by Daphne
  © 01.2008 by Daphne Laprov

June 26, 1907. School is out until September, and I am employed five mornings each week in Dr. Tottie Clathrop’s laboratory. When I told her I had won the Bryn Mawr School Biology Prize, she proposed immediately that I assist Balthasar. He is the colored man who prepares the extract on which Dorothy and I and many others now depend. Tottie is not just being kind, Diary. The extract that has been so efficacious for me and Dorothy is now in huge demand. Tottie has several other patients, also who are, she says, young people of “indeterminate sexuality.” The extract has helped these unfortunates as well. She and Balthasar are also supplying doses to physicians in Linthicum, Frederick and at Sinai Hospital right here in Baltimore.

Balthasar is hard-pressed to meet the need. He is up at five every morning to make his collections, and arrives on his wagon at the laboratory at eight a.m. with the raw material well iced. Then it is my job to help him with the distillations, precipitations and titrations, which take us to midday. Balthasar is absolutely meticulous. I must have the vessels and glass tubes spotless! Of course he is right.

Dr. Tottie, meanwhile, is in quest of the chemicals at the heart of the secretions. She says it is like sorting through a haystack in search of the shadow of a needle. That’s what organic chemistry is, Diary. There is a whole lot of guesswork but ultimately it is trial and error. Tottie has tested her distillations on battalions of adolescent guinea pigs but without results (yet) to rival the extract Balthasar derives from the urine of his pregnant sows.

Tottie is preparing a monograph for the Journal of Internal Secretions on her progress toward uncovering the secrets of the hormones that govern our sexual natures.

June 27. Aunt Enid says I may sail to Tangier Island and St. Mary’s Town with my friend Martin Tolliver, his cousin Christy Hodgson and their families! We will leave Baltimore on the morning of the 4th on the Hodgsons’ schooner for five whole days!

June 30. Fiona is back, the wretch! After months of no word, she has suddenly reappeared to announce that she is through with anthropology. Now she has set her cap on being a poet, but not a boring one, she says. There is no money in poetry if one does not write like Mr. Kipling or Mr. Tennyson, Aunt replies. I heard them arguing. Aunt Enid is Fiona’s godmother. She told Fiona that she should take care to have a saleable skill, so that she need not rely on a man. I could not hear Fiona’s reply, but I am sure it was she who slammed the door!

July 1. And now Fiona is gone! She slipped into my bedroom and my bed early this morning to tell me that she was leaving Baltimore in search of “authentic experiences.” Fiona will summer in Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her friend Edna Vincent Saint-something and some other radical poets. Fiona is so goofy with love for this “Vincent,” she hardly cared to ask how I am. Well, I am fine and I don’t need her approval anyway. Besides, I cannot understand the poems she has left me — they wander all around like bad dreams.

July 3. On the boat besides Martin and Christy, there will be Martin’s little brother Stephen Tolliver and Christy’s brother Mark Hodgson, and of course the adults. I do not know whether to count Christy’s sister Eleanor as an adult or not. She is 22, and works at Lawrence House.

Noon, the 4th of July. The sun was rising red and hot as we went aboard the “Best Revenge” this morning. There is a steady northwest breeze, and already we have left Annapolis behind. Mr. Hodgson is very much in command. He is not one to leave the sailing to the professional crew. Martin and Mark are his eager servitors.

July 5. We have sailed through the night. About 9:00 p.m., we witnessed fireworks above Easton, on the Eastern Shore. This morning, we hove to just long enough to buy a bushel of the best Chincoteagues from an oysterboat. Mr. Hodgson aims to drop anchor at Tangier Island by dinnertime.

I have been talking with Eleanor Hodgson about the Quaker faith. Living its precepts is not for the faint-hearted, I think. At Lawrence House, which is in Southwest Baltimore in a much more dismal neighborhood than my maid Moira’s, Eleanor works six days a week, ten or twelve hours a day, helping the poor people. Eleanor says that if we are fortunate, we are duty-bound to work for the betterment of others. Poverty, she believes, is not the fault of the poor but of a system that thrives on cheap labor.

At first impression, I thought Eleanor quite plain, at least in contrast to her younger sister Christy. As she spoke about her work, however, an inner glow lit her up so that I was reminded of Raphael’s “Madonna of the Candelabras” at the Walthers Art Museum.

July 6, noon. I don’t know which I like better, raw oysters or steamed blue crabs. Christy favors crabs, the soft-shelled kind especially, but she agreed we would starve to death if we tried to live merely on crabmeat, it is so tedious to extract from the shell.

At last Martin has tired of knots and sails and is paying some attention to me. Too much attention, in fact. Last night he was drinking. I know it. It was on his breath and Mark’s when they came back on board. His father noticed immediately and has reproached him severely. What is it about boys that they think they can absolutely ignore you, absorbed in their tacking and belaying, and then you are supposed to swoon when they cease, temporarily, to be savages?

Amazing to think that one of them might have been me! I doubt I’d have gotten so much fun out of it. . . .

July 6, evening. We are nearing St. Mary’s, Maryland. It is a pretty town. There are hundreds of boats in the harbor. Martin has apologized to me ever so humbly, and I have decided to forgive him. Dr. Tolliver has not forgiven Martin; there will be a price to pay!

July 7. We attended Sunday services at the Quaker Meeting in St. Mary’s before setting sail for Baltimore. Unless the breeze freshens, we may not arrive there until midday tomorrow. Meanwhile, the shoe has dropped. Martin and Mark will do penance by volunteering at Lawrence House for the rest of the summer. They are asking Eleanor Hodgson all sorts of questions.

July 9. We arrived at the Baltimore Boat Club dock just before nine yesterday. Within an hour, I was back at my aunt’s house in Madison Park, luxuriating in gallons of fresh, hot water and scented soap. Aunt Enid arrived from her friend Miss Hamilton’s in time for luncheon. My benefactor was full of news.

Miss Hamilton’s sister Alice has come from Chicago for a visit. She is an expert on illnesses caused by factory work. “Dr. Alice,” Aunt speculates, has come to make the acquaintance of our headmistress’s lately acquired companion. She doubtless wishes to satisfy herself that Miss Reid is worthy of her sister.

Also, my German teacher, Fraulein Schneider, is to be married. She insists she will not therefore resign her position! Good for her! Perhaps she will become pregnant; what a sensation that would be!

I told my aunt that there was a note in the post from my friend Dorothy Downey, who invited me to visit overnight later this week. Aunt Enid agreed that I might go directly to Dorothy’s house on Federal Hill after finishing my work at Dr. Tottie’s lab on Friday, and I might stay there until Saturday evening, or until Sunday afternoon if I were enjoying myself.

I am sure Dorothy and I shall have a splendid time. She is, after all, Diary, the only one of my chums from whom I have no secrets, and who has none from me.

July 10. Martin stopped here enroute to Lawrence House, dragging a portmanteau. I will only see him on Sundays from now on. Perhaps it is just as well. We are much too fond of each other, yet I can never give him true happiness.

Sunday evening, July 14 (Bastille Day). The Sun this evening says that the French celebrate their national day in a frenzy of dancing and feasting. I suppose it is nowhere so hot and sticky in Paris as it has been in Baltimore this weekend. Dorothy’s neighborhood has got but the slightest of breezes from off the Bay. We took refuge on the sleeping porch, a screened room on the third floor. It is beyond easy reach of Mrs. Downey, whose arthritis deters her from climbing stairs. The “bed” is simply a large mattress upon the floor, made up with cotton sheets. With electric fans on either side, and a large pitcher of iced lemon tea to quench our thirst, stripped to our drawers and chemises, Dorothy and I lay down together and exchanged confidences.

I told her that I am giving up all claims on Martin when he leaves for university late in August. Though I am sure I will remain very fond of my dear and thoughtful friend, love and marriage are not in the cards for Evelyn T. Westcott. Tottie and Balthasar can do only relative miracles. They cannot make me a real woman. As much as I try not to think of them, I have these boy bits between my legs.

Dorothy asked shyly if she might see my bits. It seems that she has never seen another boy naked, not even a baby.

Kneeling, I slipped down my drawers. Why did I blush? It was only Dorothy, who no longer has any bits at all, neither boy nor girl. Dorothy, with whom I have sworn to have no secrets. . . .

“O,” she said, “they are not so big as mine were.”

“No,” I agreed. “They are barely more than a child’s. Were it otherwise, Tottie says, I should need an operation to stop the rush of male secretions.”

“An orchotomy, like mine?”

“Tottie has proposed it, and more. She says that Dr. Olsen could rearrange things so that I should appear to be all girl, but. . . .”

“But? Surely you are not afraid?” Dorothy regarded me gravely. I recalled how in a fit of crazed, desperate courage, she had severed her own male member.

“It is so final,” I said after a moment of reflection. “I suppose I shall never go back to being a boy, but . . . well, that’s how it is. Yes, . . . I am afraid.”

Seemingly on impulse, Dorothy flung off her own drawers. “Evelyn, dear heart, let me show you what Dr. Olsen has done for me.”

I had expected to see a stub, Diary, perhaps an angry red stump, yet there was scarcely a hint of a scar visible through the blonde fur that covered Dorothy’s nether region. “Look,” she said, spreading the area with her hands. “What you see there is the remains of the bag of skin that contained my testicles. Dr. Olsen has turned it and refashioned it so that it resembles a woman’s parts.”

I recalled vaguely that Dorothy had undergone a second operation at about the time my maid, Moira, was married.

“You see, he has tacked it down ever so cleverly,” Dorothy continued, taking my fingers and guiding them to her most private place. “Right there is where I pass water.”

