d mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they
will give you, which is never half enough except Persis Watson, whose
affectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then you
do up little bits like sedlitz powders, first in soft paper and then
in brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you
possibly can hold out; then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane and
I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date we
buried them and when they'll be done enough to dig up, but we can never
wait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for children
to learn,--not to be impatient,--so when I went to the barn chamber I
made a poem.

IMPATIENCE

We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon. Twas in the orchard just at
noon. Twas in a bright July forenoon. Twas in the sunny afternoon. Twas
underneath the harvest moon.

It was not that way at all; it was a foggy morning before school, and I
should think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard
to stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks it
is nobody's business when we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line about
the harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and
characters to the people that read my Thoughts, for they would think we
were up late nights, so I have fixed it like this:

IMPATIENCE

We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon,
We thought their sweetness would be such a boon.
We ne'er suspicioned they would not be done
After three days of autumn wind and sun.
Why did we from the earth our treasures draw?
Twas not for fear that rat or mole might naw,
An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason,
She says that youth is ever out of season.

That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave me the thought for the
poem which is rather uncommon.

* * * * *

A DREADFUL QUESTION

September, 187--

WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST BENEFERCENT INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER--PUNISHMENT
OR REWARD?

This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited
school today. He is a School Committee; not a whole one but I do not
know the singular number of him. He told us we could ask our families
what they thought, though he would rather we wouldn't, but we must write
our own words and he would hear them next week.

After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all p