LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

also write a few lines to you.

      I have worked almost every day since I came here to America

      so I am never free.

      A worker can get along better here.

      I am working in a factory

      where we make billiard tables.

      There are 700 men in the factory

      so we make several hundred tables a day.

      They do everything on a big scale here.

      There are 3,000 Swedes here,

      three Swedish churches, and many

      Swedish lodges. That is good

      because it goes slow to learn English.

      We are too old. I wish I had been here

      ten years sooner.

       THE BOX

      My mother says she won’t leave Michigan without it.

      But when her father goes down to get it,

      all he comes up with is a slim packet

      of ruled paper, bound by a piece of twine.

       Jane’s Diary—Private

      it says on the cover,

      Private twice underlined.

       She didn’t always like her sister,

       and she didn’t like her parents much either,

      he warns my mother, who says

      she doesn’t mind. She packs it

      in her suitcase, tells me

      we’ll look at it in due time.

      About a year later, she sends me a copy.

      The diary starts in January, 1960,

      when Jane was thirteen, and runs

      to October of 1961.

       At this moment in my life

       hate is so fierce

       that I would give anything to kill my mother

      she begins, already

      on her way

      to becoming a woman.

       (OCTOBER 21, 1960)

      This little book is full of my ups and downs.

      On one page I am obviously happy and on the next desperately unhappy.

      Such is life.

      Now, well now I am quiet, happy, dreamy and listening to the hi-fi.

      This fall has certainly been better than last fall and I am very happy and very busy.

      I am a cheerleader now and have been practicing all the time.

      Also Barb was sixteen this month and we went to Ann Arbor this weekend. Plus the fact that I have Latin, algebra,

      and my four other subjects. Indeed I love it! I am so pleased!

      Secretly I long to be as mature & chic & sophisticated as Sandy Robertson or Gail Beatty,

      but such is not possible so I shall have to be content just being Janie [M.].

       GUSHING

       Jane was a gusher,

      my mother says.

       You know, a gusher—

       “I really like your dress,

       I really do, I mean it’s adorable,

       really and truly adorable.”

      I know about gushing, how charming

      it can be, and how alarming

      when it comes on strong:

       I went over to Jan’s Thursday nite and really spouted off.

       Heidi and Suzie were there and they objected to my ideas, strenuously.

       I do too I just talked.

       Everything I said or did, I said or did wrong.

       But all those joys, sorrows, and upsets

       help you find yourself, help you to build

       a life of real value. Those upsets all contribute

       to my character and what I’m going to be.

      I love the sound of it, a girl

      surging into herself

      as she writes into the night—

       I am all mixed up and these pages filled with writing haven’t helped any.

       I can’t sleep. I have to write.

       (MARCH 7, 1960)

      I’ve decided to resign from the compliment club.

      This may seem trivial, but to me it’s a big thing.

      I have come to the conclusion however that I am not the kind of girl

      who belongs in a group such as the club and that my ideas are too strong to ignore.

      Friday there will be a meeting of the club. I will not be there.

      Instead I will write a letter explaining my resignation.

      I will no longer be part of the crowd listed in the front of the book.

      I will know how Gwyneth Nevins and Sally Fredericks feel when they are left out.

      I will be an outsider.

       THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL

      I’ve just finished Anne Frank:

       The Diary of a Young Girl.

      It too spans age thirteen to fifteen—

      it too covers young love, hating

      one’s mother, and sibling rivalry.

      The new edition has restored

      some passages, such as Anne’s

      description of female anatomy. She says

      the clitoris looks a bit like a blister.

      She describes everything she eats

      (potatoes, rotten lettuce, fake gravy,

      the occasional glut of strawberries)

      everything she reads (genealogy, mythology)

      and how the families in the attic fight

      (often, and bitterly). Anne was also a gusher—

      a chatterbox, as she says. But who can guess

      what Anne would have said

      about the last place she went.

       (1960)

      I bought a record. It’s called “Cuttin’ Capers” by Doris Day and it’s real cute

      and happy sounding. I love it! It makes me happy and feel wonderful too!

      I’m beginning to really like music and what it adds to life and its many moods.

      Life is good to me!

       BARB AND JANE, PART I

      Two

Скачать книгу