Perhaps I am lacking in empathy —- I was taken aback by Dorothy’s ardor. She seemed such a missionary! Whatever I choose to have done with my own parts will be to make me happier, not Dorothy. Gently, I withdrew my hand from her two and pulled up my drawers. My expression must have communicated my distress, for Dorothy was instantly apologetic.

“Evelyn, oh, I am so sorry! I did not mean to upset you. It is just, you know, I have no one else to help me work things out.”

By “no one,” Dorothy referred of course to her mother, who seems to be in a state of perpetual self-delusion. Mrs. Downey simply refuses to admit that she has ever had a son. I wonder at the thought processes of someone who would keep her little boy in dresses until his fifteenth year. No wonder my friend Dorothy was driven to madness herself.

“Dorothy, do you ever regret . . . what you did?” I asked.

“Mostly, I just wonder at what has happened to me” my friend said after a moment’s reflection. “I would never have made a proper boy. I think Mother knew that instinctively.

“Even so, I wouldn’t have nicked Clifford if I’d seen any other way out.”

“Clifford?” I repeated even as I figured out Dorothy’s meaning.

“Oh, . . .you called it Clifford?”

“Yes — I supposed that if I gave it a name, it was not-me. Evie, I wasn’t so smart. Just desperate. In a way, I killed my friend.”

Dorothy had repositioned; she was kneading a pillow between her legs. I was very conscious that she remained knickerless, but could not think what to say, if anything. Sensing my bewilderment, she finished her thought: “I could do this all day with absolutely no result. In Clifford’s murder, I sacrificed all sensation.”

Again, I was lost for words. “O” was the best I could summon.

“Evelyn, may I touch you . . . there?” asked Dorothy, indicating the place that denied all my artifice to the contrary. My friend did not wait for an answer, but instead took my undergrown member in her hand and proceeded to stroke it so that it soon grew stiff however much I willed it otherwise.

Confused, my eyes searched Dorothy’s for an answer. She released my male bit and snuggled next to me, her lips just inches away, her breath on my ear. The hardness continued below; I sensed it had something to do with Dorothy.

“You are able to know a kind of happiness that I no longer can,” she whispered. “Do not believe otherwise.”

Instinctively, I enfolded Dorothy in my own arms and kissed away her tears. We held each other tenderly until, exhausted by the surge of our emotions, we both fell to sleep.

. . . Hours later, the gentle tugging of a hand on our bare feet awakened me and Dorothy. It was the Downey’s colored maid, sent to tell us it was time to rise and dress for supper. Indeed, the setting sun already cast its ruddy light over the rooftops of Federal Hill, reflected off the new concrete and glass towers of Baltimore’s downtown and sent long shadows from the vessels moored in the Inner Harbor. I hurried to put myself in a fit state to wait upon my hostess, Dorothy’s mother.

Mrs. Downey had not impressed me in previous meetings, Diary, nor would she on this occasion. We found her garbed? festooned? decked out like an Arab before a large, clouded glass orb. We should be peering into the future tonight, I guessed.

It was not the future, however, but the past from which Lutetia Downey sought truth and justice. I was enlisted in her enterprise, which was nothing less than tracking down Dorothy’s father with the aid of the crystal ball. Mrs. Downey conceived that my eyes might see what hers and Dorothy’s had so far missed — the whereabouts of the absconded husband or, better yet, of the inheritance with which Edgar Downey had absconded.

At her invitation, I searched diligently within the cloudy ball. I thought of murmuring something facetious, but held my tongue. This woman evidenced absolute belief in the ball’s powers.

From Dorothy’s account, I knew Mrs. Downey was nearly desperate with worry over the family’s depleted resources. Without Doro’s help, she had been unable to continue the kindergarten. I forced myself to stare further into the orb’s swirling mists, emptying my mind of conscious thought until, suddenly, I spoke: “the Far East! A place . . . like China!”

“Go on, child! What do you see?”

“Just trees, . . . thousands of trees planted in rows.”

“That could be anywhere,” challenged Dorothy’s mother.

“I hear . . . gongs and . . . I smell . . . it must be incense.”

In fact, I have only the vaguest memory of this. I write it down in entirity as Dorothy recounted it later. Mrs. Downey is certain I have given her a clue. She is greatly pleased. What she will do with this “revelation” I cannot imagine!

August 19 (Monday). Five whole weeks have passed, Diary! I have neglected you, but there is not so much to write. With Dr. Tottie’s permission, I have accompanied Aunt Enid for three splendid weeks visiting the Cooper and Campbell families on the Eastern Shore, her summer custom for many years. We left Moira behind this year, taking Patsy instead to help out. Moira is carrying a child and needs her rest!

I have learned to sit a horse side-saddle, to catch blue crabs on a hook baited with a chicken neck, and I have produced and directed a hugely successful theatrical evening starring all of the Cooper and Campbell cousins! Sally and Flora and I have grown close. Flora again promised to look after Dorothy when she enters Bryn Mawr School next month.

And, Diary, with Patsy’s help I managed to inject Balthasar’s extract twice into my thigh without maiming or infecting myself. We transported the precious fluid to Chestertown tightly packed in ice, together with syringes and antiseptic, that I might not miss a dose.

Aunt’s coachman was waiting at the wharf when the President Garfield moored at Fell’s Point. So was Martin! He had eleven urchins in tow. They are members of the Lawrence House Boys’ Club. Martin had organized a trip for them to the Inner Harbor. He said that children in the tenements know hardly anything of the world even a few blocks away. We promised to meet on Sunday after church. Then Martin led his little troop off for a ferryboat ride while Gideon drove Aunt and me home to Madison Park.

Tomorrow morning, I will return to work at Tottie’s laboratory.

August 26 (Sunday evening). Dear Martin and I were together in Druid Park all afternoon. We rented a rowboat. After a lovely paddle, we cooled off with chocolate phosphates. We talked and talked. Martin leaves Baltimore tomorrow and will arrive in Ithaca, New York, on the following day. It seems such a long way to go for college, with Johns Hopkins only a trolley ride away. But Martin has set his cap on becoming an engineer, and there is no better school for that than Cornell University.

I teased Martin about the female students — I have heard Cornell has many. He said that hardly any girls aspire to be engineers, and in any event, he would be so attentive to his books that he should not notice them. But, Martin added, he will not fail to write to me often.

Turning serious, I did what I must, Diary. It was impossible to look Martin in the eyes as I told him we must not be so fond of each other. I stared through the glass top of the café table at the lime green toes of my new kidskin boots and his manly bluchers facing them. It seems so unfair. I could tell Martin the truth, that I love him with all my heart but that — despite all outward semblance and now manners, too, I think — I am not the girl he imagines me to be!

“You are going off on a great adventure,” I added softly. “I will think of you often, and rejoice in the triumphs that surely you will gain. But I release you from any obligation you may feel toward me.”

Martin cleared his throat to speak, but I silenced him by putting a finger to his lips. “Be patient a bit more, my dear. This is hard for me to say. I am still very young, hardly fifteen, and must have my own adventures. I am ambitious, too. Because you are my friend, I am sure you will understand. . . .”

Martin did not understand, of course. He protested vehemently that “of all the beautiful girls” he knew, I alone had had a mind to match my beauty. I gathered that he admired my wit and curiousity. Martin said he knew I was young, he too was young — we were both far too young to make plans. But could we not plan to make plans someday? Would I not accept the simple truth that for him, no one else will do?

I began to cry, and as I fumbled for my handkerchief, Martin supplied his own. I told Martin that I am fond of him, fonder than he might guess, and deeply flattered by his attentions. “Oh, dear heart, that sounds so stupidly theatrical,” I sniffled. “But it is true. You will always be my first love, perhaps my only love. But I cannot promise! Nor will I allow you to.”

What a hurt, betrayed puppy my Martin seemed then. I too am truly wretched, sad to send him away, sadder to inflict pain. But I can do nothing else, can I, Diary?

Friday, August 30. School begins again on Monday. Today being my last day of work at Tottie’s laboratory, she invited me to luncheon afterward at the Faculty Club. She is making some progress toward isolating the secretions that flow copiously from the corpus luteum during pregnancy. Tottie asked if she might refer to my situation and the result of its treatment with Balthasar’s extract in her monograph for the Journal of Internal Secretions. She would not identify me, of course. Tentatively, I have agreed, but it is my Aunt Enid’s opinion that controls. Tottie will now ask her permission.

Tuesday, September 3. Clarice and I have our work cut out for us. This year’s batch of would-be hockeyists is none too promising. Flora Cooper is the best of them.

I am going to love Chemistry, I think, or maybe it is just Dr. Prochnik I will love for taking Tottie’s note about my lab skills to heart. He agrees that I shall get advanced work, with the proviso that I can handle it and keep my mathematics grades high as well. There is no use learning science without math, he said.

En route to my desk this evening, I peeped in at Aunt’s soirée. A couple of dozen people were conversing earnestly. There was a sharp-faced young woman I’d never seen before, rather severely dressed, conversing with Eleanor Hodgson. Our eyes locked, and hers pulled me into the double-parlor.

I approached and greeted Eleanor, whom I had not seen since the cruise to Tangier Island, She introduced her companion. Edith Hooker is not one for small talk.

“You are Evelyn Westcott, then?” was how she greeted me. It was as though she had come to inspect me, and as it turned out, that was exactly her intention. Having established that I was in fact the niece of my Aunt Enid, Mrs. Hooker informed me that she counted on me to organize a meeting at school on the subject of womens’ suffrage.

