Just as if I was to blame! (But, then, we women always get the blame, I notice.) And then he’d attend strictly to the books for maybe five whole minutes—­before he asked another question about that party, or the violinist.

Naturally the lessons haven’t amounted to much, as you can imagine.  But the term was nearly finished, anyway; and my real school is in Boston, of course.

It’s vacation now.  I do hope that will amount to something!

* * * * *

August first.

It hasn’t, so far—­I mean vacation.  Really, what a world of disappointment this is!  How on earth I’m going to stand being Mary for three months more I don’t know.  But I’ve got to, I suppose.  I’ve been here May, June, and July; and that leaves August, September, and October yet to come.  And when I think of Mother and Boston and Marie, and the darling good times down there where you’re really wanted, I am simply crazy.

If Father wanted me, really wanted me, I wouldn’t care a bit.  I’d be willing to be Mary six whole months.  Yes, I’d be glad to.  But he doesn’t.  I’m just here by order of the court.  And what can you do when you’re nothing but a daughter by order of the court?

Since the lessons have stopped, Father’s gone back to his “Good-morning, Mary,” and “Good-night,” and nothing else, day in and day out.  Lately he’s got so he hangs around the house an awful lot, too, so I can’t even do the things I did the first of the month.  I mean that I’d been playing some on the piano, along at the first, after school closed.  Aunt Jane was out in the garden a lot, and Father out to the observatory, so I just reveled in piano-playing till I found almost every time I did it that he had come back, and was in the library with the door open.  So I don’t dare to play now.

And there isn’t a blessed thing to do.  Oh, I have to sew an hour, and now I have to weed an hour, too; and Aunt Jane tried to have me learn to cook; but Susie (in the kitchen) flatly refused to have me “messing around,” so Aunt Jane had to give that up.  Susie’s the one person Aunt Jane’s afraid of, you see.  She always threatens to leave if anything goes across her wishes.  So Aunt Jane has to be careful.  I heard her tell Mrs. Small next door that good hired girls were awfully scarce in Andersonville.

As I said before, if only there was somebody here that wanted me.  But there isn’t.  Of course Father doesn’t.  That goes without saying.  And Aunt Jane doesn’t.  That goes, too, without saying.  Carrie Heywood has gone away for all summer, so I can’t have even her; and of course, I wouldn’t associate with any of the other girls, even if they would associate with me—­which they won’t.

That leaves only Mother’s letters.  They are dear, and I love them.  I don’t know what I’d do without them.  And yet, sometimes I think maybe they’re worse than if I didn’t have them.  They make me so homesick, and I always cry so after I get them.  Still, I know I just couldn’t live a minute if ’twasn’t for Mother’s letters.