me to keep back stuff. I went to the bin at the back and took the garbage can — the only useful and decent thing in her little flat — and was making off with the clothes basket full of rubbish when she tore upstairs after me, seized it and began shaking mein a passion. “Give my things back,” she shrieked. I told her I had the police authority. All I wanted was the rent. I did not want her things. I took the old bucket on top and slipped it over her head, saying, “Take them then. The police will come. I shall leave it to them.” She did look foolish struggling with the basket and bucket on her head and the screams pouring from under it. “I’ll smash everything in the house,” she thundered. So I phoned, the police sent out a big, strong man and advised her not to. Then he told me to pick anything to the value of what she owed. “I don’t want anything she’s got, I only want my rent.” However, he suggested a standing lamp, a poor wooden thing, and I said, “I have her garbage can.” With that, she flew into a fearful spasm of rage and vituperation. “And I want my keys,” I said. He made her hand them over, front and back door. She said she wouldn’t give them up ’til she was ready, but he made her and told me to take the lamp away and lock it up. Well, I will strive to forget her as hard as I can. Clean up her dirt and be thankful to be rid of the creature.
They have just left. I was in the front and she turned like a fool and kissed her hand to me about six times grinning like a maniac. I wonder if she is crazy.
NOVEMBER [3RD?]
Alice shakes her head and says, “I wish you had not.” I did not hurt the reptile and it
was
fun. If my sister had done that, I’d have loved her for it and not said, “I wish you had not.” I’m always sympathetic and sorry when people do their means. I’ve tried dutifully hard to do right by that awful white woman and I do think that there are limits to what one should allow in their houses. If one gets just a little bit . . .
NOVEMBER 9TH
[…]
Been forlorn in heart all day and can’t say why. The big house seems so empty,
is
so empty. Space talks, so all those empty rooms keep up the chatter every time you pass them, reminding you they are empty, and all the “feels” of all the people who were ever in them float round, in and out of the doors and windows of them. People always leave “feels” in a place they occupy — live, eat, think in. It ought to make one mighty careful. What thoughts go on like that, what ones they entertain. Yesterday I was hanging clothes on the drying rack and such a commotion around my feet. I called Pout and Tantrum to order severely, for they’d just come in from the garden and I did think they could have worked their beans off there. But when I looked, it was Wopper, Wop who I gave away five or six weeks ago and the woman “lost.” It took her all that while to find me again. She went off in a motor and she never went on the street and didn’t know her way about and it was miles off she went, but she came back Thursday, rough and poor in coat, ravenous, eczemic, lame in one leg, dull eyed and desperately tired and hungry. When I saw it was Wop, I gave her a great hunk of birthday cake (Lizzie’s) and joy! We rejoiced. The dog has known suffering in that five weeks. I bathed her and fixed up the eczema and fed her and got the travelling coop with clean bedding, and she crept in and slept and rested all day, dog tired all right. She did not even want to come when I took the others out, just seemed as if she’d found her place. So sad yet content to be home. Gee, what love and fidelity. A nervous shy little dog at the mercy of anybody’s kick, living on any garbage she could rustle, out in the cold and wet and wind, sleeping where she could. She must have gone miles, yet always remembering. I shall never part with her again. She’s back for life and she knows it.
In the middle of last night, I lay hearing creaks and
They have just left. I was in the front and she turned like a fool and kissed her hand to me about six times grinning like a maniac. I wonder if she is crazy.
NOVEMBER [3RD?]
Alice shakes her head and says, “I wish you had not.” I did not hurt the reptile and it
was
fun. If my sister had done that, I’d have loved her for it and not said, “I wish you had not.” I’m always sympathetic and sorry when people do their means. I’ve tried dutifully hard to do right by that awful white woman and I do think that there are limits to what one should allow in their houses. If one gets just a little bit . . .
NOVEMBER 9TH
[…]
Been forlorn in heart all day and can’t say why. The big house seems so empty,
is
so empty. Space talks, so all those empty rooms keep up the chatter every time you pass them, reminding you they are empty, and all the “feels” of all the people who were ever in them float round, in and out of the doors and windows of them. People always leave “feels” in a place they occupy — live, eat, think in. It ought to make one mighty careful. What thoughts go on like that, what ones they entertain. Yesterday I was hanging clothes on the drying rack and such a commotion around my feet. I called Pout and Tantrum to order severely, for they’d just come in from the garden and I did think they could have worked their beans off there. But when I looked, it was Wopper, Wop who I gave away five or six weeks ago and the woman “lost.” It took her all that while to find me again. She went off in a motor and she never went on the street and didn’t know her way about and it was miles off she went, but she came back Thursday, rough and poor in coat, ravenous, eczemic, lame in one leg, dull eyed and desperately tired and hungry. When I saw it was Wop, I gave her a great hunk of birthday cake (Lizzie’s) and joy! We rejoiced. The dog has known suffering in that five weeks. I bathed her and fixed up the eczema and fed her and got the travelling coop with clean bedding, and she crept in and slept and rested all day, dog tired all right. She did not even want to come when I took the others out, just seemed as if she’d found her place. So sad yet content to be home. Gee, what love and fidelity. A nervous shy little dog at the mercy of anybody’s kick, living on any garbage she could rustle, out in the cold and wet and wind, sleeping where she could. She must have gone miles, yet always remembering. I shall never part with her again. She’s back for life and she knows it.
In the middle of last night, I lay hearing creaks and
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