Mr. Martin has gone away. He\'s gone to Europe or Hartford or some such place. Anyway I hope we\'ll never see him again. The expressman says that part of him went in the stage and part of him was sent in a box by express, but I don\'t know whether it is true or not.

I never could see the use of babies. We have one at our house that belongs to mother and she thinks everything of it. I can\'t see anything wonderful about it. All it can do is to cry and pull hair and kick. It hasn\'t half the sense of my dog, and it can\'t even chase a cat. Mother and Sue wouldn\'t have a dog in the house, but they are always going on about the baby and saying "ain\'t it perfectly sweet!" Why, I wouldn\'t change Sitting Bull for a dozen babies, or at least I wouldn\'t change him if I had him. After the time he bit Mr. Martin\'s leg father said "that brute sha\'n\'t stay here another day." I don\'t know what became of him, but the next morning he was gone and I have never seen him since. I have had great sorrows though people think I\'m only a boy.
 
The worst thing about a baby is that you\'re expected to take care of him and then you get scolded afterwards. Folks say, "Here, Jimmy! just hold the baby a minute, that\'s a good boy," and then as soon as you have got it they say, "Don\'t do that my goodness gracious the boy will kill the child hold it up straight you good-for-nothing little wretch." It is pretty hard to do your best and then be scolded for it, but that\'s the way boys are treated. Perhaps after I\'m dead folks will wish they had done differently.

Last Saturday mother and Sue went out to make calls and told me to stay home and take care of the baby. There was a base-ball match but what did they care? They didn\'t want to go to it and so it made no difference whether I went to it or not. They said they would be gone only a little while, and that if the baby waked up I was to play with it and keep it from crying and be sure you don\'t let it swallow any pins. Of course I had to do it. The baby was sound a............