December

Thursday. December 1

Got a letter from Caroline. Was so happy to hear from her. If she were only here and I could talk and talk and talk with her.

2

Test in Algebra. Know I’ll flunk. Sadie is down to Wallace’s. Maybe I was right after all. Am so tired. Geo has gone and we moved back in our old room.

3

Jean is here tonight. I love her so very, very much – We came upstairs after supper and sat here in the dark. I held her so very close in my arms and I shall always, always love her.

4

Went down to Jean’s this p.m. and made candy. Enjoyed myself so much. No letter today. We certainly traced up a certain thing – first I to Cad, Cad to me to Hazel, Hazel to Jean, Jean to Hazel and Hazel to me.

5

Letter from Hazel. She said she wasn’t coming Christmas. All my hopes have gone up the toot. Got 91 in that Algebra. Didn’t deserve it.

6

Laughed and laughed and laughed today ‘till I couldn’t laugh anymore. Makes my sides ache when I think of it. Sadie got a letter from Cad – She isn’t coming Christmas either. O dear, o dear. Why couldn’t it have been different.

7

Letter from Caroline – the very dearest letter also one for Y.W. girls. Met at Nell Peter’s – am so tired and sick tonight. I want my Cad.

8

Am so sleepy tonight. Popped corn. Didn’t study a bit – just couldn’t. Miss Beebe and Miss Mont. were downstairs all evening. Miss Beebe is so comical. I wish Caroline or Hazel or Jean were here. I wish they were all here – just now.

9 – 14

Missing.

15

George has the appendicitis. Oh dear. Talk about your troubles, he sure has it hard. Wonder if I will hear that old fire whistle tonight. 98 in Eng test. 100 in Music.

16

Test in History – a hard one. I couldn’t think – my head ached so. Jean let me read her long letter from Hazel. All except a little bit the part I wanted most. Miss Wolcott, Sadie, I driving.

17

18

Haven’t been out doors today except when I sneaked off uptown after the mail – and then didn’t get any. Made fudge. Wrote to Miss Gantt – expected Jean down, but guess she couldn’t come.

19, 20

End of Florence Ericson’s 1910 diary. On the last undated page is a hand written poem written by Florence about Mr. Fehn. She had told us many times about a teacher who had told his class that they had done so poorly on a test that he didn’t think it worth the trouble to hand back. She found the stack of papers by the incinerator where he had forgotten them and handed them out in class. When he found out he stepped toward her. At that time the boys in the class came forward between the teacher and Florence to protect her. The teacher then backed down, but because of this, he failed her and she had to make up the class in the summer.

“If he say so,

may his pernicious soul

Rot half a grain a day! –

he lies to the heart.”

“Whip him, ye devils,

Blow him about in winds, roast him in sulphur,

Wash him in steep – down gulfs of liquid fire.”

“All the infections that the sun sucks up

From bogs, fens flats on

Fehn fall, and make him

By inch – meal a disease!”

“Poison be his drink!”

“Beyond the infinate and boundless reach

Of mercy, art thou damned.”

“If heaven hath any grievous plague in store,

Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee

O, let them keep it, till thy sins be ripe,

and then hurl down their indignation on thee;

the troubler of the poor world’s peace.”

“The devil damn thee black,

thou cream – fac’d loon!

Where got’st thou that goose look?”

“May the grass wither from they feet.

the woods Deny thee shelter!

Earth a home! the dust a grave!

the sun his light! and heaven her God!

“I had rather chop off this hand at a blow

And with the other fling it at thy face.”