want to keep on that way forever. You just love to be sweet and considerate. But afterwards it's such a comedown to go back home to those who take it as a matter of course that you should be helpful, and who feel it is their duty to improve your character by telling you what your duty is. It rubs you the wrong way, and makes life much harder. [38] [38] Somehow, going to Fishburn Court is like climbing up into the Pilgrim monument and looking down on the town. Seen from that height, the things that loomed up so big when you were down on their level shrink to nothing. Maybe it is because Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth have lived so very, very long that they can look down on life that way and see it from a great height as God does. I always think of them when I read that verse, "A thousand years in thy sight is but as yesterday." That is why nothing seems to matter to them very much but loving each other and their neighbors as themselves. I came away from there resolved to turn over a new leaf. I am sorry now that I said what I did the other day in the closet, but I don't feel that I have a right to blot it out of this record. The good and the bad should stand together in one's memoirs. It makes a character seem more human. I never felt that I had anything in common with Washington until I read that he sometimes gave away to violent fits of anger. I am now resolved to make those Busy Bees the power for good which Barby thinks I can, and quit thinking of my own feelings in the matter, of how disagreeable it is to have them eternally tagging after me. After all, what difference will it make a thousand years from now if they do[39] tag? What difference if one little ant in the universe is happy or unhappy for one atom of time? When you think of yourself that way, as just a tiny ant sitting on the equator of eternity you can put up with almost anything. [39] A whole week has gone by since I wrote the above sentence, and in that time the most exciting thing has happened, in addition to celebrating my sixteenth birthday. The birthday came first. Barby's gift to me was a darling rowboat, light and graceful as a cockle-shell. Uncle Darcy carved my initials on the oars, and Richard came after dark the night before and dragged it up into the yard, and tied it under the holiday tree. Next morning my presents were all piled in the boat instead of being tied to the branches, for which I was very thankful. It made me feel that I had
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