Trudy's Diary Read online

  “Don’t be long, Daisy,” she said. Daisy rolled her eyes. Had the woman no shame?

  “Mark John, I just wanted to let you know that I will probably go straight to the library tomorrow and spend the day there,” Daisy said, walking into his office with a backward glance at Jude’s form disappearing down the hallway.

  “All right. Call in so I know how the research is going, please,” he said.

  “Okay. I’ll be able to start coming up with an outline for the three articles in a couple days.”

  “Good.” He puffed out his cheeks and idly reached for an item on top of a stack of books on his desk.

  “Daisy, I’d like you to do me a favor,” he said.

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Brian dropped this off earlier this afternoon. He wants me to read it and tell him what I think of it. I just can’t. Not right now. But I didn’t have the nerve to tell him no.”

  “And you want me to read it?” Daisy asked.

  “Would you mind?” Mark John asked.

  “First, what is it?” Daisy countered.

  “It’s an old diary. At least, I think it’s a diary. Brian didn’t give me too much information. You’re the expert at looking at old things.”

  “All right, I’ll take a look. I assume it’s written in English?”

  Mark John shrugged. “Probably. Brian wouldn’t have asked me to look at it otherwise.”

  “Why does Brian want you to read it?” Daisy asked.

  “Why does Brian do anything? Because he’s weird. He thinks I’m fascinated by all these things he finds.”

  Daisy felt a twinge of sadness for Brian. He probably missed his sister. He was probably just reaching out to Mark John in the spirit of friendship and Mark John was spurning him.

  “Okay, I’ll take a crack at it,” she said. Mark John held out the diary to her. She could tell from a cursory visual examination that the diary was old and fragile.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let me get a pair of gloves from my office. I don’t want the oils on my skin to degrade the paper.” She hurried to her office, grabbed a pair of white cotton gloves which she kept in a desk drawer, and returned to Mark John’s office. She accepted the book carefully.

  “I’ll start looking at this tonight,” she promised.

  Before finishing up some paperwork and leaving for the day, Daisy pulled the white gloves on again and placed the diary on her desk for a closer examination.

  It was tattered and brown; it looked like it was made of some kind of animal hide. She picked it up and leafed carefully through the pages, which were yellowed and brittle. A quick glance at the faded and wispy writing revealed to her trained eye that the book was probably a diary, likely written by a woman, almost certainly in the nineteenth century.

  She opened the front cover; it was, indeed, a diary. There was a name scrawled on the frontispiece: Trudy Hauchfen. German, Daisy surmised. Under the name was written “Nebraska Territory.” A familiar thrill passed through her, that same feeling she got whenever she held something that had belonged to someone else many years before. She had been privileged in her work to have held many such items, and she never tired of looking at old books, old clothing, old household goods, old tools, old anything. She turned the pages carefully, looking for a date. The first entry was dated 1865.

  She looked up when Jude passed her office on the way to Mark John’s office, and Daisy sighed. She didn’t want to be around when Jude finally emerged from his office, so she decided to head home for the day.

  Just a few minutes later Daisy was on the Metro headed to her apartment. Sitting down with her tote bag on her lap, she debated whether to take the diary out and read it on the ride home, but she decided against it because the diary was simply too fragile to handle in such a crush of people. She couldn’t wait to get home to start reading it.

  She passed her favorite wine shop on the way home from the Metro station and bought a bottle of pinot gris. Her apartment was located on a leafy street of brownstones, the colors of their façades being the only difference among the houses. Her building was a bright, melon-coral color with white trim. The color of the building was the thing that had sold Daisy on renting in that building—she knew she would love coming home every day to such a cheerful place.

  Once inside, she ran lightly up the three flights of stairs to her apartment and kicked off her shoes as soon as she was through the front door. Placing her tote bag on the table next to the door, she hung up her jacket and went straight to the kitchen carrying the bottle of wine. After pouring herself a small glass, she retrieved the tote bag, curled her legs up on the couch in the living room, and gingerly pulled the diary out of its protective sleeve. She reached for a pair of white gloves she always kept on the end table and slipped them on. She opened the diary carefully and traced her finger lightly across the ink on the frontispiece, wondering about the identity of Trudy. The entries began on the page facing the frontispiece. Paper would have been hard to come by in the American west during that time, Daisy knew, and people wasted no space when they wrote. She squinted and began to read.

  Chapter 18

  October 19, 1865- Thursday

  We were up long before sunrise this morning because it was the first day of the corn harvest. I love the corn harvest because Uncle Rupert and Uncle Theo come to help Papa and the boys, and Aunt Greta and Aunt Verna help us in the kitchen. My cousins help, too. Everyone stays the night and it is like a party. The women and girls were busy preparing food all day long. We only saw the men and boys long enough to feed them. We could hardly keep their plates full, they were so hungry.

