1895

According to Sports Illustrated (“How to Win at Poker Always”), Charles Fey, a mechanic, invents the slot machine.

 

*

Babe Ruth played catcher at times in his youth,
no easy task, since he was left-handed.

 

February 6: Babe Ruth is born in the home of his maternal grandmother. Kate, his mother, and the baby return to the family residence in Baltimore. They lived above a tavern from 1897 to 1901, and while living there the boy was deemed “incorrigible. Later, young Babe was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, where he lived (1902-1914). According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel (2/10/14), Babe had “infrequent” contact with his family for the rest of his life.

 

Babe’s birthplace museum in Baltimore has his 1910-era hymnal from St. Mary’s. In it he signed his name, and wrote “world’s worse [sic] singer, world’s best pitcher.”

 

At St. Mary’s Ruth learned both tailoring and how to play baseball. At times, although he was left-handed, Babe also played catcher. (See photo below of the 1912 St. Mary’s ball club.)

 

On Valentine’s Day in 1914 he signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles; then in July he was sold to the Red Sox and played in five games before being sent to the Red Sox’s minor league club in Providence, R.I. That season, Ruth met Helen Woodford in Boston, took her home to Baltimore after the games were finished, and they married in October.

 

The following year, Babe bought his father a tavern on Eutaw Street; but in 1918 there was some kind of altercation out front. “Ruth’s father was involved and fell or was knocked down and hit his head. He died of his injuries.”

 

Ruth’s hitting records, particularly when compared to the hitting of his contemporaries, always interested students.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Someone once called him America’s “first sports god.” My students always liked to discuss other sports gods…and it was interesting to talk about why sports matter? I was a big fan of basketball, myself, and carried a ball around in my car in case I saw pickup games in progress at parks.

 

But I used to tell my students, “I get excited about shooting a rubber/leather ball through a metal hoop. Why do we even care?”

 

Another sportswriter has called our obsession with various teams we might love, “rooting for laundry.”

 

So, why do we pay big bucks for team jerseys and how come you rarely see people wearing the colors of lousy teams or lousy players?

Why would any fan care? The author, after another tough season for his favorite team.

 

*

 

November 28: Frank Duryea wins the first car race in U.S. history, traveling 52.4 miles in only 10 hours and 23 minutes.

 

Or: by speeding along at a little more than five miles per hour.

 

Only one other vehicle, out of six that started even managed to finish the race.

 

As Smithsonian writes,  After the race, they established the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1896 and mass produced their car (well, 13 copies of it) – the first company to do so. A Duryea vehicle was also in the first car crash in the United States, according to Keith Barry writing for Wired.

 

*

 

The writer of children’s stories, Eugene Field, dies. Halleck calls him “the poet laureate of children” and calls his poem Little Boy Blue one that “will be read as long as there are parents who have lost a child.” He also wrote “The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street,” and the story of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. 

Halleck writes: 

He loved children, and anyone else who loves them, whether old or young, will enjoy reading his poems of childhood. Who, for instance, will admit that he does not like the story of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod?

 

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
     Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
   Sailed on a river of crystal light,
     Into a sea of dew.
   

‘Where are you going, and what do you wish?’
   The old moon asked the three.
   ‘We have come to fish for the herring fish
     That live in this beautiful sea;
   Nets of silver and gold have we!’
                   Said Wynken,
                   Blynken,
                   And Nod.

 

“The old moon laughed and sang a song,
     As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
   And the wind that sped them all night long
     Ruffled the waves of dew.”

 

Who does not wish to complete this story to find out what became of the children? Who does not like Krinken?

 

  “Krinken was a little child,
   It was summer when he smiled.”

 

Field could write exquisitely beautiful verse. His tender heart had felt the pathos of life, and he knew how to set this pathos to music. He was naturally a humorist, and his humor often caused him to take a right angle turn in the midst of serious thoughts. Parents have for nearly a quarter of a century used the combination of humor and pathos in his poem, The Little Peach, to keep their children from eating green fruit:

 

 “A little peach in the orchard grew,
   A little peach of emerald hue;
   Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
         It grew.”

