SCHOOL DAYS
29
Was informed to that effect to-day by a dear Pastor. What a privilege it is to be so insignificant! Thought of intimating that the Atonement was not needed for such atoms. I think you went on Friday. Some time is longer than the rest and some is very short. Omit to classify. Friday, Saturday, Sunday! Evenings get longer with the Autumn, that is nothing new. The asters are pretty well. How are the other blossoms? Vinnie and I are pretty well, Carlo comfortable, terrifying man and beast with renewed activity, is cuffed some, hurled from piazza frequently where he has the patent action, as I have long felt. I attended church early in the day. Professor Warner preached; subject Little Drops of Dew. Estey took the stump in the afternoon. Aunt Catherine Sweetser's dress would have startled Sheba. Aunt Bullard was not out, presume she stayed at home for self-examination. Accompanied by Father they visited the grave yard after service. These are stirring scenes! You know the chink your dear face makes. We would not mind the sun dear, if it did not set. How much you cost! I will never sell you for a price of silver. I'll buy you back with red drops when you go away. I'll keep you in a casket. I'll burn you in the garden and keep a bird to watch the spot.
Another little picture of their earliest girlhood remains in her own recording, "Vinnie sits sewing like a fictitious seamstress," and Emily is imagining a Knight at the door for her; they talk of growing old and Emily naïvely adds:
Vinnie thinks twenty must be a fearful position for one to occupy. I tell her I don't care if I am young or not. I'd as lief be thirty!
Again she gives a domestic interior with a word.
We cleaned house—Mother and Vinnie did—and I scolded because they moved my things. I can't find much I used to wear. You will conceive I am surrounded by trial.
Later that same fall she writes:
The bells are ringing, Susie, North, East and South and your own village bell and the people who love God are expecting to go