I replied that she should not count heavily. Most of the Bryn Mawr girls cared not a fig about voting, and even those that did might have a difficult time with their parents. They sent their daughters to school to be taught, not to take part in political rallies.

“You are content, then, to second-class status for all your lives? To letting the men think and do for you?”

“No,” I protested, “but that will soon be settled, or if it is not, we will deal with it later on. Now please excuse me, I have a large number of math problems to solve.”

“Try this kind of math,” Mrs. Hooker fired back. “There are 90 million Americans. 21 million are women over the age of 20. Of that number, less than one million women, all in Western states, are allowed to vote to decide who will become President or sit in the legislatures. Here in Maryland, we have no political rights whatsoever, and economic rights only by the suffrance of our husbands, fathers and brothers! That situation will not change until and unless people like you get angry and join the movement!”

Eleanor intervened. “Dear Edith, you are much too intense! Evelyn is still but a girl, not yet a truant to our cause. She must be wooed, not admonished!

“And you, Evelyn dear. Edith and her husband are just returned from Europe, all fired up to reform American society. She is correct that suffrage is a matter that compels the attention of all women.

“Some of my friends are meeting to hear Edith at Bellemeade on Saturday afternoon a week from now. Christy has invited many of her classmates from St. Tim’s. Won’t you come to listen? Do come, and bring your mates from school.”

I could not say no to Eleanor, Diary.

September 15. I have heaps of homework! School seems so much more serious now that I am a junior. But before I begin reading, I must set down a few words about yesterday’s meeting. I recruited Dorothy for it, of course, and Sally Campbell and Mary Alice Webb. Beatrice Cohen also wished to attend, but could not because it was a Saturday.

Altogether, there must have been over one hundred girls and women and a scattering of men who gathered at Bellemeade in the grand room where Martin and I had danced last Christmas. As Eleanor had promised, there were some of Christy’s friends from St. Timothy’s, and a few also had come in from Oldfields School. But most were from Hopkins and other colleges, young teachers or, like Eleanor, people doing social work.

Edith Hooker, again grimly serious, was the star attraction. She and her husband, Dr. Donald Hooker (very handsome!) have just returned from study of progressive social movements in Germany and England. They have concluded that women will not win their rights in America unless we adopt more active methods. Gentle persuasion has been tried for nearly sixty years, they said, with hardly anything to show for it.

There was a great deal of discussion. Everyone who spoke was so articulate! We girls could only listen, enthralled by the swirl of ideas.

Of course we have agreed to organize a meeting at Bryn Mawr. I shall do it, too (if I am not thrown out of school first for neglecting my lessons!)

September 26. Thank God for hockey practice! I was so angry this afternoon that I think I should have gone off like a volcano had I not been able to spend 90 minutes smashing the ball. I am still seething! How can Miss Hamilton be so difficult? She is a fine, educated woman.

We formed up a committee, that is I and Mary Alice were deputized to obtain Miss Hamilton’s agreement. With Mary Alice’s consent, I recruited Beatrice as well. We also took the precaution of consulting Miss Blume, who coaches debate and teaches Latin and is a pet of Miss Hamilton’s.

This morning the headmistress granted us audience, listened for two minutes until Mary Alice got to the point, and then interrupted her sharply. “For excellent reasons,” she explained without stating them, Bryn Mawr School had positively shunned political debate. Politics were divisive and disruptive, pitting classmates against one another. We girls should concentrate for now on laying down a foundation of learning and mutual support, developing our capacity for thoughtful analysis and reflection.

I knew that Miss Hamilton’s heart was not entirely in what she said. Miss Blume had assured us that our headmistress is an ardent supporter of the suffrage cause. If the head ranted so, it was for another reason, and it was useless for us to argue with her at that moment. I rose, therefore, and thanked her for her time.

I shall ask Aunt Enid what we should do.

September 28. I knocked on my Aunt’s bedroom door yesternight and asked if I might ask her opinion in confidence. She bade me enter and join her.

I climbed aboard my aunt’s capacious bed and told her about my promise to Eleanor Hodgson and our meeting with the Headmistress. Aunt Enid shook her head as though she had both apprehended and feared Miss Hamilton’s reply. “Edith has two passions,” she said. “Attic Greek and the survival of Bryn Mawr School. With regard to the former, there is no scholar in America, man or woman, who surpasses her. With regard to the latter, Edith is too often rendered weak by fear of antagonizing wealthy parents.

“Evelyn, my dear, I am highly pleased that you show such spirit. Here is one parent — or rather, guardian, of course — who is also antagonized by Miss Hamilton’s timidity.

“I have some influence with the trustees of the school and I believe I shall exercise it. Allow me a few days’ time.”

I suppose, Diary, that my mouth was gaping open at this point. I had hoped Aunt Enid would be sympathetic. I had not dreamed she would pick up our fallen banner and charge the fortress!

“You know, Evelyn,” said my Aunt, “we are made of the same stuff. I must tell you a story, . . . but not tonight, it is already past midnight.”

October 6. My aunt’s history is so amazing, Diary! I am writing down her words of yesterday evening exactly as I remember them!

“I am a self-made woman,” Aunt Enid said, ‘though it all happened so long ago that Baltimore society chooses to overlook it. I was still sixteen when I accepted Captain Bonner’s precipitous offer of marriage.

“I was desperate to escape the farm and your grandfather’s new wife. I am sorry, dear, but your grandmother and I did not get along. How could we? Anyway, Bonner was a rogue; he already had a wife and a child in Cincinnati, but that did not stop me from believing his lies for a time.

“When the truth of the matter came clear, I packed up my bag early one morning and left him alone with his bottle.

“What was I to do? At seventeen, I was a fallen woman, all alone in the big city. I would not, could not, go home. I sat on a bench near the railway station to think about my situation, grew weary of thinking about it, and picked up a newspaper that someone had read and abandoned.

“I read in the newspaper that the celebrated feminist, Mrs Victoria Woodhull, would speak that day in Baltimore. I was drawn irresistably to her lecture. It was to be at the Atheneum — you know the place that the Great Fire missed, near Central Square? I wanted so much to hear Miss Woodhull that I did not mind the rowdies who had stationed themselves outside the hall in order to heckle decent women. I saw a lady that they’d intimidated; she was wavering on the sidewalk, not sure whether to advance or run. She’d sent off her carriage, and, sensing her helplessness, a rough sort of men were gathering about her like buzzards.

“I suppose if I’d stopped to think, I would have been afraid. Instead, I just pushed forward and offered the lady my arm. ‘You boys get back now,’ I said, ‘or my husband Police Sergeant Shaunnessy is going to have more than words with you, I think.’

“Amazingly, the crowd of men parted, and the young lady and I entered the hall. ‘I can hardly find the words to thank you, Mrs. Shaunnessy,’ she said. ‘But, perhaps, um -- won’t you join me and some friends in my box?’

“I accepted her kind offer. She introduced herself as Mary Elizabeth Garrett, the same lady whom you met some months ago at my soirée. Once we were comfortable in her box seats, I confessed to her and her friends that Sergeant Shaunnessy was a happy improvisation, I was merely Enid Tucker from York, Pennsylvania, out of luck and out of work.

“Of course, I was watching Miss Garrett’s reaction as I said this, and she seemed indeed impressed. And then the gas lights were dimmed and we all turned to watch as Victoria Woodhull strode to the lectern. Yes, she strode,” Aunt Enid repeated, catching a hint of disbelief in my eyes. “Not like a man. Like a strong, self-confident woman.

“You were aware, Evelyn, that Mrs Woodhull was then a candidate for President? No? It is a strange paradox that the Constitution of the United States permits a woman to run for Federal office, but not to cast a vote for any candidate. Of course she had no hope of victory, but what a fine opportunity it was to rally women to demand their natural rights!

“I was entranced. It seemed to me that Ms Woodhull was saying everything that was in my heart but that I had not yet thought out. When she finished speaking, I leapt to my feet applauding her, as did most of the house.

“At last Ms Woodhull took a final bow, the clapping subsided, and I turned to thank my hostess. She would not let me leave. “Stay for a moment. I think you need work. I have need of a secretary. Shall we try each other out?’

“Oh, Miss!” I burst out. “I should like nothing better!”

My aunt related how she became first Miss Garrett‘s secretary, and in time, also her friend and companion; how they had toured in Europe together as though they were sisters. In Switzerland, they met a certain Baron Charles-Yves de Houphouet de Bligny. Though sixty-eight years of age and twice a widower, the baron had fallen madly in love, or perhaps in lust, for my aunt, who was then in the radiant bloom of youth. Impulsively, he proposed a May-September marriage. My aunt only seemingly as reckless said “yes,” for she had already learned, she said, to calculate and plan ahead.

In the event, in 1885, the baron passed away, and in 1886 Aunt Enid returned to Baltimore a well-to-do widow. The Baron’s family had been so eager to be rid of my aunt that they did not contest her right to one-third of his estate. She bought the house on Eutaw Place where we now live, and resolved to occupy herself by supporting radical causes — feminism and women’s suffrage especially.

Now with independent means, Aunt Enid was besieged by marriagable men, and she was not then as inclined as she is at present to refuse their attentions. In due course, she accepted the proposal of Mr. Joseph Westcott. Soon thereafter, she was not only Mrs Enid Tucker de Bligny Westcott, but also carrying the child of the latter gentleman. To which she gave birth in the following year. Never, Cook swears, was a mother so proud and doting of her little Evelyn. But then, dear Diary, disaster struck not once but twice. No sooner was Joseph Westcott dead of a shipwreck than little Evelyn was carried off by scarlet fever!

