22nd January

Aunt Lillian was agreeable to our spending some of our money from Mr. Bennett, especially as it appears as if we won’t have any other expenses, after we pay for our train tickets.  He sends her $50 a month for each of us. And Mr. Bennett has also said he would give us each $5000 for when we  come of age at 21. Aunt Lillie said however, that we must regard these as our graduation dresses as well, and not expect new clothing again in May. In fact, I am sure these will be our best dresses for many years to come.

I checked on train times, and we can board a train here at 12.30 which will arrive in Grand Central Station at 6.30 p.m. And coming home on Sunday it will be much the same - leaving there at 1 and getting home at 7.

We travelled by train when we moved here with Auntie Lillian and Uncle William and Grandma two years ago, but we didn’t go through New York at all, and came here from Pennsylvania. I am so excited about all of this, that I can hardly concentrate on anything else.

After school today, Cora Sue and I went to the poshest shop in town, Lanergan and Downing’s Fine Clothing Store. We said we were only looking, but we both quickly found dresses that would suit us, and the shop assistant reluctantly allowed us to try them on, but we assured her that we had sufficient funds to pay the sale price of $9.95 that each had on it. But we decided that it was only prudent to tell Auntie Lillian and Grandma about the dresses, and let them be in on the decision.

The dress I like best is made in a polonaise form - the bodice and overskirt being one piece. The polonaise fabric is wool - a lovely olive green with a forest herringbone weave. It is fully lined and finished with loads of brass filigree buttons, handmade buttonholes and bias cut cotton ruching. The skirt is cotton and made with a polished cotton foundation skirt to which is inserted the appropriate bustle pads and is trimmed with three rows of knife pleated ruffles, the upper two only spanning the back two panels The sleeves are full length and edged with fabric pleating, braid and narrow lace, and have a slight gather at the shoulders.

The dress Cora Sue wants to buy is a three piece iridescent carmel brown with black lace trim. The cotton lined bodice has a V shaped front neckline with a stand up collar that is edged with black Venice lace. It buttons up the front with faceted black buttons. The separate draping can be added or removed. It drapes over the front of the skirt and gathers up into the centre back for the bustle effect. The back of the bodice drapes over the bustled skirt and is also edged with the lace. The skirt pleats into the inch wide waist band and closes with hooks and eyes.

Because we were in town and thought it might be nice to have a treat, we stopped off at Craves Confection and Ice Cream Parlor on Fairfield Ave and Middle Street and brought home some maple nut ice cream to thank Auntie for allowing us to have these nice treats.

All of the English class managed to get their outlines and Introductions into Miss Marble for Monday’s class. It was rather funny, when she asked Nelson to read out his introduction about Lincoln.

She said, “That sounds very cut and dried, Nelson. Did you copy that out of a book?”

He replied, “Oh, yes Miss, every word copied out exactly from the Encyclopedia Americana.”

“Nelson, have you ever heard of plagiarism?”

“Is that when everybody gets very sick, Miss?” he said knowing full well that we all knew he was pretending to be stupider than he is.

“No, Nelson, it is not the plague. It is a term which refers to using others words and making out that they are your own.”

“But I needed to use their words, Miss. I didn’t know the dates and places and things for myself.”

“But if you use other people’s work you need to reference it. You should put a small number above where you are copying work, and then at the end of the chapter, put down where you got the information - the book, the edition, the copyright date, and the page.”

“But Miss, I might be doing that for every paragraph I write. I don’t know anything about him at all, except he was president and freed the slaves.”

“This is supposed to be an essay, Nelson. So it doesn’t want to be just facts - which you might well have to ascertain from someone else through a book - but an essay in which I am specifically asking you to give your opinion on why this person is someone you might like to meet. That won’t be listed in any book, will it? Now why is it that you chose Lincoln?”

“Because I thought it would be easy and there would be a lot written about him. And I do admire what he did, and am sorry that he got shot when he was still so young.”

“Well, I will leave you to decide how you are going to put those ideas into words. I do appreciate class, that much of what you are going to be writing will be gleaned from books. But you should read the information, absorb it, and rewrite it again in your own words.”

“But when and where somebody was born can only be stated like that, Miss. Putting flowery adjectives in doesn’t really make it any more true.”

“Of course not, but your way of expressing yourself is uniquely your own. The person who wrote the book will have their way of speaking. I am just saying, write in your own words, that is all.”

“But people who have had books published write better than we do, so why isn’t it all right to learn from them and write like they do.”

“Just for fun I want to set you a little exercise. Can you all get out a piece of paper and your pencils. Now I am going to write three words on the board and I want you to all make up a sentence using those three words in any order and with whatever other words you wish to add. Do you understand?”

We all agreed that we did.

The three words she wrote up were: river, bird and boat.

I thought about it for awhile and then put down this, “While I was floating down the river in my boat, I looked up into the blue sky and saw a beautiful bird.”

When we had all finished she asked us each in turn to read out what we had written. Basically we all had the same sort of idea, but each sentence was different. Some were going to the boat, and some were going away from it. Sometimes the bird was flying and sometimes it was still. The river was peaceful or rough. The boat was large or small, and one even had a model sailing boat. So she made her point. We each had a unique way of using those words.

We only had time for the one Introduction to be read out in class, so the rest of us handed ours in and we will have to wait until Monday to see what she thinks of them. We were just told to get on with the body of our essays now, but I am thinking I will wait to write any more until after our trip to New York, when I will have a better idea of how I want to bring in the Indians’ point of view.