April 1

Lillie is so big that she looks fit to bursting. She can hardly waddle around the house anymore and Cora Sue and I are virtually doing all the housework, and the cooking. It is just as well that we don’t have any more outings planned, as it sure as anything we wouldn’t be allowed to go. She predicts that the baby is due somewhere around this week, so we shall have to extra careful of making sure she has someone near her. Grandma is all very well, but she can’t really deliver the baby.

Aunt Lillie has planned to have a midwife, Mrs. Mary Carver, a widow lady who's about 40 come in to help with the birth. But William’s brother’s wife, Sarah, whose children are grown up, said she could come. And his other brother John’s wife, who has three children still at home, said she could come to help, but not to stay long. She lives in New Haven.

There is a nursery all prepared with baby bed and bath and rocking chair. We are really all get quite excited about this event.

Mr. Barnum has sent complimentary tickets for us and our five other classmates to go to the opening of the circus.  It will be in Bridgeport for only the one day, Saturday May 8th. The tour starts in New York at the end of April, and carries on until the 9th of October.

Mr. Barnum told us when we were at his house a few weeks ago that he intended to merge his circus with that of his greatest rivals, James Bailey and James Hutchinson . I read in the paper that he did it last week. But for this year, it will continue to be called by its present name, Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth. 

Mr. Barnum writes that he had been trying to buy the new baby elephant from Bailey, but Bailey wouldn’t sell, but this merger will mean that he gets it anyway. This is the first Indian elephant ever to be born in America.

And he said he was also trying to buy an elephant from London Zoo, called Jumbo, the largest pachyderm in captivity. But apparently the people of England are not at all happy about the idea of selling it to the someone in the States.

Mr. Barnum included a flyer telling that one new main attraction will be his giant, Colonel Goshen. At present he stands seven feet, eleven inches in his stocking feet, weighs 635 pounds, measures ninety one inches around the chest and ninety five inches round the waist. His arms are the thickness of saplings and his fist "possesses the ponderosity of the hammer of Thor." The Colonel served in several eventful campaigns. He was in the Turkish army at Jerusalem, and fought through the Crimean war, the war of Italian independence and the campaign of Maximillian in Mexico.

But of course, we knew that we needed to take all Mr. Barnum's claims with a large pinch of salt.

April 12th

Lillie’s little baby girl was finally born after a very long and painful labor, and it died, poor thing. We were all devastated. The midwife, Mrs. Carver was here for more than a day, and did everything she could, but the baby was not breathing when she was born.

Now we have Easter to get through, with a short break from school, but neither Cora Sue now I have the interest or energy to get on with doing anything.

We have less than a month now until our essays must be completely done and handed in. I have done about three-quarters of the work, but just can’t seem to feel in the mood to finish it all off. But since I promised to send the New York Herald my finished essay before I hand it in on May 11th, I had better get a move on. Our graduation will be on May 21st.

There is so little left of our school career now. Both Cora Sue and I plan to go to go to Bridgeport City Normal School next September, which was just established last year in 1879, to train to be teachers. We were planning on spending the summer getting to know our new cousin, but that won’t be the case. I only hope that Lillie will try for another baby again soon.