 

*

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: The tortured romance which follows might interest students. Ms. Cooper’s reluctance to allow a man to kiss her on the lips would likely strike most as strange.

 

I would wonder what they might make of Mr. Camp, the minister, and her first love, or Mr. Boyd, who seems to be a “cad,” (to use that dated term), her second and greatest love.

 

Would they have a high opinion of Annie? Or consider her odd? In what ways does she sound like people they know today?

 

Annie Cooper, 15, began her diary in the summer of 1880. In Private Pages, the editor begins with an entry from December 1881. Years later, looking back on her youth, growing up in Sag Harbor, New York, Annie remembered, “What a jolly rollicing girl” she was. The boys she knew often took her along crabbing and fishing, because they said she was “as good as a boy.”

 

In 1881, the year she turned 17 (December 11), she wrote, “I hate to grow up. My childhood has been so sweet, I hate to part with it.” Not until 1883, did Cooper begin to write more often. In her case, we shall post her diary to the year 1895, when a most agonizing romance finally reaches a climax. 

 

1883 

April 8. Home is the sweetest and dearest place to one in the world.

 

June 2. I went to Brooklyn to visit Annie Rhodes, had a lovely time, went everywhere nearly, stayed three weeks, went to my first ball, & a grand ball it was! & to four Theaters or Operas. I had plenty of fellows & attention, and all that sort of thing! I can’t begin to tell how I enjoyed it! I got me a new silk dress & hat, picked it out myself, & had a good time spending money generally, in all I spent $33.43 while I was away, & I did not buy many nickknacks either. Money melts in N.Y. Papa was so good and generous!

 

October 14. Since I wrote last in this book, my sister, my only sister, so loving, so true, so kind & yet always so cheerful has been married & left me to rule supreme in our room and in the house. I cannot realize that she is married, she has always been so kind to me, and so much with me that I have always considered her as young almost as myself. She was always the helper to Mamma in the house cares, I must try to fill her place. Oh! what a mountain it seems like! my filling her place! why simply impossible! but God helping me, I will fill it as much as it ought to be filled, I will be kind, loving, obedient, patient, & thoughtful, God help me. 

 

1884 

“I feel a peaceful joy.” 

December 7. 6 months since I wrote in this book, & today I have taken the boldest & best step of my life. I have joined the church, and I’m happier and feel freer than I ever did in my life before. I do not feel that wonderful, uncontrollable joy which some people talk about, but I feel a peaceful joy. What I longed to do for months and months, but no one had taken the trouble to speak to me upon the subject until lately when Mr. Camp, our minister, came to see me, also Puss [a friend]. I felt no great change, sudden and terrible but I do feel changed. I shall be 20 this week. I am so glad I have taken this step while I can say I am in my teens. I went to the young peoples meeting tonight, Mr. Camp might almost have asked me to speak, but I feel it almost wrong for women to speak in church, after reading what Paul says, I mean to ask Mr. Camp about it. I did not speak, & I felt awfully guilty, but still I don’t think I did wrong exactly, I read a verse though. 

 

1885 

“What he comes here for, is more than I can see.” 

February 7. This afternoon I have been skating on Crooked Pond! Oh, Oh, what fun! It is the most delightful pond anyway! the surroundings are lovely, & it is all turns & inlets & outlets, & islands! Oh! I just love it! We were a party of 12, & rode up in wagons, had a fire on one of the islands.

