© 01.2008 by Daphne Laprov
by Daphne

June 24, 1908. ‘William R. Barkell, Esq.’ it said on his freshly-printed calling card. Billy Barkell, my boyhood friend, arrived from Perkinstown two days ago. He is on the way to the Naval Academy where he’ll be trained as an officer. En route, Billy called on me at my aunt’s house on Eutaw Place yesterday. He has grown tall. Though rather more handsome than I had expected, and extremely muscular now, Billy was manifestly ill at ease. He would not admit that I was the cause of his agitation, but I knew better. Let me imagine what he thought:

“He, well, uh, no, she, is indeed feminine, just like Mrs. Tucker said . . . and she’s pretty, too — that’s a surprise. . . but I know Edward used to be a boy! How many times did we go swimming together? Hundreds? She is smiling at me. Indulgently, I suppose, for old times’ sake. Is it possible that she thinks I’m attractive? Why am I feeling aroused? Edward was a boy! Does this Evelyn still have a willie? She’s a city girl now and real smart. Always was smart, a lot smarter than me. Maybe I’m going to be a Midshipman, but heck, I’m still just a hick from the Pennsylvania hills.”

I was not just being indulgent. I was very happy to resume my friendship with Billy. I smiled, I told him, only because I was imagining how he might look in a few days time, shaven of his lovely locks and stuffed into a uniform, being cruelly marched under the hot sun of an Annapolis drilling ground.

Billy is among the very few who know that a quirk of fate has caused me to possess the genital organs of both sexes. By the good fortune of being the ward of a wealthy woman and beneficiary of the progress of modern science, I now seem to the world to be fully female. I must trust Billy to guard my secret. That precludes our being more than friends. To impress that point, I took his hand in mine.

“Billy,” I said, “I want you to promise me. Do you remember you said you’d always be true? My happiness depends on that, my dear friend. My true self is what you see here now, not what you remember.”

He replied, not eloquently but sincerely, that “that is all right by me.” After another fifteen minutes of reminiscence, we exchanged farewells. Billy will not have another holiday for six months. That is all right by him, too. Billy is determined to make a success of his naval career.

The Glorious 4th, 1908. At half-past seven, Martin Tolliver arrived to escort me to Druid Park to observe the fireworks. We could watch from the rooftop of my house and see them better, but there we would be chaperoned. At the park, we could buy ice cream cones and melt into the crowd. O, that’s an awful pun, or whatever it was! Anyway, it was not intended.

Martin has returned from college only this week. I was happy to feel his strong arms around me again, and to ooh and ahh as the rockets burst above our heads. I wanted to be with my manly Martin as long as he did not scare me by becoming familiar. I can not bear for him to know my secret. The thought itself gives me chills.

Well, Martin was a gentleman — he always is — but also one who did not hide his wish that I should invite greater familiarity, which I dare not, Diary! Oh, God — why can I not be all girl?

Martin has volunteered to work with the youngsters at Lawrence House again this summer. As for me, I must consecrate July to William Shakespeare and August to the rest of the British pantheon. Miss Hamilton has promised I may take an extra science course when school resumes if I have mastered the English Literature syllabus. Thus I shall not be able to accompany Aunt to the Campbells’ in Chestertown for three weeks as in past summers. However, I am going to Perkinstown for a visit, Diary! It is my first trip home in over two years!

I will take the Pennsylvania Railroad express as far as Williamsport; there Father or Eben will meet me and whisk me away to Perkinstown. Mother, meanwhile, has persuaded her great friend, the editor of the Courier, to help us unwrite the past. A clever article will report that Miss Tucker has returned to Perkinstown for a visit after two years away at school, very much refined and no longer the tomboy so fondly remembered. That is the story my family will swear to, Diary — that I have always been a girl! Mother wagers that all her friends (they are legion) will choose to remember it that way.

July 26. I am back in Baltimore after two weeks on my parents’ farm and here it is beastly hot. I think we shall have a lightning and thunder storm tonight. Perkinstown was just as my Mother had planned. Oh, I caught a few perplexed stares at church, but they were stilled by Rev. Watkins’ “judge not lest ye be judged” sermon. He, too, had been persuaded by Mother to join her conspiracy. After the service, a tangle of girls and young women surrounded me to admire my Baltimore finery.