  During the afternoon there was a knock at the door. We do not like it when strangers come to the door because you never know who is going to be there. It could be Indians. Mama made us all stand across the room while she opened the door. I was standing behind Margaret, but I could stand on my toes and see who was there. It can be very aggravating to be shorter than one’s younger sister.

  There was a man standing there. He was lost. Mama gave him directions to the place where he said he was going and then he left. Mama locked the door behind him and told us that you can never be too careful when you open the door to a stranger.

  We were still serving the food long after sundown. Even so, I wasn’t tired because I enjoy having my cousins visit. Tonight we will all sleep in the room Margaret and I share with our brothers and it will be just like Christmas.

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  Chapter 19

  The writing in the diary was small and faded. It took Daisy several long minutes to read the passage and when she finished she put the diary aside and squeezed her eyes closed to give them a rest. The rest turned into a full-fledged doze and Daisy was startled when the phone rang.

  “Hello?” She looked around, wondering how long she had slept. It was already dark outside.

  “Hey, it’s me.” It was Grover.

  “What’s up?” Daisy asked. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “About eight thirty. Want to grab something for dinner?”

  Daisy stifled a yawn and looked at her watch. “I must have fallen asleep. I was reading. Um, sure, we can get something for dinner. Want me to meet you somewhere?”

  “What do you feel like eating?”

  “Pizza,” Daisy responded without hesitation.

  “I figured you’d say that,” Grover said. “Why don’t we meet at Giuseppe's in about fifteen minutes?”

  “See you then.” Daisy hung up and looked in the mirror hanging over her couch. She fluffed her hair with one hand with a quick, nonchalant gesture and grabbed her keys from where they hung next to the front door.

  A few minutes later she was waiting outside Guiseppe’s Trattoria. She saw Grover before he could see her over the heads of the people milling about on the street in front of the bar next door.

  He finally caught sight of Daisy and raised his hand in greeting. “I’m starving,” he said as he walked up to her on the side
walk. “I hope there isn’t a wait.”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Daisy replied. She opened the door and he followed her into the darkened interior of the trattoria. They found a table in the front window and a server brought them menus right away.

  Once they had ordered Grover sat back in his chair with a sigh.

  “Everything okay?” Daisy asked. “Any new developments?”

  “I guess everything is okay,” Grover replied. “I mean, I’m not in jail yet, right?”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she scolded him.

  “All I do is worry. I’ve got to get out of my own head,” Grover said, and he ran his hands through his hair as if to emphasize the point. “Tell me something interesting.”

  Daisy told him about the diary she was reading for Mark John. “I think it’s going to be an interesting project,” she said. “Brian brought it into the office today. I was reading that before you called. It was written by a young woman named Gertrude—she calls herself Trudy—in the eighteen-sixties. I actually think I might be able to incorporate it into the research I’m doing for a women’s history project.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s a first-person account of what women did in the region that was the American west over a century and a half ago. It’s totally relevant to the topic of women’s history. I’ve only read one entry and already the division of labor is obvious. And women’s distrust of strangers.”

  “That does sound interesting,” Grover said. And he meant it. His capacity for curiosity was one of the things Daisy liked best about him—he was always up for an adventure or learning something new.

  “How are you doing?” Daisy asked when she had told him more about the diary entry she had read.

  “Okay, I suppose, all things considered,” he answered. “I’ve got a big wedding this weekend, so we were busy getting things ready for that. In fact, I have to go back in tonight. At least it’s helping to keep my mind off my problems. We’re doing the reception on Saturday night and the brunch the next morning.”

  “Need help?” Daisy asked.

  “Nah,” he answered. “We’ve got things pretty well under control.”

  As they ate Grover told Daisy the dishes he was making for the wedding festivities. “Sounds complicated,” Daisy said, looking pensively at her pizza crust. “But everything sounds delicious.”

  She was happy to listen to him talk. He was visibly more relaxed when he talked about work and the food he was going to prepare, and she was thankful he had that outlet to keep some of his stress at bay.

  They parted ways out front of the restaurant, promising to talk on Monday, after Grover had had a chance to decompress from the wedding events.

  Daisy walked home deep in thought. The diary had captured her imagination, as historical objects tended to do, and she was eager to get back to it. She wanted to read one more entry before turning in for the night. Once back in her apartment, she curled up on the couch and opened the diary again.

  Chapter 20

  October 26, 1865- Thursday

  We have been working from before dawn until after dark every day except Sundays, trying to get the corn in. It has rained a few times, but Papa and the boys have to work even in the rain. The aunts and uncles and cousins left after the first two days of harvest, but they have returned once to help.

  The man who came to our door on the first day of the harvest was in church on Sunday and he brought his two children with him. I recognized him right away, even though I only saw him for a moment the day he came to our house needing directions. I was surprised to see him at church. Mama decided he can’t be all bad if he goes to church and Papa invited the three of them to supper afterward.

