had flowed up over his little brown ears and in around all the little
brown islands of his freckles. So Rebecca Mary had begun hastily to
talk of other things. For the minister's littlest little boy had
explained that the first Statement in each entry referred to the
weather and the second to the deportment of the writer, and Rebecca
Mary had remarked a sympathetic resemblance between the two statements.
She had caught a fleeting glimpse of the weather part of "Thirsdy"--
she could guess the rest. Better let the curtain fall on "Thirsdy."
On her way home Rebecca Mary decided to keep a diary herself. Her
first day's record had been a good deal like the "Mundy" of the
minister's littlest little boy, only there were more a's in the
weather. After that, little by little, she branched out into a certain
originality--the Rebecca Mary sort. If she had not been hampered by
circumstances, it would have been easier to be original. The most
hampering circumstance was the cookbook itself, which she was driven
to use in her new undertaking. There was room on the blank leaves and
above and below the recipes for cake and pudding and pie. The book was
one Aunt Olivia had given her long ago to draw impossible pictures in.

In the beginning Rebecca Mary tried pasting pieces of "empty" paper
over the pies and puddings and cakes, but the empty paper was too
transparent. In rather startling places things were liable to show
through.

As: "SUNDAY.--It rained a level teaspoonful. Aunt Olivia and I went
to church. The text was thou shalt not steal 1 cups of sour milk--"
Rebecca Mary got no farther than that. She was a little appalled at
the result thus far, and hastily turned a page and began again in a blank space where no intrusive pudding could break through and corrupt.
Thereafter she wrote above and below the recipes and pasted no more
thin veils over them. It seemed safer.