[This is another excerpt from When I was thirteen]

Waubuno, Ontario  March 30, 1897

Today was Saturday, and I did quite a lot of work. I had a set-to with Jessie, though. She gets pretty bossy some times and then I get balky. When she starts to lord it over me, it makes me have to show her that she can’t do it. She doesn’t very often tell Ma, because I think she likes to feel that she made me do it herself, and when I think that she feels that way, I see that she earns all she gets out of me. I lipped her back this afternoon and made her hopping mad. I started to make up a song and kept humming it. The chorus was:

“While Miss Gadabout, gads about,
She’d better learn how to boss.
If she lost herself while she gads about
It wouldn’t be much of a loss.”

It was my job to do what she was trying to make me do alright, but I didn’t want her to think I did it because she ordered me to, and so I hummed around awhile and then started to do it as if I was ready to do it then, and kept on humming.

Jessie is really nice most of the time, but gets a very high and mighty air once in a while. Her nickname is “Gadabout, gadabout, poverty pale” because she likes to go away and likes pickles. It always makes her terribly mad to be called that, but I don’t think it is any worse than mine, which is “Glary Mary,” because my eyes glare when I get mad.

I am rather sorry I was so snippy to Jessie now, as I’m afraid the sun will go down upon her wrath.

Ma says a real coward is one who isn’t man enough to own up to being wrong, and I’m afraid that’s the kind of coward that I am, but I guess I’ll go down now and see how the land lays.

Later — Well, it’s all made up now and I feel lots better, and not so much like a dog.
I wrote on a piece of paper, “I’m sorry,” and handed it to Jessie, and she made up friends right away. I am very glad because it’s so much harder to make up after you’ve kept from it all night. It seems to grow to be a part of you while you sleep. I suppose that’s why the Bible says to let not the sun go down upon your wrath. It’s queer how you keep finding out what the Bible means, just by your own feelings, every once in a while.