​I always get home to Uncle John’s early enough to get things ready for tea and be sure any housework is done. Uncle John’s daily woman leaves something for me to warm up for the men’s tea. It is usually a fish pie, which I don’t like too well, but I know how to make biscuits and soup and we all do very nicely.

 I have to stand on a wooden box to reach the counter and the sink. Cooking and clean up are my responsibilities and I am pleased to do them as it means I can stay here and go to school. I love school and I could not go if I still lived on the farm. It is too far and would take too much time to go home every day.

While I wait for the men to come home, I sit at the big kitchen table to do my homework. It is always warm in this room because of the heat of the big stove and I can light the lamp above the table. It gets dark earlier and earlier now and the kitchen window over the sink is not very large.

I miss Pa and Ma and my brothers and sisters, especially little Ellen who is just learning to walk. I miss them most in the evenings when I am alone in the house. 
Uncle John is a very church going person. He is going to Church almost every evening and he takes cousin Will with him or Will goes out to visit. I think Will has a lady friend. So I am left alone with my schoolwork.

My room upstairs has a window. It is called a dormer window. There is wallpaper on the walls. It is pretty with flowers. I sleep in Nell’s bed. I like it splendid but I miss Nell. She is already a teacher and now she has gone to Kingston for two years to become a lady doctor. Pa says she is brave.  It is hard to be a lady doctor. I hope I can be as brave as Nell. 

School is splendid.  Last week I was moved up to almost the advanced class and I like it fine. I am already learning a lot.  I am head of all the classes I am in except mental arithmetic, but I am head in arithmetic when I write it down. I am the only girl in this class. The schoolmaster, Mr. Reid, moved me from the primary classes where I first was placed. He said it was because I could already read and write and I needed to be challenged. So now I am the only girl in a class with four boys. We are all taking Latin and Mr. Reid said it was all the better that we are so few as we would get his full attention.
When I went to school this Monday week there were only two of us present in our class so Mr. Reid just gave us the names of our books to purchase and copies of the lessons we were to have today and let us go at 10:00 am. It was like another holiday for us.
The school is getting a lot of new books and regulations and all the rest so we are not very certain of things yet. I asked Uncle John and he said Pa had given him some money. Uncle John gave it to me so that I could buy the books I needed at the town bookstore. I liked going shopping there and everyone said hello and how were my Pa and Ma. I like it fine living in town.

School today began with a great disappointment. Uncle John had walked me to school, because he said it was my first day and he wanted to see me well settled. We were surprised when the schoolmaster, Mr. Reid, placed me with the Primary One class. He said it was because I was small and he didn’t know if I could read or write. Uncle John told him that I was well able to do so, but the master said I would have to show him, and if I was so advanced, I could help the others. Uncle John was upset on my behalf, and I was grateful to him. He told me to be a good quiet obedient girl. He would speak to the master on my behalf and all would be well. I hope so. I want to learn for myself, not be a teacher for others.

The classes are all in one room, and the school is a great dark barn of a place. It has a small wood stove but it I fear it will be cold in the winter.
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 I could hear the master with the students across the room in the older classes and I knew I could read better than most of them. But, I held my peace until after we had our lunch break. Then I asked the master if I could read aloud to him and show him my slate  with my best hand writing. He gave me some numbers to add and I did that quickly. He said he would think on it, and perhaps I would be moved up tomorrow. So I must be patient for one more day but I am determined to get ahead.

I awoke with a start to a silent house. As I was used to hearing our farm rooster crow to begin the day, the quiet made me nervous at first, but I could see that it was just barely dawn. I had time enough to put on my Sunday dress and pull on my big apron, before slipping downstairs to start the breakfast routine. I had not checked for cream last night, so was relieved to see a cloth covered jug in the cooler. I put it on the table along with a jar of my mother’s plum preserves and a slab of butter. I hoped that was what the men had on their porridge, but I also put out a jug of molasses as I knew some of my brothers liked that.

​The kettle was boiling when I heard Will’s boots on the stairs. He mumbled a good morning when he came into the kitchen followed by Uncle John who nodded good morning, before asking if I had slept well. I thanked him for his courtesy and poured the tea. The men, well used to being on their own, served themselves great bowls of porridge and after saying the Blessing, quickly ate their breakfasts. Will smiled at me when he saw the molasses, and poured it liberally over his oatmeal.

As soon as I had cleared away we all left to walk to Church. It was a lovely fall morning, warm with the late September sun and I knew I looked right smart in my Sunday best. Ma had made a special dress for me to wear to Church so with my hat perched on my black curls and my skirt swishing around my black lace-up boots, I felt just right.

​I thought that I would manage quite nicely at Uncle John’s, Will had smiled at me this morning, and I was not so anxious as before. I nodded pleasantly to the people we met on our way to worship together, thinking I am now one of the towns folk and tomorrow I will get my dearest wish to go to school.

 Uncle John was a taller version of my pa, but not as sturdy, and his freckled skin was not weathered from outdoor work. He reminded me of a plant that had not had enough sun and had drawn up pale and weak. But, I knew he was smart and every morning he went out to the farm to do the books for the farm and for the family’s other business, a blacksmith shop in the yard behind the farmhouse. Pa works in the smithy after his morning farm chores are done. 

Uncle John and Will sat and watched me as I got their tea ready. Ma had packed cheese and fresh made biscuits and a hearty vegetable soup for this first evening. I soon had the soup simmering on the back of the stove and I was well satisfied that I had prepared a good meal for them. There was no conversation. Uncle John said the Blessing before we ate and when we finished our meal, they left me to clear away and headed off to Church for the evening. At least, Uncle John went to Church. I don’t know where Will went, and I don’t care. Uncle John did thank me, and so did Will. The men in my family were always polite. I was glad to have passed the first test. ​

When the kitchen was spotless, I set out the breakfast things and put the oatmeal on the back of the blackened coal stove to soak overnight. I turned off the coal oil lamp, lit a candle and went up the narrow stairs to my room. Tomorrow was Sunday which meant Church in the morning. Ma and Pa and my younger brothers and my baby sister would be there. I was glad I would be able to tell them that I had got a good tea for Uncle John and Will.

After Church, in the afternoon, I would have time to get myself ready for school. There was a cold joint of lamb already cooked and in the meat safe, and I would cook some of the vegetables that Ma had sent along, so their tea should not be a problem. Uncle John’s daily woman came each weekday and always left a meal ready to be warmed up when I got home from school. I hoped she would also be sure the stove was warm. This made me think about getting it hot for breakfast and I almost went back downstairs to see if there was kindling and coal for the morning. But I was just too tired and after I had used the chamber pot and readied myself for bed, I said my prayers, blew out the candle, crawled under the quilts and was soon fast asleep.