October 1
Dear Papa and Mama,
October. I do not like the word October. October is the saddest month. Of course I am thinking especially of you. When I first arrived at the Home there was one kind person there, Cook. She was the only person who ever talked about you. She found me crying one day and she hugged me and said, “October is a terrible month for dying.” I didn’t know what she meant. I was only five — nearly six. I still don’t know what she meant. Is any month a good month for dying? But she made me feel less lonely. She smelled like apples. Or maybe it was you, Mama, who smelled like apples.
Cucumber 2
Dear Papa and Mama,
After church today Kathleen and Murdo and I went to sit by the falls. Even though it was warm and pleasant I was not cheerful. Kathleen, who is a kind person when she is not being superior, noticed the cloud I was under, and I ended up telling them about why I do not like October. At first they did not know what to say, but then Murdo picked up a large hunk of wood and chucked it into the river. “That’s October,” he said, “gone. Now we just need to find another name for the time between September and November.”
We decided it should be a word ending in the sound “ber” and we tried timber and remember and number and then Murdo thought of cucumber, which made us all laugh. So Cucumber it is.
Today there was a missionary in church, from Asia Minor. He had a wonderful fancy name: Garabed Nergarian. He wore a beautiful oriental costume and sang a hymn in Armenian. I’m sure it is the strangest hymn ever sung in St. John’s Church. I wonder how you get to be a missionary? Probably you need to be very clever, to learn other languages and such.
Cucumber 3
Dear Papa and Mama,
Sometimes at the mill the noise of the machines makes the same words go around and around in my head. Today the words were Garabed Nergarian. I take Agnes’s poem with me every day in my pocket, but I don’t read it because it makes me sad to think of her, but now I think it is time to learn another verse so that I have something new to say to myself.
Cucumber 4
Dear Papa and Mama,
I have a new verse by heart now:
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
Cucumber 6
Dreadful time lighting the stove this morning. When I’m up before Auntie and Uncle I light the stove and make the tea. But this morning was a disaster. I cleaned out the ashes and laid the fire with paper and kindling as usual. But then the smoke just started coming into the room. And I didn’t know what to do. I did not want to douse it with water for that would make a horrible mess.
Just when I thought I would have to go for help, Uncle James came into the room. He put the fire out and then he showed me how to light a bit of paper and hold it up the stovepipe for a minute or two before lighting the fire. “Days like this,” he said, “damp and still, the chimney won’t draw unless the air is warmed first.” I said I was sorry, but he did not chide me at all. He opened the window and aired out the room. When Auntie Janet got up she said that we both smelled smoky. “Yes,” he said, “that Mr. Haskin will be wanting to fry up Flora for breakfast, like bacon. I’d let him if I were you. He needs a bit of fattening up, that one.”
Cucumber 8
Dear Papa and Mama,
The weather is getting cooler. Time for new shoes — mine have been good shoes, but they are getting small. At the Home our shoes came in the charity bales and mostly they did not fit well, but this last time I was lucky and my shoes were just the right size, with plenty of wear left in them, but now they pinch. I wish I could persuade my feet to stop growing. The shoes are fine for the short walk to church, but I do not think I will manage the walk to the mill. I don’t want to ask Auntie and Uncle for new shoes, as they are very expensive.
Cucumber 9
Dear Papa and Mama,
Mrs. Parfitt, the minister’s wife, has started a Bible Study class in the afternoon after church, at the rectory. Auntie Janet and I decided to go. There are about ten in the class. Auntie and I and Maggie Menzies are the only ones from the mill. Mrs. Parfitt served tea in pretty teacups and there were scones.
After the Bible Study and the scones Mrs. Parfitt read us a poem. It was written by a mill girl many years ago. I didn’t know that ordinary people could be poets. It began, “We, who must toil and spin, What clothing shall we wear?” and it was all about God weaving and spinning, through the rain and sun of heaven. “Wherethrough for us his spindles run, His mighty shuttles fly.” At the end God weaves “finest webs of light” for all who toil and spin.