 

February 16. Mr. Camp has been down playing chess this evening, I beat him 2 games out of 3. What he comes here for, is more than I can see. For he does not pay scarcely any attention to Mama & Papa, & I surely know he does not care about paying any attention to me, for why should he a minister & a man of 43 years old, & a bacholor, care about coming here to play chess with me, a giddy young girl, scarcely out of my teens. It is a puzzle for me, for he never talks religion to me…It is very pleasant to have him come, I enjoy it of course, if he is goose enough to waste his time on me…

 

I was going to have such a nice time practicing to-night, it rained so hard, when he came & and of course, I practiced in another direction – coque – flirat – etc, chess I mean. He kindly informed me that I must not fall in love with him as if I had any idea of it!!! His conceit is unparalleled!!! I told him he should not have come here to-night, & I am sure I can’t see why he did!

 

February 28. I have been to church & Oh Oh what sermons! Mr. Camp seems inspired! when in the pulpit, but went out Oh! what a change, he is a “flirt” if ever I saw one, but the most innocent one! I have been riding with him to-day, over on North Haven, doing calls, on his parishioners, call it my first missionary tour, wonder if I will ever have another, I hope so, for although I detest his continual nonsense, still it is very pleasant to be talked to the way he talks. He is so charming…

 

April 15. Mr. Cook has been here to-night, much to Papa’s disgust, I don’t see why Papa doesn’t like to have either him or Mr. Camp call on me, & I can’t understand why he should mind such old foggies as they are, he can’t possibly think that I will fall in love with them. That would be too absurd!

 

April 25. That old – goose is gone. I ought to be ashamed perhaps to speak of my pastor like this & of course I wouldn’t for anything in the world to anyone but you, my dear, diary… But what a old – what shall I say – fraud he is! Comes here & take tea and flatter me just lays it on thick, & then flirt, & do all sorts of things that would be charming in any other man, but for a minister, – – ! Well, I don't know! run on in the most nonsensical way to Papa when he knows that Papa is feeling “blue”, not a word of spiritual advice, or comfort, & then go to church the next day and preach the most magnificent and wonderful sermon, that I or anybody heard, he put his whole soul in it too. …

 

Annie writes that she resents Mr. Camp’s  frivolity during visits, as if “he thinks me capable of no higher or nobler or deeper thought than those with which he favors me.” She says she resented his conduct on this evening. She continues, 

… I was actually ugly, I was so sarcastic, I could not help it, he rubs me the wrong way always. I don’t think, in fact I am sure he will not come here again very soon, he did not enjoy his two minutes of his time I’ll warrant, I was insulted in the first place by him when he first came in the room, that set me off for the rest of the time he put his arm around – – I mean I was fixing the string of the curtain, to pull it up, & it got fast, so I mounted the rocker & he came to steady it for me, but full of the mischief as he always is, he unsteady did it so that I almost fell into his “fond embrace”, – of course I was indignant, I just guess I was! However I wish he could come here oftener, if he has a mind to make a goose of himself I don’t care for myself but I hate to have Papa see him do so. And indeed he doesn’t see half, through my management. I screen him as much as possible.

 

April 26. Mr. Cook came down after church & made quite a long call much to my fathers disgust, after he left he actually threatened to tell him not to come again or have any thing more to do with me. Oh! Papa is too absurd! as if there could be any harm in Mr. Cook’s coming to see me & taking me to ride & sail! It amuses me so I almost split trying not to smile when he talks that way. Of course I don’t want him to see that I am laughing, but I can’t help it. Papa’s in earnest, & I don’t want to give up Mr. Cook’s friendship.

 

On another occasion, Mr. Camp takes Annie and a friend to a housewarming, but then goes “off with another girl,” and that leads to a “terrible, terrible, time, a real fight.” 

Two weeks later, they seem to have patched up their differences. 

May 29. Oh! Day most beautiful & rare. How can I express myself, Mr. Camp & I have been riding, we went to the “Lovely Long Pond Spring” & drank its waters, & made a wish there above the spring. Mr. C. was so “sweet”, you see dear diary, I don’t want you to think that I am in love with him, my minister 30 or I mean 43 years old. A “vieux garcon”. Oh! not at all! I assure you! I look upon him & he upon me in the light of true disinterested friends, it is pure Platonic Love that exists between us, nothing more or less. We converse about love freely, & we understand each other. But he is a great blessing to me, and I thank God for his great kindness in giving me such a friend.

