The Hired Girl(60)

Faint heart never won fair lady, after all.



Tuesday, August the first, 1911

I am writing this in Druid Hill Park. The sky is clear and last night’s rain refreshed the grass. I’m always surprised by how tawny and brittle it can be, and then how it can come back in a night.

How far I’ve come in this diary! How I’ve traveled since last I sought to capture the beauties of nature in these pages! Nature in Druid Hill Park is vastly superior to nature in the country. At Steeple Farm, there are splintery fences mended with wire, and ugly sheds and manure piles. But here there are great sheets of ornamental water, and majestic oaks, and fountains and promenades.

I meant to begin instruction with Father Horst today, but he left a note at the rectory saying he had been called out by a sick parishioner. So I walked back to Eutaw Place and fetched my journal.

I feel very elegant, sitting in the shade like a lady of leisure. Before I sat down to write, I went for a stroll and admired the splendid panoramas. You’d think I’d be contented, having nothing to do but enjoy myself, but I found myself wishing I had a parasol to carry. I don’t need one, because my Cheyenne hat has a wide brim, but the other ladies in the park look so elegant with their parasols. I saw nice parasols in Rosenbach’s for ninety-five cents. Oh, dear, oh, dear, how worldly and covetous I’ve become! I remember Ma telling me always to put money by, and I vow that I will, but I really need new stockings. If I’m going to take the streetcar to Rosenbach’s again, I might as well look at the parasols, because —



Later that night

I hate Mrs. Rosenbach! She has no heart! I see now that I was deceived by her stylish clothes and refined manners. I thought she was a real lady, but she is only a simulacrum. Mimi — slangy, vain little Mimi — is worth a dozen of her. Mimi must get her good qualities from her father.

I’m mad at Malka, too. Who would have thought she could be so unfeeling? Unreasonable, yes; I would expect Malka to be unreasonable, because she generally is. But I never dreamed she could be so callous, especially when I consider how much she loves Thomashefsky.

Here’s what happened: while I was writing, who should come along but Mimi? Her white sailor suit was all grass stained and mussed, and she was swinging her hat by the ribbons. When she caught sight of me, her little monkey face broke out in a smile, and she scampered over to join me. How can that child look so pretty when she really is not? It’s partly the way she moves, I guess. She’s so light on her feet; she’s like a bit of bright paper being blown over the grass. I wish I were like that.

She sat down next to me and asked what I was writing. I told her it was my diary, and she asked — just like that! — if she could read it! I said, “Of course not!” Then she tried to nab the book, but I was too quick for her and sat on it.

After she saw I wasn’t going to let her read my diary, she asked why I hadn’t talked to her much since the day we visited the department store. I told her I didn’t think Mrs. Rosenbach wanted us to be friends.

“Did she fuss at you?” Mimi asked sympathetically. “She fussed at me. She said going out together would make you forget your station. It was my fault more than yours, she said. So she shouldn’t have fussed at you.”

“She didn’t fuss, exactly,” I said, “but she criticized my deportment.”

“Oh, deportment,” said Mimi, rolling her eyes. “She doesn’t like my deportment either. Anyway”— with a wave of her dainty, dirty little paw she dismissed the subject of deportment — “Mama’s not here, so we can talk. What do you write in your diary?”

“Diaries are private,” I said. “Besides, you don’t like reading.”

“I sure don’t,” agreed Mimi, and sighed. “Papa’s making me read aloud a chapter of Little Women every night. I can’t stand those March girls. They’re always trying to be good, the stuck-up prigs. I don’t think Louisa May Alcott understood Jews very well, because there’s a bit in it about meek Jews. As if all Jews were the same.” She flashed her dimple at me. “Do I look like a meek Jew to you?”

“Not much,” I said, and she looked smug.

“I’m almost a tomboy,” she confided. “I say almost, because I love frilly clothes and I’m not very good at boys’ games. But I’m very high-spirited. Just now I was trying to play baseball, only when the ball comes at me, I shut my eyes. Did you ever play baseball?”