Oh, did I fail to mention it, Diary? Mary Elizabeth Garrett is the principal founder of Bryn Mawr School!

October 17. We have beaten Oldfields handily today. That augers well for the Thanksgiving match with St. Tim’s. Flora was a rock. Cannot write much more because I have a very great deal of homework. (So, it seems, does dear Martin.)

October 19. Another letter from Martin in Ithaca, NY, the first in ten days! He is almost giddy about Cornell University. He related how the entering class of engineering students were convened in a large lecture room. “Look to your left, and then to your right,” the Dean told them. “Only one of you will graduate as a Cornell engineer.”

Martin has taken his Dean’s warning to heart and has immersed himself in his books. He will not lark about or join a fraternity, he says, until he is sure he is “a stayer.” I worry that my brave lad is stealing time just to write to me, and have assured him that one letter a week is sufficient proof of our friendship!

Tottie told me this morning that she has finished her article and sent it in to the editors of the Journal of Internal Secretions.

Tuesday, October 22. Miss Hamilton called me, Beatrice and Mary Alice to her office today. Aunt Enid has been busy on our behalf. Mrs. Edith Houghton Hooker will be invited to speak at school in the spring term, Miss Hamilton said, provided that we girls prepare ourselves properly. Under Miss Blume’s tutelage, our Debate Club is to immerse itself in the pros and cons of suffrage for women!

So now, Diary — as if my life were not already too full — I must become a debater!

Halloween. I cannot resist dressing up. I have again gone trick or treating disguised as a boy of sorts, well, as a page boy. I wore tights and an emerald velvet cap and doublet that Moira and I stitched up. No attempt this year to seem truly mannish. I was what in truth I am, ambiguous (and passably attractive!).

November 3. Jehosephat! We are to practice debate and I am assigned the anti-suffrage side along with Sally Campbell. Well, we shall do it up brown! All the reasons why woman’s constitution renders her incapable of deliberative judgment, whereas man (when his mind has not been entirely captured by liquor or lust) is the sole creature God has chosen to entrust with the duty of rational choice. . . .

November 15. What a splendid week this has been, Diary. Hockey practice has been a pleasure. The girls are forming up into a rather formidable team, strong on defense but also dangerous when there’s a chance on the goal. The most fun tho by far was our practice debate. Over 40 girls showed up though it was after regular hours to cheer us on. Or hiss us on in my case and Sally’s. With show of deepest reverence for the nonsense we quoted, we spouted forth a veritable litany of anti-suffrage reasoning.

We noted, for example, the evils inherent in co-education, quoting the London Globe: "The result of taking second place to girls at school is that the boy feels a sense of inferiority that he is never afterward able entirely to shake off."

Sally reasoned out that there is, in truth, no need for women to vote. It will not change anything, she argued, because the great majority of women will simply vote as their husbands do. Other women may simply “vote” without considering the merits of the candidates for office, but as these uninformed votes are likely to be cast randomly, they will cancel each other. Of course the votes of those few women who take a genuine interest in public affairs will be thoughtfully cast, but the price — the great number of votes that other women will cast emotionally or without thought, if they will not listen to their husbands — O, that price is just too high!

Warming to her theme, Sally predicted that candidates would be elected to high office according to their sex appeal rather than their ability to discern and act upon the public interest. Gales of laughter greated her prediction that the people of the United States would someday put a moving picture actor in the White House!

Elly Hochner, speaking for womens’ suffrage, demolished Sally’s argument. Buffoons and charlatans are already regularly elected to public office by men, said she, and allowing women the franchise could not possibly worsen the result!

My turn came. With utmost gravity, I discussed the character and temperament of women. I reminded that the Almighty had designed the sexes differently because he had different roles for them in mind. Quoting Scripture appropriately, I opined that no decent woman would want to forsake the kitchen, garden and nursery for the rough and tumble of politics or the sharp dealings of law and commerce. Were she forced by circumstance to work, it was evident that woman is better suited for the nurturing and healing arts — the schoolroom and the infirmary, not the marketplace or, perish the thought, the fortress!

Why did I go on so on this theme, I asked rhetorically. The answer was patently clear: agitation for giving the vote to women is but the thin wedge of a conspiracy to dethrone and debase Woman! Yes, the suffragists make some rational arguments and are in general, well-behaved ladies, but they are the unwitting tools of sinister forces that would reduce womankind to the status of political and economical animals — like men — rather than preserve them as the guardians and transmitters of a higher morality and consciousness.

Nearly overcome by an impulse to collapse in giggles, I rested my case. What fun we’d had — and guess what, Diary? Sally and I were voted the debating prize!

November 21. We have been humbled by St. Timothy’s, six goals to one! Christy Hodgson and her chums played havoc with our defense, and bombarded poor Clarice in the goal! It was not a great hockey day for me, either. My passing was off, we just could not execute our combinations, and so were not much of an offensive threat. It is a great letdown for all. I dread going to school tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Day, 1907. We have had a lovely feast. At my suggestion, my benefactor, Aunt Enid, invited our Dr. Tottie to Thanksgiving dinner. She also pursuaded the head of the Hopkins Institute of Mental Hygiene, Dr. August Meyer, to join us. Dr. Meyer is Aunt’s old friend and Tottie’s mentor.

In anticipation of the great meal, I donned an apron to help Cook in the kitchen this morning. She is originally from the north of Italy, with an accent to prove it. As might be expected, Cook has her own ideas about the preparation of a roasted turkey. She stuffed it with a mixture of chestnuts, brown rice, oysters and wild mushrooms, all seasoned with a bit of brandy. There was in addition a potage of crabmeat and potted asparagus, a spinach quiche, baby sweet potatoes, succotash, pickled beets — oh, it all smelled so lovely as dinnertime approached and our guests arrived!

There was, however, one dark bit of news. Tottie’s monograph has been returned! This I learned at the end of our meal. As the last of the wine was being poured, I innocently asked if she had had word from the editors at the Journal of Internal Secretions. Tottie flushed and begged to leave the table for a moment.

I understood immediately that I had blundered, but why?

Dr. Meyer rescued the situation. He explained that Tottie’s research with extracts from the organs that determine sexual development was acknowledged to be of a high scientific order but . . . it seems that the editors have profound objections to the administration of these extracts to “human subjects.” (They mean me and Dorothy, Diary, and other young people whose lives would be absolutely miserable without the sympathetic care of Dr. Charlotte Clathrop.)

The JIS attitude is medieval poppycock, declared Dr. Meyer. Cuba would still be rife with yellow fever if Walter Reed and his men had not bravely tested on themselves his theory that the fever is transmitted by the bites of mosquitos. Pasteur seized the first opportunity to test his rabies vaccine on a boy who would otherwise have suffered a horrible death. Why should not Tottie, under well-monitored conditions, bring relief to young people tormented by the perverse development of their sexual constitutions?

Dr. Meyer has taken personal charge of seeing the monograph published. Forget the JIS, he admonished Tottie. He will see to it that it is published in the New England Journal of Medicine!

November 29. Martin Tolliver is home for two days. My dear friend arrived last night from Philadelphia, where Cornell’s eleven has prevailed over the University of Pennsylvania in their annual Thanksgiving Day contest. He came ‘round this morning as soon as was decent to apologize, he claimed, for the recent irregularity of his letters. Martin has gained another inch, to five feet six, and certainly has added several pounds. He has let his hair grow down to his collar, and looks quite the college boy in his high necked sweater, wool cap and maroon scarf!

Aunt Enid joined me in oohing and ahhing over Martin, and then discreetly excused herself. Martin proposed a walk. I donned my cloak and a fur-lined hat and gloves against the cold — a cold wave has arrived along with Martin — and we strode briskly along the sidewalk of Eutaw Place. The trees have dropped almost all their leaves — first the elms and now the chestnuts. The sun strove vainly to warm an immense and cloudless azure sky.

Oh, Diary, I was so happy to hold on to Martin’s arm, and match my steps to his. Yet, though it was pure joy to see him again, I needs must force restraint upon myself.

I teased Martin, of course. How the women students’ heads must turn when he passed by, I said, and how they must plot to attract his friendship. “Nothing of the sort,” he replied. “A freshman is the lowliest of the low, and there are three times as many men as women at the university. The co-eds do not even deign to speak to us Frosh! It is just as well — we are heaped with work and freshman engineers who do not tend to their assignments are soon gone. . . .”

We talked of many other things, Diary. I queried Martin’s views on womens’ suffrage. Finding them hardly formed, I proselytized my poor friend relentlessly. At length, arriving again near Aunt’s doorstep, Martin said he would throw himself into the cause if only I would pledge my affection again. I replied I would take no bribes. Taking my hands in his, Martin attempted a kiss. Smiling, I dodged. Interposing an index finger between his lips and my cheek, I whispered “farewell,” and slipped inside the door. My dear one turned and trudged down the steps and turned toward home. Unbidden, my tears began to flow.

Moira found me weeping uncontrollably on the upstairs landing. I had no idea how long I had been thus when she led me to my bed and sought to comfort me. I would not be consoled. At last, I fell into a deep sleep, not awakening until mid-afternoon.

December 3. Martin departed to Ithaca, NY without calling to say goodbye. It is just as well. I do not think I would have been able to maintain my composure if I had seen him again.

Mother writes that Billy Barkell has been nominated for a place in the next intake at the Naval Academy. It is considered quite an honor, especially in places like Perkinstown and Williamsport, reports Mother, so of course Billy will attend the Academy beginning next summer. Billy! What a great coincidence! I have not written my childhood chum since shortly after I arrived at Aunt Enid’s eighteen months ago. What could I tell him — that I am no longer presenting myself as Edward but rather as a schoolgirl named Evelyn? I allowed several of Billy’s letters to lay unanswered, and then at length they stopped coming. What shall I do now if he seeks me out here?