For my coming out in Perkinstown society (for that was what it was) I wore a double-layered gossamer dress with short puffed sleeves and a broad-brimmed hat, clockworked silk hose, and low-heeled court shoes. I’d gathered tiny rosebuds from the farmhouse fence that morning, which Mother had fixed to the hatband and used to make a garniture for my dress. Feeling quite the country maiden, I carried a handbag, more like a little basket, woven of the same straw as my hat.

I fancy that half a dozen of the young ladies went home from church to throw out their corsets forever (as well every woman should!)

What can I say about Mother and Father? They are dear, sweet people, but I have already left them both behind. Our conversations are affectionate but shallow, as though we neither of us can truly inhabit the other’s mental space. Father still cannot bear to call me “daughter.” They were sad when I related the awful events of last February and March, but the truth is that they did not understand when I called Dr. Tottie Clathrop a ‘martyr.’

Mother and Father worry that Aunt Enid will not chaperone me sufficiently; apropos, Father recalled Aunt’s sudden flight with Captain Bonner forty years ago!

I doubt I could have borne an existence bounded by crops, cows, kitchen and church, harvest fairs and at best, Williamsport Girls’ High School and after that a teaching certificate. My brothers have a broader horizon than my parents; they read books and attend improvement meetings, but they are no less tongue-tied. Perhaps it is the sight of me and their imaginations that turns them into dunces. I was in truth a bit relieved as the date of my return came near.

Of all the Perkinstown Tuckers, I will only miss talking with Eben’s wife. She has a mind, and with it she might have flown far.

Ruth is into scientific ways of doing things. She has a shelf of well-thumbed manuals on pretty much everything from chicken raising to child-raising. Ruth completed high school, and would have gone on to the teachers’ college, she said, had not Eben turned her head “every which way.” Ruth is thrilled by my big brother, and he is absolutely infatuated with her. Their second child is due in November, exactly 30 months after my nephew Eugene. Two and one-half years, Ruth says, is the ideal interval — it permits the mother to recover her health and figure, yet allows the resultant children to share the joys of growing up together. She read that in one of her books, and it seems perfectly sensible. “But how, how do you determine things so precisely,” I asked. “We watch the days” said Ruth, handing me yet another text. This little pamphlet is very explicit; fascinated, I have read it from cover to cover without stopping. Contraception is not so hard, it seems, if the male partner is willing to cooperate. The woman is only fertile a few days each month. One can schedule the intimate moments, or a sheath can encompass the male member (like a sausage, I suppose!)

I expressed my appreciation on returning the booklet to Ruth the following day. She gave me a somewhat sheepish grin and said she was happy to oblige me. She wondered, Ruth said hesitantly, did the book shed any light on my own “peculiar situation?” I was not expecting such a question and yet, on an instant’s reflection, it was entirely healthy — the kind of question one ought to be able to ask, and to answer. So I did: “unfortunately not. It seems most unlikely that I shall be able to have babies. Though I may seem entirely a girl, beneath my silks and satins I am the oddest melange of things.”

One thing led to another, and soon I was showing Ruth my boy bits and she was allowing me to ask of her questions I had been pondering for a long time about sensation and whether intercourse is fundamentally pleasant or not for the female partner. In Ruth’s experience, after a bit of fumbling to get the posture right, it was a great pleasure, but that was not the testimony of all her friends, she said. The husband’s sympathy is of critical importance; if he is rough and insistent, “lovemaking” will be a horror, whereas if he is gentle and patient like her Eben, Ruth said with conviction, there is no greater joy. What could I do, Diary? I congratulated my sister-in-law.

July 30. Deadly weary of too much reading, I have spent the morning down in the basement laboratory with Balthasar. Sharing his familiar company is a nice respite. I cannot abide Boswell’s hero-worship of Dr. Johnson. I was happy to lend Balthasar a hand cleaning the glassware.