 

I dare not put on paper the soft sweet words he tells me, if I were his “sweetheart” he could not say or act much more, but he knows I understand, and match him in that.

 

May 31. I love God & his love fills me with a love to all his creatures & all Nature. What did Mr. Camp mean when he said in soft sweet tones while he found my hand & pressed it gently, “I warn you against love, beware of love”? When out riding in the woods he talks of love to fellow creatures, but not to one creature? When picking violets he takes his seat at my feet & holds my hand (when I allow it) & repeats poetry about love? when he takes my arm and looks into my face, aye my eyes, & says the sweetest things imaginable, sometimes in French and sometimes in English? Of course he knows I know it is purely Platonic, but then it savors of flirtation too. He is a real good man, any way, pure & high & noble in his impulses.

 

June 2. I am not talented in music or singing or reading or talking. I could paint if I gave my time to it, but this [is] hard to do when one is not taking lecons. … I have no “sparkling wit”. I am not good looking, & although I do dress handsomely still it cannot make me attractive – Oh! dear, I am way up one day & way down the next & I am way way down to-day.

 

June 28. To-day, Sunday, I consecrate myself anew to Christ, & all my powers & energy, & I hencefourth leave Mr. Camp – I will have nothing more to do with him accept as my pastor, he has completely disgusted me, I shall not be “cosey” with him anymore. I feel hurt & pained to say so, but I must! So here goes good bye – – – Adonis! good bye!

 

July 30. Charlie [her brother] has been home, & Oh! Dear! I feel so very sad over him, he has taken to reading Darwin & Herbert Spenser & others of the same order, he partly believes in “Evolution”, and is investigating too far for his own good I am afraid. I must pray for him. I am going to read Darwin & H. S. myself to see what they are.

 

September 27. Yesterday was an important day with me. I took a ride with Mr. Camp, and fought the whole time, he made a remark to the effect that all the girls were in love with him etc, which just set me off, & I stormed & stormed, my indignation knew no bounds, I was just wild. I told him – my pastor – “that of all the men I ever saw he was the most conceited”. I wanted to have nothing more to do with him, (which is a big he) I guess it is all up with us now, for sure but I hope not.

 

October 3. Mr. Camp spent this evening with me playing chess. I enjoyed it immensely, but do not understand how it is that he – a talented 44 yrs old bachelor, & a minister can want to spend so much time on me, a green innocent, country maiden.

 

The following spring, Annie realizes that Mr. Camp has taken more of an interest in her close friend and writes, “I am wounded to my heart’s core.” She writes only two more times in her diary in 1886, in November, to say Camp “goes to Palestine. “Last week he did not come near me the whole week through, he evidently cares no more about me now than any one of ‘the flock.’” 

 

1886 

“I hate myself.” 

December 11. To-day is my ‘jour de naissance,’ I am 22 years old! I can not realize it. It seems as though I could not have it so, why I am actually getting old, shall be on the down hill side of life before long! I wonder if I’ll never marry! I wonder if I shall live to grow old!

 

Dear diary! He is gone! Yes! he is gone, & I played my role of indifference & coolness to the last, he came down to say good bye in the morning, with his eyes full of tears & his voice unsteady, he could scarcely speak, he pressed my hand long & lovingly, I just let him hold it, but otherwise I was: Stony! He probably thinks me the coldest & most ungrateful and uninteresting girl He ever saw, he little knew how I was longing to comfort him, & to unbend & be what I once was with him, but alas I could not! I hate myself, I am a perfect goose! The most unsatisfactory piece of flesh God ever made it seems to me. I long so to be what I am not.