December 7. Tearful goodbyes today. Moira, great with child and loaded down with presents, has taken leave. Patsy will assist me for the duration, while supervising a cousin who may inherit her downstairs duties.

Saturday, December 26. The wagon from Lawrence House has just carried away our boxes of food and tins of cakes for the less fortunate, and now I have an hour to bring you up to date, Diary. I was sad, yesterday, thinking of home, and wondering if I shall ever dare go there again. Perkinstown is such a small place, Diary. I could not just sneak in and out. There are always neighbor ladies visiting Mother, or farmers from up and down the road stopping by to chat with Eben and Father about the price of hogs or the improved seeds they’ll plant next year. In Perkinstown, if I am remembered at all, it is as a strange, shy boy, a daydreamer and booklover. The boys who used to taunt and tease me for my girlishness — do they remember and regret their rough behavior? My old teacher, Mr. Truscott, and perhaps Billy Barkell might be happy to see me again, I suppose, but in general, no, Diary, I do not think Perkinstown is ready for Miss Evelyn Westcott Tucker.

Dear Mother has sent me a quilt made in the Pennsylvania Dutch fashion, a patchwork of scraps of rescued fabric. Some I recognize as pieces of my former dress: jackets and shirts and trousers, lovingly cut into triangles and rectangles, then sewn by my mother’s own hands into this splendid, warm quilt. Really, it is too beautiful to use! I wish my presents for her and Father were a fraction as nice. I am a terrible seamstress; in fact, I owe it to Patsy and Moira that the satin camisole I sewed for Mother is wearable at all. She will report, predictably, that it is the most wonderful gift, and that Father is delighted by his new burl pipe and pouch.

I have sent a photograph also. Many weeks ago, Aunt made me appointments for Dorothy and me at the studio of Mr. Charles Iverson. When with Moira’s help, we were dressed and coiffed to satisfaction, we went together for the “shoot.” Mr. Iverson himself took ever so many pictures, and sent the proofs round to Aunt. They were not nearly so horrid as I expected. Aunt insisted on selecting the very worst, I think, for herself: me staring directly at the lens, chin up, pop-eyes! She says I seem intelligent; what I see is a prissy goose of a schoolgirl. I liked much better a three-quarter angle “photo” that Mr. Iverson took in softer focus. Aunt Enid allowed me to have an enlargement printed for my parents and some smaller prints made for friends. If Martin ever visits, I shall give him one.

On my dresser, there is another photograph in a gilt frame — one of me and Dorothy together. Doro claims when she looks at “our” photograph (she of course has a copy, too) she can see an aura surrounding us both. My chum grows increasingly mystical.

December 31, 1907. Another year is ending. There have been a great many parties and dances this holiday season. It is splendid to be young, the beneficiary of wealth, and thought to be reasonably attractive. No doubt, as dear Eleanor Hodgson insists, wealth confers on us an obligation to minister to the less fortunate. But oh, Diary, it also brings so many pleasant things!

Now that it is known that I have kept poor Martin at a distance, other boys do not hesitate to strut their charms before me like so many peacocks! I smile, I bat my eyes and listen admiringly to their chatter. I wear lovely frocks and I dance and dance — but I do not succumb. And why is that? It is because none of them, not Tom Shoesmith nor Dick Smithers nor even Rodney Llewellen or Mark Hodgkins is half the boy that Martin is.

Martin for his part continues to write beseechingly. He apologizes that he is unable to visit this Christmas season because the Tollivers have all removed to Elmira and Ithaca, New York, to pass the holidays with relatives there. I write back with more than a little mischief in my words. Viewed one way, he may think that (as is true) I continue to bear for him the greatest affection. Yet, viewed another way, there is nothing to give him hope except Mr. Iverson’s photograph. If only I could encourage my dear, handsome and, he avers in each letter, ever-loyal friend!

Fiona Rawlings is back. She has not come deliberately to tantalize me, but she might as well have. Aunt had all the Rawlings and the Downeys to 719 Eutaw Place two nights ago. While the old people sat by the fire and gossiped, Ted Rawlings devoted his attentions to my dreamy chum, Dorothy. He aspires to be an artist, and desires to paint her in the Art Nouveau style, he says. She thinks that is a capital idea and is imagining how to present herself as a Greek goddess. (I suggested she pose as Hermaphroditis instead; all Doro did was glare at me when I said so.)

With Dorothy and Ted so engrossed, I had Fiona all to myself, and was intent on extracting at the least an admission that she had missed me. Poetry no longer interests her, she said (i.e., she and “Vincent” have parted). The thought of graduation from Smith College next year paralyzes her — she will either have to find suitable employment or there will be no shield against her mother’s incessant drumming for the few marriagable men who may be content with a minimal dowry and an overly-educated wife.

I am sure today that Fiona’s dilemma is real, Diary, but on this night I cared only for her attention and affection. I leaned close and whispered as much in her ear. Fiona drew back, and on her face I read uncertainty. “I am fifteen and one-half already,” I told her. “How long must I wait until you kiss me again?”

“Your attraction toward me, then, it is really genuine?” she asked. “I had thought it simply delight that I had noticed you. I warn you, Evelyn, love between women gives back nothing but disappointment.”

“I do not care a fig,” I said. “Come!”

There is a powder room off the hallway opposite the grand parlor. That is where I led Fiona, closed the door and bolted it shut. “Now,” I demanded, “kiss me as a lover should.” My beautiful friend did not hesitate. Pulling me to her, she ground her hips to mine and kissed me deeply. Instinctively, I unbuttoned Fiona’s taille. Her nipples stood erect. This excited me the more. I knelt slightly to kiss them through the gauzy chemise. Nearly swooning, I was dimly aware of my little soldier standing to attention and — Oh, sweet Jesus! — of Fiona’s hand under my raised skirt!

What could I do but draw back, pushing her hand away from my most private place? I knew she would hate my deception, Diary, but I could not let Fiona learn that I am half boy any more than I can allow my dear Martin to plumb that secret.

“Fiona, please, let us only kiss now,” I implored her even as my loins caught fire.

“You are just a child, still, then,” replied she. “You fear to learn what pleasures love can bring you.” Fiona hiked up her skirt, and guided my hand to a place between her thighs. “Do you feel this? Do you see what you can do just by teasing me?”

My friend pressed on my hand so that my fingers enfolded pulsing flesh. I apprehended that she wished me to knead her there, and as I did so, Fiona bit me on the shoulder and thrashed about. Her face was flushed, her breaths gasps, her pelvis thrusting against my fist. Then there was a gushing in the region she had bade me fondle, warm, wet and sticky. Fiona’s eyes were closed, and on her lips a beatific smile.

I disentangled myself, wet a small towel, and sponged Fiona’s face. “Some day,” she murmured, “when you are ready, I shall teach you how glorious it is.”

Little did Fiona know, nor dared I tell her, that within my own loins a tiny volcano had itself just erupted.

January 3, 1908. I arrived a quarter-hour before I was expected at Tottie’s laboratory this morning. The door was unlocked, so I let myself in and settled down to wait until she or Balthasar could inject me with the fluid extract that surpresses my “masculine” secretions and encourages the “feminine” ones. Hardly a moment later, I became aware of raised voices from the office within, a conversation that has revealed Tottie’s position to be quite precarious.

“I have gone out on a limb for you, Charlotte. You must at least agree to modify the passages the Journal has questioned!” That was Dr. Meyer’s voice.

“Let them show me where I am wrong, then!” (Dear Tottie.)

“It is not a question of right or wrong, but of what will pass at the present time! ” (Dr. Meyer, sounding exasperated.)

“No — I will not take back one word of it. Do you know how many are suffering needlessly? They must know there is true hope, mustn’t they, Doctor?” (Tottie, of course.)

“I believe that your personal misfortunes have colored your judgment in this instance, my dear young colleague. Be content with small victories and at length you shall win your war, Charlotte. Insist on surrender and they will have your head instead.”

“Then ‘they’ are a pack of ignoramuses. I know I shall be published at last. Do not throw in the towel, Doctor.” (Again Tottie’s voice, high and strained.)

“I wish that I had only your reputation to consider,” I heard Dr. Meyer reply. “Good day, Charlotte.”

As Meyer left Tottie’s office and marched grimly through the laboratory, I shrank into my bench, feigning neither to have heard nor been interested in the conversation so audible and terrifying.

Balthasar arrived a moment later, and gave me my weekly injection in Tottie’s place. We were both uncomfortably aware of the audible sniffling from her office. Balthasar was impassive. He had concluded, evidently, that a Negro man could be of no help in this situation. But what about me and Dorothy? Should we also ‘play dumb’ with Tottie? No, of course not. Tomorrow is Saturday, and we shall visit her to learn the truth!

January 4. The New England Journal of Medicine — said to be the most prestigious, judicious and at the same time liberal of the American journals — has also refused to publish the monograph as Tottie submitted it! I cannot for the life of me understand why this matter of redefining one’s sexual presentation is viewed so gravely. It is as if Tottie’s helping me and Dorothy has shaken the very foundations of Western “civilization.” It is as if we would prefer to be miserable or — as might easily have been the outcome in Dorothy’s case — we prefer to be dead. Tottie acknowledged that she is much shaken. We did what little we could do, Diary — we told Tottie we love her.