Just recalling the dreadful events of the spring, I feel close to Balthasar. Dr. Tottie Clathrop, God rest her soul, relied on him implicitly. And yet I did not even know his full name! Well, I have asked him. It is Balthasar Bishop. He has always lived in Baltimore. His father was always a free Negro, a bricklayer, and his mother was an ex-slave. He the second of three surviving siblings (B’s brother Caspar and sister Hannah Cooper live on the Eastern Shore; another brother [Melchior] was carried off by the measles when a boy). Balthasar, his wife and children live hardly a mile away from Aunt Enid and me. I had imagined him to be no more than thirty years old (he is 37) and — I wonder why? — had not given thought until now to the rest of these details.

While we bottled the refined extract on which I and the rest of “Tottie’s girls” depend, Balthasar quizzed me on details of Tottie’s death. He had not been sure it was a suicide, or why Johns Hopkins University had behaved so badly. I told him that the university administration, and especially Dr. Meyer, were scoundrels. Balthasar said that squares with his own impression.

Balthasar has invited me to have Sunday dinner at his home in Druid Heights. I will go, of course. I pray that Aunt will not protest.

August 2. Balthasar sent Caesar, his oldest child and a young man of few words, to see that I should arrive safely and on time at his house. It is a charming row house on Brunt Street near McMeechen, not 10 blocks from our own. Mrs. Bishop greeted me straightaway from the kitchen. She is a large woman, very dark but with fine features, and insistent that I address her as Portia.

Presently the younger children tumbled in, herded by Caesar. All were still in their Sunday best — Ruby’s and Pearl’s starched frocks yet immaculate, little Calvin’s smudged here and there with dirt. Ruby had no sooner been sent off with Calvin to clean him up than Balthasar entered. With him was a light-complexioned girl of about my age. He introduced her as his niece, Alexandra Cooper.

Once we were settled in the Bishops’ parlor, Miss Cooper and Mrs Bishop excused themselves, leaving me with Balthasar and the children. I was an object of fascination for the pigtailed little girls. Pearl shyly asked if she might touch my hair. Both she and her sister quizzed me as children might — what were my favorite books (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, I lied), had I ever been to the moving pictures, did I like iced-cream, did my Aunt have a motor-car? — while their father clucked indulgently.

Dinner was announced. A ham butt arrived in the dining room sliced and decorated by sweet potatoes; arrayed alongside were steamed greens, pickles and salads and a jug of iced tea. The food was served round. Mrs. Bishop relaxed visibly when I pronounced it splendid (which indeed it was)! Balthasar told Miss Cooper and Caesar not to be shy, but as neither obeyed his order, he proceeded to tell me more about them both himself.

Caesar Bishop is eighteen. Next month he will enter Howard University, in Washington DC. He has excelled in mathematics. Balthasar has high hopes for him.

Alexandra Cooper is just sixteen, very nearly my age. Her passion is the piano. Her family lives on the Eastern Shore; she has come to Baltimore to attend the colored high school. Perhaps, Balthasar ventured shyly, Alexandra will be allowed to study music at the Peabody Institute when she is graduated from Frederick Douglass.

We ate, we talked. When I was sure I could eat no more, the remains of dinner were cleared from the table only to be replaced by two monstrous pies. Nor could I resist a slice of each — heavenly apple and scrumptious pecan!

I was allowed to don an apron and assist with the clean-up. It made me feel less like a guest and more like a friend, and I said so. Soon Alexandra and I were rattling on about lots of things. Did I like to sing, she asked. She had some new music that she wished to try if the Bishops’ piano was in tune.

“I have the voice of a crow,” I replied. Alexandra would not believe it, and soon she was running me up and down the scales. “You could be trained,” she said kindly. “Come, let’s try these songs!”

The first piece, a lied of some sort, was full of skips and trills and way beyond me. “Please, let us try something American,” I begged. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" — how would that do?

“Here it is — this will be perfect for us” said Alexandra, offering another sheet of music. It was, it said, "I Love You So," from a new operetta, "The Merry Widow." I regarded the notes doubtfully. “Like this,” offered my new friend, and played a couple of lines on the upright.