 

She spends the last days of the year visiting her friend Annie Rhodes, in Brooklyn, and remains away from home until February 25. A new love seems to make an appearance in her diary: 

 

1887 

“Never was more disappointed in my life!” 

April 7. It was glorious! I certainly did receive much favor [in Brooklyn], was invited out all the time nearly, & had lots of beaux. Mr. Nilsson was all attention & Mr. Boyd was very polite to me and I expect they will both be down here [to Sag Harbor] this summer, that is they say they shall come, but I shall not believe it until I see them. Men are such fickle things!

 

April. I must confess I find these fellows here [in Sag Harbor] fearfully stupid. They don’t seem to know beans, & those that do, don’t care for me. I suppose, at all events, I won’t stoop for the sake of having a fellow, I don’t care enough about it for that, I will bide my time, when I will have a fellow to wait upon me after my own heart.

 

April 29. …there is not a soul in this whole world who seems to understand me.

 

July 7. Mr. Boyd came this noon.

 

July 8. Mr. Boyd was called back again to the city to-day very unexpectedly. Do hope he is sincere. What pesky luck I’ve had! It could scarcely have been farther from my anticipation.

 

Never was more disappointed in my life! … Everything went wrong almost. Never felt so flat over any thing in my life. Would not have believed Mr. B. so false & insincere, although. I imagined him to be weak, (– but a liar.) I was the biggest fool. Can not imagine what got into me to do so! I have no faith in any man. I long to find one who could be true.

 

September 21. Mr. Boyd paid me a short visit. He found me “head over heals” in paint. … He is very nice & handsome & the fool knows it, although I do like him very much, still I think he is just such a “snob”. I’m very sorry that circumstances should have happened as they did, but I can’t help it. It is a good test to his sincerity & friendship, a fellow who can’t stand a little paint & mosquitoes is not worth noticing. But I like him – so much!

 

A nearly “perfect” summer comes to an end, and Annie says she has had “plenty of beaux.” But she cares only for one man, who her friends describe as “a fashion plate.” That is, Mr. Boyd. She believes he has been put off by seeing her covered in paint and mosquito-bitten. 

October 12. ... I believed in Mr. B. as a pure honest, noble fellow. I like him better than all the other men I know –& while I am not in love with him – I would give the friendship of them all for his…when other fellows talk of love to me – it is so absurd – but his face Mr. B’s looms up & I can’t help it.

 

Annie hears a rumor that Mr. Camp is engaged to her old friend, but writes, “well, ‘mebee he is, but I doubt it.’” 

 

1888 

“Are not we lost forever to each other?” 

January 13. I wonder why I’m such a stupid gump! Papa is smart & a thinker, Mama is all that is sweet, gentle & lovable in woman, yet I – their child, I’m an old stupid blockhead about most things! Pshaw!!! I am way down in the mind compared to where I ought to be. I hate myself. I am a complete failure anyhow! I wonder for what I was born sometimes!

 

…When it comes to talking trash, meaningless nothings, nonsense – then I can beat the monkeys in Central Park, I believe, & this so often when I really am thinking most of serious things!

 

Miss Cooper spends most of the winter in New York City again, but her romance with Mr. Boyd has seemingly failed. She writes: 

April 6. Are not we lost forever to each other? Is there any hope of reunion of sympathies? Any chance of mutual flow of soul again? Any possibility of again ascending the throne of perfection in his eyes? & yet it should be so. But I don’t see how it can ever possibly. I am humiliated beyond expression! I am filled with remorse, & yet – should I not be glad that I have escaped danger, that I have found out the true strength of character of the man, should I care about the friendship of a man who would throw over a girl for one fault, and when he was not sure of that either? … Mr. Boyd is the man I refer to – he cut me dead this winter – all because – (I suppose) the way I looked that day – paint & mosquitoes – Ah ! ----- alas, how frail is man, & how weak is woman. How uncertain & fickle is man. How false & unjust! But I ----- will be true to him, even though he has played me false! No world [sic] shall ever cross my lips against him! God grant us an explanation! – my heart is lonely & sad – ah! How I long for love. I have spent 9 weeks I guess in this city. I have studied at the studio again very hard, & very faithfully have been studying from life & from caste.

