I began to plan a gala meal—bologna and tea ... but first I decided to go to the candy store for some “lemon and strawberry mixed” soda for three cents. As I walked up the flights of stairs to my room to wash up, I heard a mother’s scolding and a child’s weeping as it was being whipped by its mother. She was punishing him for losing the dollar on the way to the grocery. The poor boy was crying with his last strength and it could break anybody’s heart. I hesitated no longer and rapped on the door of the flat from which the commotion came. A pale and emaciated woman opened the door for me. “Here is your dollar,” I said; “I found it in the hallway.” The woman snatched the bill out of my hand without even looking at me, let alone thanking me.... And to this very day I don’t know whether she acted that way out of embittered feeling or out of ill-manners. One thing I know: I was more hungry and thirsty that night than at any other time—the bill had so increased my appetite that I could have swallowed that woman and her boy together.... I think I should add that I am now married to a very dear man and have three precious little children, and we make a fine living.[37] The following passages picture the life of a young American girl of the middle of the last century where the whole community is coöperating with the family to standardize her. Her parents are dead but the influences are complete without them. She is met at every turn with definitions of the situation which in this case are rigid but of the most genial and affectionate character. She does not lose her personality because that is in her nature; she is alert and witty, like her grandmother. If there were no disturbance of the situation she would become such an old woman as her grandmother is. The outside world is, however, beginning to press in. The situation has already been defined to her in terms of “woman’s rights.” 36. _November 21, 1852._—I am ten years old today, and I will write a journal and tell who I am and what I am doing. I have lived with my Grandfather and Grandmother Beals ever since I was seven years old, and Anna, too, since she was four. Our brothers, James and John, came too, but they are at East Bloomfield at Mr. Stephen Clark’s Academy. Miss Laura Clark of Naples is their teacher. Anna and I go to school at District No. 11. Mr. James C. Cross is our teacher, and some of the scholars say he is cross by name and cross by nature, but I like him. He gave me a book by the name of “Noble Deeds of American Women”, for reward of merit, in my reading class.