Then there's another thing, too, that seems to worry them a lot. Louis is crazy about mechanical engineering. He declares he's going to study that exclusively, when he's through high school, and become an expert in it. This nearly drives them wild. They want him to be a "statesman," as they call it, and study law and history and diplomacy and all that sort of thing. "You can serve your country best that way," they are always telling him. Once he said to them: "The United States has plenty of that sort already. _I_ want to go in for something special." And he says they never answered a word, but just looked queerly at each other and walked off. Another time he found that the lock on their kitchen door wouldn't work, so he unscrewed it and took it out. He was fixing it when along came his Aunt Yvonne. When she saw what he was doing she burst into tears and rushed away, muttering, "The ancient blood! It will ruin everything!"--or something in French like that. All these things do not happen frequently, of course, but when something like it does occur, it puzzles Louis dreadfully. He always talks it over with us when we come home together from Bridgeton High School on the trolley, so that's why I happen to know about it. Well, now I've begun this journal by telling all about ourselves and our homes and everything else I can think of. But as I read it over, it doesn't sound one bit exciting or likely to become "an interesting contribution to history," as Miss Cullingford would say. I wonder what she'd think about it. I'm glad I didn't promise to _show_ her my journal, for I'm not very proud of this sample. I'm crazy to see what Carol has written. We're going to compare our journals to-morrow. One thing is certain, though. I'm not going to write another word till I've something more interesting to talk about, even if I have to wait six months! CHAPTER II NEW DEVELOPMENTS December 1, 1913. I haven't written a thing in this journal for over a week, for a number of reasons. In the first place, I'd made up my mind not to write till I had something worth writing about. In the second place, we've been having some exams at school that took a lot of work to prepare for. Third, Thanksgiving holidays came along, and we were all pretty busy and had a lot of engagements. Altogether, I haven't had a minute till now--_and_ something has happened that's rather interesting to write about. Carol is ever so much better at this journal business than I am. She writes nearly every other day. But then, she doesn't mind writing about all the little ordinary occurrences,--the things she does about the housework and her studies and so on. But I simply can't do it. If I can't tell about something a little out of the ordinary, I won't write at all. And as nothing besides the usual ever happens in either one of our two households (or at school or in the village!), I find myself turning more and more to Louis and his affairs for interest.