her father and mother and her heart cries for them. Mr. Jones is an ignorant man, but he never speaks roughly to his wife or Keren, and mother says that he is at heart a gentleman. So Keren has many good times after all, and she and I have crossed our hearts and promised to be friends forever.
Jan. 20. I am very much puzzled and out of sorts. I asked our minister to-day why boys should go to college and girls not. He said, "Don't bother your little head about that; a college would be improper for females. They should know how to read and write and cipher a little, and learn some grammar and history. That is enough for them, for keeping house is their work. Too much learning would unfit them for their sphere. Be content with the place God has given you."
My cheeks were hot and red, for I was angry! Mother looked gravely at me, and I knem that I must keep still. I have such a quick temper, like cayenne pepper! It often gets me into trouble.
Mother knows far more than reading and writing and ciphering! Her father did not think that enough for females. How dared Mr. Mather say that in her presence? Perhaps he forgot, for the moment, that she knows Latin and Algebra and Euclid and History and much more besides. Her father, Grandfather West, was a minister and he had only Hannah, my mother, for a child, so he taught her just as if she had been a boy until she was married. Her mother taught her to spin on the big wheel and on the little wheel and to weave cloth on the loom. She does all these things yet, but she reads to us from Mr. Shakespeare's plays and from Mr. Spenser's "Faerie Queene." I just love Miranda and Portia, Puck and Ariel, Perdita and Una.
We have lovely times when mother reads. We sit in the kitchen with a big fire in the fireplace, and Keren comes over with her knitting. I sew carpet-rags and Mark cracks nuts and whittles out such pretty things. Sometimes Keren sews rags too, just for fun, and I get my stint done sooner. We do not have time for such blissful evenings often, but it is lovely when we do. Then after the reading we have nuts and apples and Mark takes Keren home.
No mother is like ours, so wise and sweet, and though she is a female that knows Latin, no butter is better than ours; everybody says so. Since I am grown up I make the butter, and mother said this morning, "Daughter Doris, this is every bit as good as mine." When she calls me that I know that she is very much pleased, and I am as proud as proud can be!
February 1. It is decided that I shall not go to the district school, but study at home with Mark and mother. I am going to begin Latin! Think of that, you dear journal! Oh, dear! you can't think! But you seem to me like some live person, to whom I can say what I please and you will never, never tell. That is why I began your acquaintance. So I am going to talk to you just as if you were alive, and this is my first secret: I shook my fist at the minister's back (hard) this morning, when he went by the house, and called (very softly, though I wanted to scream it), "I'll show you that a female has brains!" My face was hot, as it always is when I am angry, and Mark came along just then.
"Well, Pepper-Pot, what is the matter now? You mustn't get so angry, little sister," he said gravely. Oh, Mark can be grave enough when he tries!
"But he is so horrid!"
"You forget, Doris, how much I owe him, how much he has helped me all these years. Can't you forgive him for my sake?"
"Oh, Mark," I cried, "I call forgive anybody anything for your sake," and I held him tight around his neck. "You are the dearest brother in the wide, wide world. I will try, indeed I will, to control my temper, but you don't know how hard it is."
"Yes, I know, little sister," he answered gently, "for I have to fight even harder than you, if that is any comfort to you."
Feb. 10. I took my knitting over to do my stint with Keren to-day, and my Latin Grammar. She is seventeen and does not go to school. Mother lends her books to read and helps her all she can. Tears came to her lovely eyes when she saw the book.
"Oh, Doris, how I envy you! I know I could learn it too if I had a chance!" she cried. Then a great beautiful thought came to me.
"Could you pay for a grammar if Mark would get the minister to buy one? I don't suppose he would buy one for a female if he knew it." I bit my lips hard and my cheeks didn't get hot a bit. Don't you think, my journal, that I am growing in grace?
"Yes, I have the money I earned picking berries. Mrs. Jones was kind; she told me to do what I liked with it. What do you mean, Doris?"
I threw down my work, dragged Keren out of her chair and danced her all over the room.
"Then you shall learn Latin too! I'll teach you every lesson I Iearn!"
"Oh! oh!" gasped Keren breathlessly, "do you mean it? Do you think I could?"
"Yes, yes, I never meant anything more in all my life! We'll show them!" Keren didn't know exactly what I meant, but you do and you certainly are a comfort. Mother says I am so "unexpected" that I am sure it is a real relief to her to have me keep a journal, and since you are to be a live person you must have a name. I will make you one. Journal - cross out o and the r and the l, and Juna is left. Do you like it? I do. Good-night, dear Juna.