January 9. I am weighed down with schoolwork, heaps of reading and revising to do before end-of-term tests. Had the most horrible dream last night: was totally surprised by a German exam, all the passages were way beyond my capacity to parse. I left my bed — it was 4:30 — and began to pore over my books again.

January 22. The Baltimore American is on to something. One of their reporters came unbidden to our house, and boldly asked Aunt Enid if he might meet me. My aunt did not ask why (though she now knows, of course), but simply bade the young man depart immediately. This must mean that they have found out my story.

January 24. The American has got the text of Tottie’s paper and is making a great hoo-ha about it. Patsy has brought us a copy of today’s edition. It has published excerpts selectively, out of context and calculated to show Tottie in the most villainous light. Her synopsis of my treatment (“the Case of E”) is printed in entirity on an inside page, complete with a grotesque “artist’s representation” of how I should appear. Aunt is seething. It is all so stupid; I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

January 25. Things are much worse than we feared. Newspaper reporters have come to Baltimore in dozens from other cities. Except for the rash young man from the American, the press have left Dorothy and me alone; Aunt Enid says it is because they know what happens to reporters who subject young ‘victims’ to unauthorized disclosure. A gang of them are, however, keeping vigil around Hastings Hall, the Hopkins Mental Hygiene building, literally laying siege to Tottie.

Aunt has questioned me why, if I am not identified in Tottie’s monograph, the reporter came to our house and asked for me by name. I replied truthfully that I do not know.

January 27. I am sure I botched my German exam. Fraulein Schneider (now Mrs. Oskar Schmidt, of course) is with child. It was only with difficulty could I desist from staring at her midriff during the oral part of the test. Chemistry was a breeze. Literature is tomorrow, followed on Wednesday by American history. Worried sick about Tottie, I cannot concentrate!

January 28. Why do they not teach us in school — let alone in church -- how deeply depraved and cruel humans can be in their zeal to chastise true saints? There are crude cartoons in the American. I cannot admit to having seen them, for Aunt will not allow the American in her house even to wrap the garbage. I have picked up copies left behind on the trolley, however, hoping to understand. The American would have it that Dr. Tottie is guilty of offering sexual identity on demand, a notion which, if permitted, will destroy the foundations of the Republic even faster than women’s suffrage. The streetcorner evangelists have warmed to the theme — I lingered for a moment to hear one declare that Tottie has dared to undo God’s work, and that has surely destined her to eternal hellfire.

The Sun, which is Baltimore’s more serious newspaper, at first ignored the matter altogether. Recently Mr. H. L. Mencken has skewered the American’s preposterous claims in several of his columns for the Sun. Not the least fazed by Mencken’s sarcasm, the American today called on the Maryland Legislature to investigate what perverse notions are being indulged at Hopkins under the name of science and on its readers to contemplate the consequences of educating women! I long to go to Tottie to hug her, to tell her she is not alone, that she is much loved — but I am forbidden to do so least I be recognized and my secret revealed. I have written to her of course. It is so unfair!

February 1, 1908. Yesterday, Johns Hopkins announced that it will close down Tottie’s laboratory on the advice of Dr. August Meyer! I told Aunt at supper that Meyer is as great a hypocrite as was Pontius Pilate, and related what I overheard in Tottie’s laboratory scarce a week ago. That was all it took to spur her into action. She has set out to grab Dr. Meyer’s beard and shake the truth out of him.

February 3. Some much-needed good news! Moira has given birth to a baby boy yesterday (Sunday). Both are well!

The exam and semester grades have been posted. I have not done so badly as I feared, but I have slipped to third in the junior class behind both Beatrice and Mary-Alice.

February 5. The Headmistress summoned me and Dorothy at noon today. A great friend of my aunt’s, Miss Hamilton is the only one at school who knows our particular circumstances. She enquired of our emotional states, and we acknowledged great turmoil. Dorothy said it is all she can do to calm her mother whilst her own heart is filled with dread. I said I am not so concerned for myself as I am angered by Tottie’s public crucifixion.

Miss Hamilton wished to assure us, she said, that Bryn Mawr School will do all in its power to shelter us, and requested in turn that we conduct ourselves as calmly and circumspectly as we are able. She was not surprised to have learned that our grades have slipped (Doro’s more than mine, Diary) but, she said, she is confident that we will recover the lost ground. Miss Hamilton added that not for a moment has she regretted her decision to admit us to the school. At this, Dorothy fumbled for a handkerchief to staunch tears, while I, close to tears myself, thanked Miss Hamilton for her kindness.

February 9. I have not had an injection in 10 days now. How long until the natural opposition of male secretions perplexes my body and mind?

Aunt Enid has spoken to her old friend, Dr. Meyer, and is clearly troubled. She will tell me why when she is ready, I suppose. After publishing several self-congratulatory articles, including a scurrilous account of Tottie’s eviction from the laboratory, the Baltimore American has now, seemingly, has lost interest in the story. Its reporters are instead pursuing rumors that our Mayor has recently become father to a mulatto baby.

February 10. After school yesterday, at last Dorothy and I have had the truth from my Aunt, and it is quite alarming. There has been, she said, a scandalous tragedy. She had feared as much.

Did we recall, Aunt asked us, Tottie’s decision last summer to cut back our weekly dosage of the extract by half? We did; I said I had worried then that its efficacy might be much reduced.

The mechanisms by which the secretions present in the urine of pregnant sows act upon human bodies and minds have yet to be deciphered, Diary. That is the object of Tottie’s research. The effect is well demonstrated, however. My own transformation from awkward, girlish boy to, for all normally visible intents and purposes, a confident young woman in the full bloom of her youth is ample testimony to that. I am but one example; Dorothy, though eunuchoid, is another; and there are a dozen more of us, “cases” summarized in Tottie’s monograph.

A month ago, my aunt continued, Dr. Meyer received a letter from a haberdasher in Catonsville who requested an urgent interview. An appointment was fixed for the following Thursday at Meyer’s office. On that day, Mr. Herbert Coxnell and his wife accused Tottie to Dr. Meyer of complicity in the death in July of last year of their only child, 13 year-old Benjamin Coxnell! The burden of their argument, which was stated with considerable emotion, was that two months after regular administrations of Balthasar’s extract were begun, young Benjamin had fallen ill and died in the same week.

The Coxnells provided Dr. Meyer a copy of the coroner’s report. Autopsy had revealed grossly enlarged and distended kidneys. The verdict was “kidney malfunction of unknown etiology” — a conclusion the coroner had reached, stated Mr. Coxnell as his wife wept softly into a handkerchief, only because, at Tottie’s earnest prayer, they had witheld information of Benjamin’s injections! Recently, however, suffering sharp pangs of grief and guilt, Mr. and Mrs. Coxnell had decided that the circumstances of Benjamin’s death must be made clear to the University.

Dr. Meyer thought it prudent then to summon one of the University’s attorneys to assist him, my Aunt continued, and so they recessed. Resuming the meeting half an hour later (Mrs. Coxnell having recovered in the meantime), Meyer ascertained the facts of Benjamin’s treatment by Tottie. His was, Diary, a story hardly different than mine, and perhaps more harsh. Young Benjamin’s life had been rendered miserable by the treason of his body; his loving parents in desperation had turned to Dr. Charlotte Clathrop, of whom they had learned from their family physician. After a mental and physical examination, Tottie had agreed to treat Benjamin with Balthasar’s extract.

Aunt says the situation seems extremely grave for Dr. Tottie. At the least, she supposed, Tottie has suppressed evidence — not only from the coroner, but also from her monograph. Dr. Meyer, as a scientist, regards the latter omission to be the graver. The evidence linking young Benjamin’s sudden death to the administration of the extract is only circumstantial. The omission of relevant data from a report of clinical research is, on the other hand, considered extremely palpable and unforgiveable.

p.s., February 11. Shortly after their interview with Dr. Meyer, my aunt also said, the Coxnells demanded that the University shut down Tottie’s laboratory and see to it that she ceases to treat her other cases. They had got a lawyer. If the University did not comply by the end of January, they threatened to bring a lawsuit. Aunt Enid said that is why the University has placed Tottie “on administrative leave, pending clarifications.” She has been locked out of her own laboratory!

February 15. Hoped to see Tottie somehow this weekend, but she is not to be found. I have chaperoned Doro to the Rawlings’ barn of a house, where Ted sketched her for over an hour. His studio is in an upstairs room; it is bright but a bit dank. Ted asked to sketch me, too, but I declined the honor. It is Dorothy who interests him. While he sketched, I studied Ted’s paintings. He has some talent but no direction as yet. His twin inspirations, it seems, are Mr. Sargent, the famous society painter, and Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, the fantastical illustrator.

Mrs. Rawlings kindly brought us cookies and tea, and stayed to share them with us. She reports that Fiona has a new passion — the educational theories of an Italian woman, Maria Montessori. As soon as she is graduated from Smith, said Mrs. Rawlings, Fiona is off to Rome to study with her.

It is agreed that Ted will “do” Dorothy in oils.

February 16. Visited Moira. Her baby, young Desmond O’Toole, is lovely, full of life, and soiled his diaper as soon as he was given me to hold. Saw her brother Henry, too. My erstwhile partner in Moira’s bridal party is now very much the fine young gentleman, and a devoted uncle! To think he was once well on his way to becoming a ruffian! Henry was nicely groomed and well-spoken; from his fine leather boots to his tailored linen shirt and high celluloid collar, “a splendid advertisment for petticoat discipline,” Moira said. Henry blushed, but cheerfully acknowledged the truth of his sister’s remark.

My visit with Moira cheered me up a little, but I am very worried for Tottie. She has not answered any of my notes since Johns Hopkins’ craven decision to close her laboratory.

