The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

Book Preface

Today Miss Chandler gave me this beautiful book. I vow that I will never forget her kindness to me, and I will use this book as she told me to — I will write in it with truth and refinement.

“I’m so sorry you won’t be coming back to school,” Miss Chandler said to me, and at those words, the floodgates opened, and I wept most bitterly. I’ve been crying off and on ever since Father told me that from now on I have to stay at home and won’t get any more education.

Dear Miss Chandler made soft murmurings of pity and offered me her handkerchief, which was perfectly laundered, with three violets embroidered in one corner. I never saw a prettier handkerchief. It seemed terrible to cry all over it, but I did. While I was collecting myself, Miss Chandler spoke to me about the special happiness that comes of doing one’s duty at home, but I didn’t pay much heed, because when I wiped my eyes, I saw smears on the cloth. I knew my face was dirty, and I was awful mortified.

Then all at once, she said something that rang out like a peal of church bells. “You must remember,” she said, “that dear Charlotte Brontë didn’t have a superior education. And yet she wrote Jane Eyre. I believe you have a talent for composition, dear Joan. Indeed, when I used to mark student essays, I always put yours at the back of the pile, so I could look forward to reading them. You express yourself with vigor and originality, but you must strive for truth and refinement.”

I stopped crying then, because I thought of myself writing a book as good as Jane Eyre, and being famous, and getting away from Steeple Farm and being so rich I could go to Europe and see castles along the Rhine, or Notre Dame in Paris, France.

So after Miss Chandler left, I vowed that I will always remember her as an inspiration, and that I will write in this book in my best handwriting, with TRUTH and REFINEMENT. Which last I think I lack the worst, because who could be refined living at Steeple Farm?

Sunday, June the eleventh, 1911………………………………