I loved the way the poet used ordinary words like spindles and shuttles alongside fancy words like vesture and raiment instead of just plain old clothes. It made me think of you, in heaven, wearing white vestures and raiments and having sun and rain and space of sky. I never before thought of rain in heaven.
Cucumber 10
Dear Papa and Mama,
Today Auntie said that the question in the mill girl’s poem, “We, who must toil and spin, What clothing shall we wear?” reminded her that I need some warmer clothes and shoes for winter and that next Saturday we will buy some fabric. I remembered my socks for Uncle James. I am going to start on them again. Auntie is knitting a shawl.
Cucumber 11
Dear Papa and Mama,
Big news of yesterday was a fire. But it was an on-purpose one. The firemen wanted to practise using their new fire boat so they gathered a big pile of brush on the riverbank by the town hall. Murdo and I went down to see. It was a huge blaze and hundreds of people gathered. In the light of the fire everyone, even the people I know — faces from the mill, and from the shops and church, even Murdo — looked like strangers. Not exactly like strangers. I could recognize Rev. Parfitt or Mr. Cunningham from the grocery store, but it was like they were themselves, but fairies. The fairy butcher. The fairy teacher. I suppose I looked like the fairy Flora.
When the blaze became very huge the firemen sprayed out water from giant hoses. There were great cheers from the crowd. Murdo said that he wants to be a fireman.
Cucumber 15
Dear Papa and Mama,
Today was shopping day. After work Auntie and I went to the dry goods store. We bought stuff for two dresses, one for her and one for me, and some flannel for a shirt for Uncle. My dress is to be blue with small white flowers, Auntie’s brown. The shirt will be grey. I bought a ball of crochet cotton with my pay, as Auntie says that she is going to teach me to crochet lace. We took a long time over the shopping and looked at everything. I thought we were finished when Auntie surprised me by saying that she had noticed that I needed new shoes.
I am now the proud owner of my first pair of brand new shoes. They are lovely, shiny dark brown, like a horse. My toes have room to wiggle with joy and they do. I did not wear them home because I want to save them.
When we got home we decided to cut out our dresses right away while the light was still good. Uncle grumbled about where was supper and he was not that interested in the flannel for his shirt. He is not interested in vesture and raiment at all. We teased him that there was cold porridge for supper and then we thought, “What a good idea.” So we all had cold porridge and then we had applesauce and it was very good too.
I have put my shoes beside my bed so that I can look at them first thing in the morning. Mungo keeps trying to crawl into them.
Cucumber 16
Dear Papa and Mama,
No Bible Study today because Mrs. Parfitt is away, visiting her ill mother in Arnprior.
Auntie and I spent half the afternoon finishing cutting out our dresses and the other half with me learning to crochet. I have a plan to crochet a band of lace to put around the neck of my new dress. Mungo was a dreadful nuisance with the crocheting. Finally Uncle picked him up and carried him around on his shoulder. Mungo’s favourite place, after my bed, is next to Uncle’s face.
Cucumber 17
Dear Papa and Mama,
I wore my shoes to work today. I tried to walk very carefully so as not to crack the tops of them. Murdo asked me why I was walking like a chicken. As soon as I got to the mill I took them off to save them.
Cucumber 19
Dear Papa and Mama,
Auntie and I have been sewing every night and now our dresses are almost finished. Just in time for me because today I did a long reach for a broken thread and the sleeve ripped right out of my dress at the shoulder. I mended it this evening, but truly the dress is too small.
Cucumber 20
Dear Papa and Mama,
Today was Harvest Festival at church. The church was beautifully decorated with flowers and vegetables and we sang, “Come ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest-home; All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.” I looked down at my new dress, which has some gathering on the sleeves, and I felt safely gathered in even though I know that is not what it means.
Cucumber 21
Dear Papa and Mama,
Everyone in the spinning room said nice things about my new dress. It didn’t take but an hour, of course, before it was all covered with tufts of wool.
Cucumber 23
Dear Papa and Mama,
Church and Bible Study today. Scones again, but no more poetry.