February 20. I am miserably worried that Tottie has dropped out of sight. Bryn Mawr has squeaked out a basket-ball victory over St. Timothy’s. All the girls are elated, but I can barely manage a weak smile for our champions. It’s not just Tottie for whom I fear; I tremble also for Evelyn Tucker Westcott.

February 22. Another troubling dream last night. They come non-stop these days. This one featured Mr. Truscott, my teacher in Perkinstown who I thought my benefactor. Mother wrote that he has been dismissed mid-term for “impermissible conduct.” After his overwrought declarations to me here last spring, I can imagine why. What would move a man, I wonder, to direct his amorous attentions toward girls or — calling my situation what it is: a boy-girl (which Mr. Truscott well knew, Diary!) — who are hardly fledged?

And what of me, Diary? My emotions and affections churn round and round. Is it right to love both my gentle, manly Martin and also Fiona, who only has to winkle her nose at me to evoke a surge of passion in my breast? And — could either of them love me if they truly knew me?

They may know me for what I am very soon, I fear. All of Aunt Enid’s money cannot save me or Dorothy if the injections are not resumed. It has been nearly a month since my last one.

March 4, 1908. Am I growing facial hair or do I just imagine it? We have tried desperately to contact Tottie; Doro’s and my letters are unanswered. I have telephoned Dr. Reuben Crawford, the psychiatrist and, I believe, Tottie’s friend. He claimed to have no precise knowledge of her whereabouts. I begged Dr. Crawford to tell Tottie of my urgent desire to meet her should she contact him.

Saturday night, March 7. Today at last there was at a letter from Tottie. It was no longer than was necessary to fix a rendezvous: “Go for a walk at Druid Park on Saturday. You will find me waiting at the gazebo behind the lake at 3 pm. Come alone, or with Dorothy — but none other! Take care, affectionately, CC”

Saturday! That could only mean today. I examined the postmark: Wednesday. Why had Tottie’s letter been delayed? I checked my watch — it was already two p.m., too late to summon Dorothy even if there were a telephone instrument in her house. I must go alone. In case of need, I stuffed bills into my purse — nearly $200, mostly gifts from Aunt Enid, plus a bit I had saved from my work for Tottie last summer. . . .

Patches of snow dotted the frozen expanse of Druid Park today, snow the weak sun sought in vain to melt. I ran from the trolley stop, fearful of being late until I spied Tottie lingering by the old gazebo, bundled against the cold in a sort of military greatcoat.

Tottie was never one for small talk. She studied me for an instant, satisfied herself that my hooded cloak, boots and muff were sufficient protection against the chill, and proposed that we walk about the lake as we talked. She had much to say, she said, and must say it precisely.

The story Tottie told me was never before heard by a living soul.

“Evelyn, you are very dear to me,” she began, “almost like a little sister. I am going to tell you things you must know, and ask of you, Dorothy and your aunt a great favor.”

I nodded, silently acknowledging my obligation to grant the favor, whatever it might be.

“You must have wondered why I have pursued this research — instead, perhaps, of seeking like Carruthers to unlock the secrets of the pancreas, or Endicott the parathyroid gland. It is because of . . . my brother, Cecil.

“We were like twins, scarcely a year apart in age, and when we were small, we often played at ‘dressing up.’ He would don my garments, I his, and we would have a jolly time of it. For me, it was a game, and so too, I thought, for Cecil.

“Then, one day almost ten years ago, my brother was found dead, hanging by a rope from a rafter, clad in my mother’s clothes and corset. He had been expelled from Virginia Military Institute for inattention to his studies. He left no note, only this grotesque testimony to his despair. Later, I learned that he had been the butt of much hazing. His life had become unbearable, as mine is now . . . .”

Hearing this morbid sentiment, I begged Tottie to trust that things must get better. “There is always dark before the dawn,” I said. “That is a cliché, but I am sure it is true. How could things get worse?”

“My parents blamed me,” she continued, “conceiving that I had encouraged Cecil to play the girl in our childish games. We became estranged. Over their protests, I then applied a small inheritance to tuition at the medical school here. I was determined to save others from the fate that overturned my brother.”

“Finding Balthasar was a stroke of fortune. He is the true genius. He conceived that the hormone we seek might be similarly produced by pigs, that it might be present in their urine. My only contribution was to suggest that it might be more powerfully present at ovulation, or when pregnancy began. It was, as you know, the latter instance that has proved the source of the powerful extract on which first you and your friend Dorothy, and now many others, depend for their happiness.”

Shuddering, I acknowledged my horror of life without Balthasar’s extract. Mental images of myself as a grotesque melange of sexual characteristics came unbidden — as they so often have these weeks.

“I must absent myself for a while, and thus I must beg of you and your kind aunt a great favor, a service to others like you.”

“Tell me,” I said, “and if it is possible, . . . I shall honor your request.”

“Balthasar has agreed to continue his work,” she continued, “but he needs have protection. Those vile enough to bring down a woman would not think twice before destroying a Negro. Will you allow him to set up a lab in your house for the production of the extract?”

Confident of Aunt Enid’s response, I nodded yes. We had arrived at the trolley barn; the car that Tottie intended to board was about to depart. “You will not regret this,” she said, mounting the step. “Trust me.”

“You are not afraid, Tottie?”

“I am terrified, but there is nothing else to do,” she said, handing me a small bag. “Farewell”

The car left, and I looked inside the bag. It contained a vial of the amber fluid, and syringes. . . .

March 12. My savior, Dr. Charlotte Clathrop, my friend, Tottie — is dead! It is in the newspaper today. She had not gone abroad, as I fondly imagined, but instead returned to her parents’ home in Lynchburg, Virginia. On Wednesday morning, March 11, she was found hanged in the attic. . . .

She was killed! Oh, yes, technically, she was slain by her own hand — but she was hounded to her death, Diary! My God, I do not know what to think. How can this world be so evil?

March 13. Though I wanted nothing so much as to bury myself in my own room today, Dorothy and I must go to school, and behave as though nothing in particular has gone wrong. When I returned home after hockey practice, Patsy bade me seek out Aunt Enid in her rooms. I found her there with Dorothy, who had stopped in enroute home. Both wore the most mournful expressions.

“Oh, Evelyn, at last!” exclaimed Doro. “We have had a letter from Tottie from beyond the grave!”

Dorothy is somewhat given to melodrama, but this was the absolute truth. Today is Friday; the letter was postmarked Tuesday, from Richmond, Virginia.

“I am writing from the train,” Tottie wrote to my aunt, “much moved by Evelyn’s promise to protect my friend Balthasar and facilitate his work. I hope that her pledge will also meet with your approval. The happiness of a dozen young people in addition to Dorothy and Evelyn depend on it. Evelyn can fill in the details.”

“Yes, Evelyn — do please fill in the details” commanded my aunt, for I had so far not found the courage to confide them to her.

Now I related the particulars of my meeting in the park with Tottie, maintaining my composure as best I could and not doing it well at all. I regretted that I had not spoken to Aunt Enid at once; I was overwhelmed by Tottie’s goodness; it struck me then that the request Tottie had made of me and my aunt might be beyond her capacity to grant. You can imagine that my narrative was a matter of fits and spurts, punctuated by tears, wails and sniffles.

Suffice it to say, Diary, my Aunt Enid is a brick. She has agreed that Balthasar may re-establish his laboratory in the cellar of 719 Eutaw Place. He will continue to supply the extract to all of Tottie’s patients. Those in that circle who can afford to pay shall do so. The supply for the rest my aunt will support; it is “a matter of Christian decency and common sense,” she says. But, until the science has been rendered clear, she adds, no more patients will be accepted.

March 21, 1908. I was reading in the rear parlor, awaiting Balthasar’s arrival, when I heard voices from the kitchen. He had entered by the rear door, and was escorted by Cook to the parlor. “Balthasar,” I said sternly, “you are a learned man and my friend. From now on, you will enter this house by the front door, like all my friends!”

“Thank you, Miss Evelyn,” he replied. “I’m most appreciative of your intention. But it won’t do for us, you see? The newspapers are on to me. If they see me here, they’ll be on to you, too.

“Now, I think you are overdue for your injection.”

When that business was concluded, my Aunt joined us, and we planned the speedy removal of all Balthasar’s equipment and records to a room in the basement. The room was Cook’s former quarters; Cook has had to move to an apartment under the roof, but has taken her four-story promotion with good humor. The cellar room is not nearly so large as the laboratory at Hopkins, of course, nor is it bright, but it is dry and clean, with an attached lavatory, and ready access to the back courtyard. It will do “just fine,” says Balthasar.

March 30, 1908. Moira visited yesterday, with infant Desmond on her hip. He is allowing her to sleep through most nights already. Moira came to tell Aunt and me that she wishes to resign her position. It is not just the young lad that claims her attention, but her own mother’s needs as well. I am conflicted; Moira Halloran O’Toole was my friend, confidante and advisor as well as my lady’s maid. Aunt agreed to take Moira’s cousin Pegeen into our house in her stead. I was given my choice of Pegeen, sight unseen but well-praised by Moira, or Patsy, our downstairs maid. After some thought, I chose Pegeen.

Resolved: Now that we are no longer bound to be “Miss Evelyn” and her maid, Moira and I shall become even better friends!

April 6. Clarice and I have called out the hockey girls to resume training. The field is soggy and the wind blusters, but we can delay no longer if we are to avenge our defeat in November by St. Tim’s.

April 8. Balthasar is set up in the cellar at Eutaw Place. After consulting both my aunt and Balthasar, Dorothy and I have invited all of Tottie’s former clients, 14 in all, to meet with us on April 19 to consider “common concerns.” Dorothy has secured us the use of a room at the YWCA on Franklin Street.

