Tuesday, May 6, 1898

I turned fourteen this day.  It started out to be the worst day of my life.  Would you like to know why?  I had to leave school.  It was the rule, my parents told me this morning.  When you turn fourteen you have to leave, unless your parents can afford to send you on to some fancy British-style boarding school.  Which my Da says he would never do, even if we had the money.  “We Sinclairs are proud Scots”, he said, “We would never leave our corner of the highlands, especially to send our children off to the ‘evil English’.  Be grateful you’ve learned to read and write at our good village school”, he said.  “I have my eye on a good position for you in service.  You can start earning your keep and help your Ma and me around this place in your spare time”.  Then my parents sent me off to school to spend my last day at the one place where I’ve been truly happy.

         I took my time coming home, feeling so sad and sorry this day would start me on a new life.  I don’t want to go into service; don’t want to leave school, don’t want, don’t want.  I stopped by the creek that runs near our house and took the little hand-made card Mr. McKellar gave me out of my pocket, and read it again.  “May your path run smoothly, Jean.  You have done very well in school, and I always admired your keen mind. Keep up your reading.  Remember when you have a book in your hand you will never lack for a companion.”  He had signed it, “Your friend, Donald McKellar.”

         By the time I fed the pigs and checked all the chickens for eggs it was late.  When Ma rang the supper bell my brother and I washed up at the pump and hurried in.  We are always hungry, it seems.  Food is none too plentiful, especially at this time of the year, before the berries and early vegetables can get a start.  Tonight was different.  There was a roasted chicken, winter turnips, a bread pudding and some of last fall’s apples.  And at my place there was a parcel wrapped in brown paper.  A present!  I have never had a real birthday present before.  Open it, my Da said.  See what’s inside.  It was a fat book, with all blank pages, and it had a little lock.  “What will I do with it?” I asked him.

“It’s a journal,” my Da said, “Write in it the story of Jean Sinclair.  No one else ever has to see it.  You can take it with you wherever  you go.”

         So that is what I’m doing.  No longer a child.  Tomorrow I start life as a real grownup.  And my story, whatever it will be, will be in this book.