 

July 20. Good grief! If I haven’t had a pickle! Mr. Smith called on me this evening, his first call & I thought he never would go, what a sticking plaster!

 

I never saw anything to beat his stupidity! I thought I should have to ask him to go! half past ten! first call and such a quiet sober man! ginks!

 

September 7. Mr. Camp, The friend of my girl-hood, the pastor of my first years of communion, the sunshine of the village when he was here, the betrothed of my dearest friend…whom he was to marry in October, has cut his throat and jumped into a cistern where he was found dead.

 

September 25. Mr. Wick has been my special “affair” this week, we went sailing, & such fun, I “stole off,” in the sly, Mama knew not a thing of where I was going, or Papa. The novelty of being off with a young unmarried minister & indeed a – more than friend – a suitor – the thought that Papa knew nothing of it, and Mama ditto, and the responsibility of the boat in a wind, and the romance of the whole thing was – delicious. … [Wick] as good as told me that I am the girl he meant to marry. … He is a good young fellow of promise, but I could no sooner think of marrying him than I could think of flying! 

 

1889 

“I long to conquer him and bring him to me again.” 

September 25. Axel came to see me several times & we walked & talked & oh – how he did plead again, – that is the fourth time he has proposed to me & four times he has been rejected.

 

November 9. John W. Boyd! – ah! – what a winter of joy – also another winner of pain – does that name call up – I never liked man so well – surely – even now after two years of cruel silence – I long to see his pure noble brow – I  dislike his bigotted aristocratic notions, his snoberiness, & his pharisuical accounts of himself, but I love the memory of his sweet, blue eyes – so wistful & admiring – but of Axel – I certainly don’t think I can engage myself to him feeling this way about another – yet I am not in love with either – J.B. hurt my pride – and I long to conquer him and bring him to me again – not to marry him.

 

Her diary goes dormant for years. Finally, she and Mr. Boyd are brought together again, during a night of card-playing, at Euchre. 

 

1893 

“They lie – he is pure.” 

May 28. Shall I or shall I not add another page to this my long neglected diary. I have given it up long ago, three years since I’ve written in it and why – partly because I began to feel it was a useless waste of time & eyesight & partly because I was so sick at heart that I no longer had any heart to write – but lately, it has been heavy upon me to cast one more page into the record… I do not understand it – but this I do know that some how this man holds a sway over me I cannot shake off – for seven long years I have tried to forget – oh – why did I ever meet him? Why did I ever go to Brooklyn?

 

…

 

These years have passed – neither of us have married – the tie of friendship is renewed – but what does it mean – sometimes I ask myself am I the victim of a great passionate love, which can never die until I die – a love which shakes the very center of my being – ? only to be the toy of a man of the world? for they tell me he is such – & is not a pure man – They lie – he is pure.

 

… he is not a religious man – I know I should be unhappy to marry a man with whom I could not make a Christian home.

 

June 7. No letter from Mr. B. yet – he liked me “well enough” for a passing friend…

 

July 2. A letter from Mr. B. – he says he leaves for Shelter Island on Sat. next – & would like to “make his call” on the following Wed.

 

July 12. Mr. B. came to-day – I took him to drive to the Park. To-night –I took him sailing – I think I am a trifle disappointed --- altho – we have tomorrow yet in which to really get nearer to each other – & then I can better tell.

