The Hired Girl Read Online Free PDF

you
goes with
good-bye,
and I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. But at last I blurted out that I would never forget her. And then we separated, and both of us were weeping.
    Tuesday, June the twentieth, 1911
    It’s past midnight and I can’t sleep. I can’t lie still. My face aches and I can’t stop hating Father. These past two hours, I’ve done nothing but toss and turn. I’ve been plumping and folding my pillow, trying to make it cradle my head, but it won’t. My hatred has crawled into the pillow slip and made a lump.
    So I’ve left my bed and lit a candle to write in this book —
dear
Miss Chandler’s book. I remember how when she gave it to me, I had a notion that I might one day write something very eloquent and beautiful in it, something I could show her. Now I know I’ll never see her again.
    I am heartbroken about Miss Chandler. It strikes me that I haven’t any other friends — Miss Chandler was the only, only one — and suddenly I’m so hot with rage that I want to pace and stalk the room and beat my fists against the wall. I think of everything that Father’s taken away — first my education, and now my last friend. And I want to shriek at him — but I only write in my book. I don’t want Father to hear me and come into my room. He’d take my candle — candles cost money, and he’d say I was wasting. He’d take my book. Only he doesn’t know about my book. I must be careful to hide it, always.
    I
hate
Father, and that makes me feel wicked. I’m sure the Blessed Mother wouldn’t hold with me hating him so much. It’s unnatural to hate my own father. But why isn’t
he
more natural? Why doesn’t he care one bit for my happiness? When I think of him telling Miss Chandler not to come again — ! — and I recall the contemptuous sound in his voice when he said no one would marry me — ! — it
chokes
me with hatred.
    I wouldn’t have thought the not-marrying part would hurt so much. Even when I was a little girl, I never planned on getting married. I never liked any of the boys at school. They’re all so
crude.
Alice Marsh has a crush on Cy Watkins, and he carries her books from school, but I never cared for any boy like that. The only man I was ever really interested in was Mr. Rochester in
Jane Eyre.
He’s depraved but he isn’t crude. He speaks so beautifully and asks such interesting questions. And he never minded that Jane was plain, because he was capable of
true love.
If I were ever going to marry, it would only be if I found
true love.
But I don’t expect to find it. Nobody around here is the least bit like Mr. Rochester. I guess Father’s right — if I did want to get married, I’d have to marry someone around here, and the girls outnumber the boys, so it’s likely I wouldn’t be asked. But the way he said it — as if I’d
have
to be one of the girls that nobody wanted — gnaws at my vitals. I felt so humiliated. And in front of Miss Chandler, too!
    I stopped writing just now so that I could look in the mirror and judge how pretty I am. Sometimes I look better by moonlight or candlelight — the darker it is, the prettier I look. But of course, I’d forgotten my face. When I looked into the glass I saw the madwoman in
Jane Eyre
— a countenance fearful and ghastly, savage and discolored. Of course I couldn’t see exactly
how
discolored I was, because the light was dim. But I look frightful. I think of Father saying, “Who’s going to marry her?” and it seems true. Not that I want to get married. I’d rather be a schoolteacher. That was Ma’s plan for me.
    But I can’t be a schoolteacher, because I haven’t enough education. And if I can’t get married, there’s nothing for me in the future. I’ll be stuck here my whole life long. Now I see that’s the worst of what happened with Father today. He crushed my last hope. That sounds like something someone in a novel might say, but it’s true: I have no future. He won’t allow me an education; I haven’t