April 14. The date of Edith Hooker’s talk at Bryn Mawn has been fixed. She will speak on “Suffrage and the Rising Generation” to an assembly of the Upper School, all 110 of us, on Thursday afternoon, May 7. I know I should be busy organizing this never-happened-before event at Bryn Mawr, but it is beyond me right now. Beatrice, thank God, is getting things properly prepared with Sally’s help.

April 17. A glorious afternoon! Revenge is sweet. Playing on our home field, cheered on by our mates, we have demolished St. Tim’s, 9-3!

April 19. Eleven of us, “Charlotte’s kids,” have met together yesterday noon. All of us appeared as girls. The oldest was twenty; there was only one younger than me, Rachel, a winsome Hebress from East Baltimore. Of the missing three, one wishes to continue receiving the extract; two do not. The eleven of us have pieced together our stories, and the story of the unfortunate Benjamin Coxnell.

Some of our guests made rather tall and muscular girls, but none were, I think, implausibly masculine in appearance. It is palpable that the earlier that administrations of Balthasar’s extract are begun, the better effect it has. We have pledged to keep absolute secrecy, Diary. Everyone present testified that Tottie’s intervention has given her back a happiness that was lost, or on the verge of being lost. We swore to be true to one another and to Tottie’s memory.

We have formed a society, and named it for Tottie. Someone joked that inasmuch as we are all to some extent imposters, we should call not call it the Daughters of Charlotte but rather the Charlatan Club! Dorothy is its Secretary/Chairman. We shall meet at least once a year on a date near the anniversary of dear Tottie’s death.

April 28. Doro and I have been downtown to what is billed as “a debut exhibition by Baltimore’s finest young artists.” Actually, they are just Ted Rawlings and a few of his friends. The boys have hired an empty store, improved the electric lighting, and hung their paintings on bare walls.

Directly on the far wall as one enters the “gallery,” there is a spectacular full-length portrait in greys and golds of a young woman. Her back is toward the viewer, she is in deshabillé and, though her face was shadowed, I knew immediately that it was Dorothy! So, of course, did she, the wretch! She confessed that Ted has painted her half a dozen times now — and indeed, he has hung several other oils which, if not recognisable likenesses of Dorothy, perfectly evoke her sylphlike limbs, hips and breasts. Had I ten dollars to spare, I think I might have bought one. Against my will, almost, I found myself admitting the power of Ted’s work and appreciating the tender discretion evident in these anonymous representations of his model and muse.

May 1, 1908. I have been choking back sobs all morning, ever since I picked up this morning’s Sun from the table by the door. It has scooped its rival. On its front page today is another report of what both papers now refer to as “the Hopkins Sex-Change Scandal.” From courthouse sources, one of the Sun’s reporters learned that Hopkins in January was put under a court order to produce Tottie’s records of her “cases.” With this information in hand, he travelled to Lynchburg, Virginia, Tottie’s home town, confronted the police there, and secured their admission that a copy of the same court order was found in Tottie’s travelling case.

She killed herself rather than expose us all!

Related “stories” in the Sun report Hopkins’ reaction and speculate as to the whereabouts of the records. The Hopkins account is the usual bluster and obfuscation. The university spokesman would have people believe that Charlotte Clathrop was a rogue researcher whose unprincipled experimentation, had it been known sooner, would have been promptly stopped. I have lost all respect for Johns Hopkins University. It is one of those whited sepulchres that Christ denounced: a nice façade and a stinking interior. I will never study there!

As for the records of Tottie’s research, they will not be found. Tottie and Balthasar removed them just in time, and they now rest securely in a chest by my bed.

May 5. A letter arrived from Martin yesterday — the letter I have been dreading though I could hardly hope otherwise after the way I have refused his advances. Martin mentions that he has made the acquaintance of a young woman from Elmira College, a school for women not far from Cornell. She will be his guest for the Spring Weekend parties and fetes at the University. Martin underlines not once but twice that even so, he remains much attached to me.

Tant pis, Diary. There is nothing I can do! If he is so “attached” to me, Martin could have come home to Baltimore at Spring Break instead of spending a week working on the Cornell Aeronautics Club’s experimental aircraft!

May 7th. Edith Hooker, barely 30 years of age but already the acknowledged leader of the Maryland state suffrage movement, held the girls of Bryn Mawk in her palm today. I knew Mrs. Hooker to be incapable of jokes or small talk, and feared she would lose our 7th and 8th graders entirely. Not so — even the younger ones are quick to see that if women do not have the vote, we shall not be regarded seriously no matter how we strive. All of us hung on Mrs. Hooker’s every word. She reviewed the history of women’s quest for equality going back two centuries. Now, in our own lifetimes, the goal will be, must be reached! Mrs. Hooker climaxed with an urgent appeal that every student at Bryn Mawr join a great Flag Day march for suffrage a month from now.

May 15. Bryn Mawr 7, Baltimore Ladies 6! Once again the city championship is ours by a narrow margin. Our backfielders gave Clarice no support in the goal — fortunately, the Ladies’ defense was even more wobbly. I had two goals and an assist.

In the locker room after the game, there were moving testimonials to Clarice Brown and the other seniors, who will never take the field as Martyrs again. I have been re-elected co-captain. Flora will be the other captain. I led the whole team to Dobreiners Ice Cream Parlor still in uniform, mud and sweat and all, for a belated — and I must admit, rather raucous — celebration of my 16th birthday in one of their private rooms.

May 25. Isabel Armstrong from the senior class, Sally Campbell and I convened our volunteers for the Great Suffrage March today and we practiced parading six abreast around the sports field. Trudy Otis has found us a great drum on wheels!

June 9. Today is Dorothy’s 17th birthday, and also the day of my German exam. Frau Schmidt, who has just given birth, has sent word via her substitute that I will be awarded the German prize this year. Beatrice can have the mathematics and science prizes; she has earned them while I wallowed in grief for Tottie. Doro has become a great poet. Since the sophomore class theatrical, her tour de farce, she is everyone’s choice for the creative writing honors.

Far more important than prizes, Miss Hamilton has agreed that I may have independent study in biology and chemistry next year with Miss Weidemeyer and Dr. Prochnik if, she says, I do all the reading for English Literature this summer and pass that examination when school resumes. Oh, I shall, Diary, I shall! I am determined to pick up Tottie’s fallen baton and continue the race if I am able.

June 14, 1908. Eutaw Place is quite lovely today. It is the last of spring, I think. The scent of lilacs is everywhere, the elms and chestnuts in the medial park provide a delicious shade, and there is hardly a house I can see that is not sporting red, white and blue bunting or our grand old starry flag.

The Suffrage March will form up near the car barn at the foot of Druid Hill Avenue, At two p.m., the formations will begin to move south past Lexington Market and thence east on Lombard Street to the base of the Shot Tower in Market Place. There, both the Hookers and invited speakers from the movements in Philadelphia and New York will address our throng.

June 15. We girls from Bryn Mawr were a formidable contingent, more than fifty of us, and were placed third in the procession. None of our teachers marched with us, a pity, but I know that many wished to! Also at Miss Hamilton’s earnest request, we did not carry the school flag, but with our banner, “Mawrters for Democracy,” those who watched the parade had no trouble discerning our cohort’s provenance. The crowds along the curb were not so great and were fairly evenly divided between supporters and hecklers until we neared the Shot Tower. Then in the last few blocks they were four or five people deep, largely men and — my courage began to fail me! — many were apparently intoxicated. My brave girls burst into song, like the contingents fore and aft, to drown out the hecklers. Stepping smartly to Sally’s booming alto cadences, we marched into the square. In due course the rest of the parade arrived behind us. 5000 women and perhaps 500 men strong, we filled the space.

I shall not relate Edith Hooker’s familiar sentiments or even those of her handsome husband. The truly memorable speech was delivered by an intense young woman from Philadelphia, Alice Paul. Hers was a stirring appeal, Diary, at times emotional and at times just relentlessly logical, that left most of us Bryn Mawr girls swooning with delight! I felt sure that if any candidate for the Presidency or for the Governorship of Maryland, or any others seeking public office were to hear it, he would immediately declare for womens’ suffrage. Our political masters were, however, conspicuous by their absence today — shame on them!

At half past four, the assemblage pledged its allegiance to the Flag, a minister called on the Creator to bless our cause and on the Baltimore Police to keep order, and the rally was adjourned. We girls headed for the trolleys, joining friends from St. Tim’s and the small group from Oldfields for mutual protection. The Sun this morning has called our parade an “impressive testimony to American women’s reasonable aspiration.”

June 17. The school year has ended. The weather continued fine, if overly warm, for the graduation ceremonies. Swarms of adoring parents, bored siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents have turned out to fete the Bryn Mawr Class of ‘08. We Juniors have most obligingly catered to the Seniors’ whims, knowing that next year it will be our turn to demand the same tribute to our — what, Diary? What is the accomplishment? What is the point of all this education, the best that Baltimore offers its daughters? For some, the point of the ceremonies is just to acknowledge that they have made it through to graduation, I think. Some of the seniors have set their cap on being splendid mothers and wives. Others wish to see what they can accomplish in a world where men have made the rules. None, I think, are set on breaking the rules. Well, I am. It is the least I can do to honor the soul of my dear Dr. Tottie Clathrop.

Author’s note: This section of Evelyn Tucker Westcott’s diary is a great deal better for the kind assistance given by those expert and generous advisors, Jan S. and Riottgirrl.