 

July 14. Rose at 5 a.m. to the gental sound of a peble & him seranade under my window – we went to the East Hampton Beach – it was glorious – we learned more & more of each other – got a good deal nearer – After dinner he came up & we were alone & talked – and say good bye – and a week from tomorrow – when he calls on his way to the city –

 

Annie gets her hopes up high again, only to see them dashed again. At year’s end, she writes again of her on and off ties to Mr. Boyd: 

December 28. I have been to Brooklyn, with its delights in the social way. Mr.  B. was very polite to me in the city – yet it is absolutely certain to me that he does not care for me – no man who would let the woman he cared for go away with no more manifestation of right, no seeking for her company in the future, no request to write, etc – Surely he does not think I could be satisfied with that cold, easy passive sort and call it love – never, I am capable of grand passion – the night of my birthday eve, I cried, and sobbed until I was weak – I struggled and agonized with this thing – & finally after hours of torture I took away his portrait locked it away in my private draw with all his things – & resolved to forget – to strangle & drown this fearful fearful grip he has had upon me – I will bury him from my life – forever – I’ve kissed his photo – once – & for the last – & hid it from my sight –  & now it only remains for me to be brave – & forget – God help me – for I feel my weakness – I am at best only a woman – I leave the problem of my life in His Hands to solve.

 

NEW YEARS EVE. The family have gone to service – I like staying home with my thoughts, I wanted to be alone a few moments & ’ere the old beloved year died I wanted to hug it a little – it has been so sweet – but only a little for I dare not trust myself – Six years ago to-night I met him – One year ago & I had no hope of ever seeing him to speak again – to-night I am full of enjoyment of his friendship – & yet I am fighting the old fight to forget him – if he knew – I wonder would he pity me – I could not bear that – no he must never know – cut out my tongue first! He sent me a magazine – how I sulked off by my self on the shore & found a big rock & there greedily devoured it –  & gloated over the marked places as if trying to make them tell me his thought. I’m sure he cares not – his cold calm passionless friendship is the most deadly thing he can give me – & yet I want it – & I wish him well. 

 

1894 

“Is bliss akin to pain?” 

February 5. Mr. Boyd came again to S.H. to-day. We have been sleighriding all the after-noon – I wonder if I am liking him less – I almost hope so – and yet – if I but knew him better – he certainly impressed me less today – I think – I don’t think he has a fine face – not good indications of many of the traits of character I like best – but I may be mistaken – want to get at Mr. B.’s religious views –and I must tomorrow –

 

On Friday morning – I was convinced he was pleased with his visit but was not in any sense in love – or particularly interested – but at night I received a letter written from the hotel – in which he strikes a higher note than he has ever put in words – I am a little doubtful now as to his position of indifference, but I – am I becoming indifferent – to be sure his coolness has driven me to the verge of rebellion & I wonder if I am finding out that I have been mistaken that I am not in love with him – only with an ideal J.B. I must find out – for I would not hurt him – & I must be careful now what I do to encourage or discourage – Oh that Mr. Wick would come upon the scene that I might compare them and know finally which is the man – Do I approve of him – his aims in life? What are they? I cannot marry a man whose aim is “social success” - that may be alright for some – but not for me –

 

February 14. Such a lovely valentine came to-day from Mr. B. …

 

February 27. Gardie was down to tea last night with his girl Maud – and two such happy mortals you never saw! He positively couldn’t keep his hands off of her. I think they were absolutely ridiculous. I like demonstration – I like affection – & affectionate people – but I don’t like to see the thing made too common for vulgar curiosity to laugh at, for the world to jeer at – & Gardie is certainly a bit too much for good taste – I have been wondering if with all their show of devotion if the love was any deeper than mine would be – for I know I should not act like that before people – nor behind them either for that matter – I wonder if ever the time will come when J. B. will feel the right to place his hands on me as Gardie does on Maud – I feel as if I should choke to think of it – why I feel as if I should die of it – what – the pain of it or the bliss of it, which is it – Is bliss akin to pain? – oh – goodness – It makes me breathe hard for I feel as if I was going to smoother – at the very thought – for he never has laid so much as his little finger on me – & even a shake hands makes me feel all creepers – I don’t see how I should ever stand a caress – & yet I could have even longed to lay a cool gentle kiss upon his fair open forehead – what a queer mixture of passion & mood & hopes we are –!