Cucumber 24
Dear Papa and Mama,
Murdo Campbell is a most vexing person. Yesterday I was thinking he was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and today he was such a know-it-all. Today he was talking about telephones. I know about telephones. There are telephones in Almonte. There is one at the mill. I’ve seen one at the livery stable. Murdo needn’t think that he knows more than I do about everything. But today he took it upon himself to explain to me how they work. He said that sound carries down the wire like water goes through a pipe. This cannot be true. Water is a real thing and pipes are hollow. Sound is, well, sound and wires aren’t hollow. So then he asked me how I thought telephones worked and I didn’t really have an answer. I did think of answering “magic,” but Murdo just rolls his eyes when I talk about magic. Then he said he would prove to me how telephones worked because he was going to build one. I said the day he built a telephone was the day that I would fly and he said, “Done!” as though it were a bargain. Sound down pipes — silliness.
Moon-Shadow and Sundew and Bladderwort don’t need telephones. Their whispers are carried on the wind.
Cucumber 25
Dear Papa and Mama,
Oh, how the mighty are fallen. Not that I’m the mighty, but I am surely fallen. Murdo is right again. He came over after supper with a contraption made of two tin cans joined with a long length of string. We went outside and I held one tin up to my ear and he walked away the distance of the string, keeping it tight between us. Then he talked into the other tin and, sure enough, I could hear him clearly, even though he was talking normally. “Hello, Miss Rutherford,” he said. “When can we expect to see you fly?” Then he laughed and I could have heard that even without the telephone. I’m still sure there must be more to telephones than that, but I wasn’t in a position to argue. Also, although I wasn’t going to let Murdo know, I was quite impressed by the contrivance. I wonder if we could run it inside, from his room to mine.
So now I guess I have to fly, which means I hope that hot-air balloonist comes back to Almonte.
Cucumber 29
Dear Papa and Mama,
This morning I woke up even before the train whistle so I took a notion to go outside and watch the train go by. It is grand to be up earlier than everyone, alone in the world like Adam and Eve maybe (but with clothes; I was all wrapped up in my shawl). I was careful not to wash my face in dew because I did not want to be stolen away by a wizard. (Well, there wasn’t any dew, only frost, but I was careful anyway.) I was not alone long, though, because soon a man came running by, down John Street. He was wearing short pants and a singlet even though the weather is quite cold. He didn’t appear to be chasing something, nor was anything chasing him. He smiled as he ran by.
Then I went in and lit the stove.
Later I told Uncle James and he said that the runner was named John Sullivan and he is a weaver at the mill. He runs to Appleton and back before he comes to work in the morning. That is ten miles! I asked Uncle James why and he said just for the joy of it. John Sullivan must certainly be one of those early-morning people, akin to chickens.
Cucumber 30
Dear Papa and Mama,
This morning Rev. Parfitt talked about saints because All Saints’ Day is coming up on Tuesday. He said that the church makes saints of people who do extraordinary, miraculous things, but that it was also a day to think about all the people who came before us, who made it possible for us to be here today. Auntie reached over and took my hand because she knew that I was thinking about you both.
We walked home with Murdo and Kathleen. Uncle James said he hoped we noticed that he was the only one of us with a proper saint’s name. Murdo said that there was a Saint Murdo, but nobody had heard of him because he was an Armenian saint from Asia Minor. None of us believes that for a minute.
Cucumber 31
Dear Papa and Mama,
Dinnertime. Today is Hallowe’en. We didn’t have Hallowe’en at the Home, but now I’m finding out about it. Mrs. Murphy, who is Irish, says that they leave out a bowl of milk for the fairies because tonight is the night they roam abroad. Murdo says that it is the night for boys to play tricks. I asked Kathleen what girls do and she said that it is a good night to foretell the future. She says she’ll come over tonight and show me how. Auntie and Uncle don’t know much about Hallowe’en except that Auntie says it would be a good night for a story of witches, and a good night to keep Mungo inside because sometimes the boys’ tricks are cruel to cats.