  His name is Thomas Sheridan and he hails from the east, from Washington. He is tall and stocky with dark brown hair and a beard. He reminds me a bit of Papa, though of course Papa is much older. He doesn’t say much, but he has a lovely smile and his children are well behaved. There is a girl and a boy. The girl is Adelaide, but Jesse, her brother, calls her Lady. They are very sweet.

  Mama has asked them to return next Sunday for supper after church. I confess I’m looking forward to their visit.

  * * *

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  Chapter 21

  Trudy writes remarkably well for a farmer’s daughter in the American west at that time, Daisy thought. She withdrew a notebook from her tote bag and began jotting down some notes about the diary entries. They would be good fodder for her women’s history articles. She also made a note to herself, though she was sure she would remember, to look for other diaries in the Library of Congress written by other women—surely there would be more information to mine in those.

  And when she returned to the Library of Congress the next day, she did just that. In addition to looking for the sources she had already researched, she found diaries written by women who worked in New York City sweatshops at the turn of the twentieth century, women in towns where railroads were being built, and women of African descent who worked as household servants in the mid-twentieth century. The women who authored all the diaries had certain things in common--hard work, low wages, and despicable working conditions.

  Daisy found an absorbing account of one woman’s days spent at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The journal chronicled the woman’s miserable existence in the famous New York City sweatshop before it burned to the ground, trapping scores of women inside. As the writer of the journal perished in the fire along with almost one hundred fifty others, Daisy made a note to find other first-hand accounts of the fire for more information.

  When her phone buzzed, it startled her. She looked around, hoping it hadn’t disturbed anyone in the reading room. Phones were supposed to be on silent or off, but the vibration of the phone still made a noise against the wooden desk. One or two patrons looked in her direction, frowning, and she answered the phone quickly.

  “Hello?” she whispered. More disapproving looks. Daisy stood up quickly and walked out of the Main Reading Room into the hallway where the elevators were located.

  “It’s Mark John.”

  “Oh. What do you need?” Daisy was annoyed. Why is he bothering me right now? He knows I’m busy.

  “Just checking in to see how you’re doing.”

  Daisy sighed. “Fine. I’m getting some good background information.”

  “When do you think you’ll be back in the office?”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. It was common for Mark John to make these calls, which he didn’t seem to realize did nothing but waste everyone’s time. “I thought I told you I would be here all day. I was just going to go home from here tonight and then come in first thing Monday. Does that work for you?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll see you Monday, then.”

  Daisy turned off her phone after she hung up with Mark John. She didn’t want to give him the chance to bother her again. Then she returned to the reading room, where she quickly lost herself again in the Triangle Shirtwaist diary. It was horrifying to think that women had suffered under such treacherous conditions only to die tragically, not living to see the strides made in worker safety after the event. She took copious notes as she read, always being careful to note the source of quotes and other information. When she could identify a primary source with library catalog information, it made keeping track of her research much easier.

  On the train back to Dupont Circle that evening after the library closed, her thoughts turned to the provenance of the diary Mark John had given her. She had taken to calling it “Trudy’s diary.” At the top of her to-do list when she arrived at work Monday morning would be to contact Brian to ask where the diary had come from and how it came to be in his possession.

  With Grover busy with the wedding event preparations, Daisy decided to spend Friday evening with Trudy’s diary.

  She fixed a cup of herbal tea and sat on the couch in her pajamas, eager to open the book and delve back into the world of early Nebraska life.

  Chapter 22
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  October 29, 1865- Sunday

  Thomas, Lady, and Jesse came for supper after church today. I helped prepare part of the meal last night. Mama and Margaret are very quiet around Thomas and his children, I think because they don’t want to overwhelm them. But I like to talk to them, even though I know Papa does not approve. It’s so interesting to have other people in our house!

  Papa and Thomas talked for a long time about farming. Thomas has farmed before, in Ohio (after leaving Washington), but Nebraska is different, he says. The weather is harsher, the land less forgiving. He says that by next spring he will be able to plant crops, but until then he will be preparing the land and building a wooden house for himself and his children.

  Lady and Jesse are quite young, about five years old, twins. They speak to each other in words I do not know—it is as if they have a language only they can understand.

  Thomas and Papa will attend a meeting at the church together this week, once the corn is in. I wish I could go. I asked Papa if I could go with them, but he said the meeting is no place for a girl.

  * * *

  T

  Chapter 23

  Daisy was up early the next morning to run errands and clean her apartment. She had just finished a load of laundry when she remembered she had left a flash drive at the office. The drive contained research materials she would need over the weekend. After starting another load of clothes, she grabbed her coat and the office keys she kept in her tote bag and headed over to K Street. When she reached her office building, she took the elevator up to the Global Human Rights offices and let herself in. She immediately noticed that the lights were on in the rear of the suite.