 

I don’t suppose he ever thinks of these things – & yet I bet he has kissed many other girls – & hugged them to – but not a shadow of familiarity has he even offered me – I respect him for that – and yet at times his coldness drives me wild. I wonder if there is any other girl in town who has had the lovers I have had – who have kept sacred their lips & their person – for the one who at last may succeed – ? Whenever they have begged for favors always – his blue eyes – & pure brow would rise up – & although I knew I might never see him again – yet I couldn’t let them place their lips upon mine – I may be silly – no doubt I am. Most girls take those things naturally & all they can get – but I can’t – it seems like being false to my womanliness…I shall let no man but one give me my first lip kiss – and if not he – then no man –

 

March 18. One year ago this week – we met – what a joyous year – ! How I have enjoyed his friendship! Clouds seem to be trying to gather, letters from Mrs. Conklin and Annie R. saying – Oh Annie – drop him – he is not worthy –! They like him for me as a friend – but they hear rumors – they hear that his Mother is talking & that she thinks I am rich – (I know he doesn’t for I have told him so – & I don’t care what she thinks) – I have a very small opinion of her – a proud – haughty – extravagant, vain, woman! a woman who lacks the innate refinement of a lady born – she savors of the new rich kind – of pork & pomposity – Oh – I wish he was not her son.

 

March 24. I wonder if he will send me an Easter Greeting – why should he – & yet if he cares – as I do he will – I must not send him anything – it must come only from him – he is a man – I only a woman & must wait – I cannot & will not ever put him under the slightest necessity to do me a courtesy – He must woo – if he wants to win – he will –

 

May 26. He never seems to care enough for me to put himself out in the least – he takes things as they happen – not seeks or make an effort to get to me – now he came here last summer – but only when it was his vacation – he came here last winter – but on his vacation – not a Sunday since our before – he says he is coming this summer – on his vacation – now I am tired of this sort of thing – I am not a vacation girl – if he does not care enough to come down for a Sunday – I think he cares very little. … For his sake I try to keep my mind & thoughts clean & pure – I try to be what I think he would have me – & oh – how can I write it, the foul charge A. R. made against him – that he keeps a bad woman N.Y. – & that he is a man of the world entirely – & also that he laughs to people about me & says he can marry me for the asking! No. I don’t believe he said it.

 

June 2. Have received a letter from him – in which he says – he wants to be considered my truest and best friend – and and I must not murmur if he desires to devote all his time to me – Oh – what joy and peace that letter has brought – how my soul leapt for joy – !

 

September 5. Words – words – words – what vain things when the heart is on fire to express a world of meaning – I have so much to say I cannot say it – this is the most eventful summer of my life – at once the most anxious and the happiest – I have so many events to record I scarcely know where to begin – Papa ill – unutterably sad – this passing away of the aged – dear dear Papa – how I yearn to make him young – then underneath, it all – there has risen a great and holy joy a deep sublime sweetness – a wonderful, unexpected, – unspeakable joy – for on my third finger of my left hand flashes a beautiful diamond pledge of my own true love – what is it I am writing? It sounds like a myth!!! … I know he is not what I thought I was looking for – he is not rich, he is not handsome, he is not witty – nor yet brilliant – he is not a man of position in the eyes of the world – he is simply & only John Boyd – a man from Greenpoint – a wage winner – a good – honest - noble man.

 

(Annie Cooper and John Boyd were married on February 20, 1895, and the marriage lasted for forty years, until his death in 1939. She would later admit she was afraid her diaries might fall into the wrong hands. Yet she also hesitated “to burn it up.” She would later say, “I have laughed until I ached over the first books. The others are written in blood, so vitally real they are to me. Yet I cannot realize I am the foolish child, so full of human passions of all kinds that it reveals.” They had two children, a boy and a girl, who went off to successful careers.)