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Authors: Laura Amy Schlitz
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especially cheerful as I served it, and I said no more about the strike. Father didn’t speak to me. I think he doesn’t know what to do, so he’s pretending I’m not on strike at all.
After I finished the dishes, I said, “It’s such a lovely night. I think I’ll take the mending outdoors.” And I took up my workbasket, but
I’d hidden a pencil and this book inside.
And I haven’t been sewing, but writing. So there!
Later that evening
I think I will never stop crying.
Father has burned my books.
Wednesday, June the twenty-eighth, 1911
I’ve locked myself in my room. The door has no lock, but I’ve wedged a straight chair under the knob. I don’t even know why I did it — the men are outside harrowing — except that I need to be in a room where Father can’t come.
I’ve been crying all day. Sometimes I stop for a little. Then I think about what happened last night, and I start up again. It feels like I’ve rubbed off my eyelashes, I’ve cried so hard. My face hurts, and my mouth is as dry as cornstarch. I’m queasy and thirsty and wretched.
I wish Ma were here. If Ma were here she’d put her arms around me, and — there! — I’ve started crying again, wailing like a baby because I want Ma so. I’m sure Jane Eyre and Rebecca wouldn’t be so childish — but no, that’s worse. I think about my friends, my burned friends, and that makes me cry even harder. I
must
stop. I
will
stop.
I’m beginning to be hungry. I suppose I could creep downstairs and bring a little bread up to my room. I fixed breakfast this morning, same as always, but as soon as the men came down, I came back upstairs. Seems like I couldn’t face any of them. I’d hoped — how stupid I was! — that one of the boys might say something kind, but of course they didn’t. They don’t like me. It took Father to teach me that. I’ve known for some time that Father doesn’t love me, but I didn’t know about the boys.
My heart is broken.
I look ahead and I don’t know how I can bear the life that’s laid out for me. Years and years of it: washing and ironing and scrubbing out the privy, cooking and scouring and feeding and mending, everything the same, day after day, season after season, working myself to death, as Ma did. Only Ma wasn’t strong. It’ll be years before the work kills me. I see all those years ahead of me, and a dreadful bleakness comes over me and I want to die.
Except that I don’t. Even if I could go straight to heaven, like the holy saints, and didn’t have to bother with Purgatory, I don’t want to die. Miserable though I am, I feel the blood alive in my veins and I know my lungs are taking in air, and when I think of all of that stopping, I feel such horror and sadness that I can’t bear it. I could
never
kill myself.
But to go on, after last night — friendless, hopeless, imprisoned in this house of hateful men —
I find myself needing to write it all out in this book, which is blotted with tears and full of sentiments that aren’t refined. I meant so much better by this book. But then, I meant to have a better life — I meant to better myself, as Miss Chandler said. Only yesterday, I thought it was possible; I was a cocksure little girl who thought she could win the egg money from Father by going on strike. I want to weep for that girl. But at the same time I’m ashamed of her, because she was such a fool.
I came in from writing last night, with this book still hidden in my workbasket. The sun was down and the house was dim. The men had gone to bed. I came in through the kitchen and I ought to have noticed that the stove was lit and there was a smell of burned paper. I suppose I did notice, but I didn’t stop to think why. The kitchen’s always full of smells, and my mind was on other things.
I took a candle so I could read when I got upstairs. I thought I’d read a little of
Jane Eyre
before I went to sleep — the scene in the garden when Mr. Rochester asks her to marry him. I
After I finished the dishes, I said, “It’s such a lovely night. I think I’ll take the mending outdoors.” And I took up my workbasket, but
I’d hidden a pencil and this book inside.
And I haven’t been sewing, but writing. So there!
Later that evening
I think I will never stop crying.
Father has burned my books.
Wednesday, June the twenty-eighth, 1911
I’ve locked myself in my room. The door has no lock, but I’ve wedged a straight chair under the knob. I don’t even know why I did it — the men are outside harrowing — except that I need to be in a room where Father can’t come.
I’ve been crying all day. Sometimes I stop for a little. Then I think about what happened last night, and I start up again. It feels like I’ve rubbed off my eyelashes, I’ve cried so hard. My face hurts, and my mouth is as dry as cornstarch. I’m queasy and thirsty and wretched.
I wish Ma were here. If Ma were here she’d put her arms around me, and — there! — I’ve started crying again, wailing like a baby because I want Ma so. I’m sure Jane Eyre and Rebecca wouldn’t be so childish — but no, that’s worse. I think about my friends, my burned friends, and that makes me cry even harder. I
must
stop. I
will
stop.
I’m beginning to be hungry. I suppose I could creep downstairs and bring a little bread up to my room. I fixed breakfast this morning, same as always, but as soon as the men came down, I came back upstairs. Seems like I couldn’t face any of them. I’d hoped — how stupid I was! — that one of the boys might say something kind, but of course they didn’t. They don’t like me. It took Father to teach me that. I’ve known for some time that Father doesn’t love me, but I didn’t know about the boys.
My heart is broken.
I look ahead and I don’t know how I can bear the life that’s laid out for me. Years and years of it: washing and ironing and scrubbing out the privy, cooking and scouring and feeding and mending, everything the same, day after day, season after season, working myself to death, as Ma did. Only Ma wasn’t strong. It’ll be years before the work kills me. I see all those years ahead of me, and a dreadful bleakness comes over me and I want to die.
Except that I don’t. Even if I could go straight to heaven, like the holy saints, and didn’t have to bother with Purgatory, I don’t want to die. Miserable though I am, I feel the blood alive in my veins and I know my lungs are taking in air, and when I think of all of that stopping, I feel such horror and sadness that I can’t bear it. I could
never
kill myself.
But to go on, after last night — friendless, hopeless, imprisoned in this house of hateful men —
I find myself needing to write it all out in this book, which is blotted with tears and full of sentiments that aren’t refined. I meant so much better by this book. But then, I meant to have a better life — I meant to better myself, as Miss Chandler said. Only yesterday, I thought it was possible; I was a cocksure little girl who thought she could win the egg money from Father by going on strike. I want to weep for that girl. But at the same time I’m ashamed of her, because she was such a fool.
I came in from writing last night, with this book still hidden in my workbasket. The sun was down and the house was dim. The men had gone to bed. I came in through the kitchen and I ought to have noticed that the stove was lit and there was a smell of burned paper. I suppose I did notice, but I didn’t stop to think why. The kitchen’s always full of smells, and my mind was on other things.
I took a candle so I could read when I got upstairs. I thought I’d read a little of
Jane Eyre
before I went to sleep — the scene in the garden when Mr. Rochester asks her to marry him. I
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