_January_ 23.--This is the third morning that I have come down stairs at exactly twenty minutes to seven. I went to school all day. Mary Paul and Fannie Palmer read "_The Snow Bird_" to-day. There were some funny things in it. One was: "Why is a lady's hair like the latest news? Because in the morning we always find it in the papers." Another was: "One rod makes an acher, as the boy said when the schoolmaster flogged him."
This is Allie Field's birthday. He got a pair of slippers from Mary with the soles all on; a pair of mittens from Miss Eliza Chapin, and Miss Rebecca Gorham is going to give him a pair of stockings when she gets them done.
_January_ 30.--I came home from school at eleven o'clock this morning and learned a piece to speak this afternoon, but when I got up to school I forgot it, so I thought of another one. Mr. Richards said that he must give me the praise of being the best speaker that spoke in the afternoon. Ahem!
_February_ 6.--We were awakened very early this morning by the cry of fire and the ringing of bells and could see the sky red with flames and knew it was the stores and we thought they were all burning up. Pretty soon we heard our big brass door knocker being pounded fast and Grandfather said, "Who's there?" "Melville Arnold for the bank keys," we heard. Grandfather handed them out and dressed as fast as he could and went down, while Anna and I just lay there and watched the flames and shook. He was gone two or three hours and when he came back he said that Mr. Palmer's hat store, Mr. Underhill's book store, Mr. Shafer's tailor shop, Mrs. Smith's millinery, Pratt & Smith's drug store, Mr. Mitchell's dry goods store, two printing offices and a saloon were burned. It was a very handsome block. The bank escaped fire, but the wall of the next building fell on it and crushed it. After school to-night Grandmother let us go down to see how the fire looked. It looked very sad indeed. Judge Taylor offered Grandfather one of the wings of his house for the bank for the present but he has secured a place in Mr. Buhre's store in the Franklin Block.
_Thursday, February_ 7.--Dr. and Aunt Mary Carr and Uncle Field and Aunt Ann were over at our house to dinner to-day and we had a fine fish dinner, not one of Gabriel's (the man who blows such a blast through the street, they call him Gabriel), but one that Mr. Francis Granger sent to us. It was elegant. Such a large one it covered a big platter. This evening General Granger came in and brought a gentleman with him whose name was Mr. Skinner. They asked Grandfather, as one of the trustees of the church, if he had any objection to a deaf and dumb exhibition there to-morrow night. He had no objection, so they will have it and we will go.