“O, like that? Well, I suppose I must try it,” I answered, and I did, and we fell into a nice harmony. Alexandra’s voice enfolded mine and covered up its myriad faults. As though I were dancing with my dear Martin, I simply let her lead and enjoyed the experience.

“Alex” and I parted with pledges to meet again. I had fun today, Diary. These are nice people.

August 7. I have taken a break from Swift and Pope. Though when school begins I am obliged to recall their masterpieces in detail or else take a course in English Lit, today I wanted to attend a base-ball game. I went to cheer on the Lawrence House nine that my Martin coaches. All summer he has been drilling “his boys” in the fundamentals of our national sport. He has had some success. They have won several games.

Martin’s proteges made a brave show as the game began, pushing across a run with two walks, a scratch single and a passed ball. That was their high water mark, however, for their opponent was the redoubtable junior nine from St. Mary’s Industrial School. Pitching for St. Mary’s was a giant of a boy. It is hard to believe that George H. Ruth owns but 13 years. Recovering from opening wildness, he struck out one Lawrence House boy after another and then, when it came St. Mary’s turn to bat, young George smote the ball mightily.

The game having ended at last with our boys on the short end of a 19-1 decision, Martin brought the coach of the St. Mary’s team to meet me. Brother Matthias is a great friend of my chum Moira O’Dwyer. They grew up in the same parish. He said George Ruth has great talent but is a pack of trouble nonetheless.

August 10. Determined to make a better friend of Balthasar, I volunteered again today to assist in the laboratory. He was happy, I think, to have my assistance — but evasive when I crowded him with questions about his work. I have been scheming, Diary; I want to go abroad! I want to visit Europe while I am young and my Aunt Enid is still vigorous. That will not do if I must depend on deliveries of the extract packed in ice once a week.

B. confirmed that he has nearly rendered the extract into a form that can give the desired effect when ingested. I had suspected as much — why else did he need a wall-full of guinea pigs in cages? Yet it is not so simple. He has not yet produced a fluid that is stable at ordinary temperatures. Something still eludes my friend. He has broken down the procedure into many steps — one combination will work, he is sure!

I told Balthasar that School has promised me independent study in chemistry. If he would allow it, I wished to design a project that helped his work. I was hoping for an immediate and ardent affirmative, Diary. Though Balthasar did not brush my offer aside, seemingly it troubled him.

It was nearing noon. He must give my proposal some thought, said he. “Come back at ten on Friday,” he declared, “and we shall see.”

Friday, August 14. I came to Balthasar’s lab as bidden. He was there, with his twenty-four guinea pigs and innumberable white rats and with two others — my new friend Alexandra Cooper and my chum Dorothy Downey.

“I have asked you all here that I might confess,” said Balthasar. “In a certain instance, I have deceived Dr. Clathrop, and I would not deceive you as well, for your well-being depends on what I shall explain.

“In the spring of last year, seeing the amazing effect of the elixir on you, Evelyn, and you, Dorothy, I was emboldened to offer it as well to my nephew, Artemus. I was very fond of him, and he was indeed a very troubled boy.

“There came a day that I proposed to Dr. Clathrop that Artemus be included among those she treated. I supposed from words that had passed between us that she would not be stopped by the fact that Artemus was a colored boy, and in that respect, I was correct. Yet she would not agree. It would not do, she said, ‘at least not yet, to treat youths who are physically normal.’

“That ruled out Artemus. His internal secretions and his body were as normal as you please. It was his mind that was not right. He just didn’t make a proper boy. Every night, Artemus was crying himself to sleep, afraid to face another day of school. For as long as his parents could remember, he’d been insisting he was really a girl. Now he was fourteen. We could see that he was about to go crazy.

“Well, I began dosing Artemus with the extract, too, not telling Miss Tottie. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, I reckoned. It was working, too. You can probably guess already what came next — yes, an orchotomy, to heighten the effect of the extract. And then last winter, Artemus enrolled at the Colored Girls’ High School.”

Dorothy still had not connected all the dots when I burst into delighted laughter. “O, Balthasar, this is too wonderful! Alexandra, let me hug you!” Yes, Diary, my new friend is also one of us. . . .

Dorothy, too, is delighted. We do not anticipate trouble with any of the rest of “Tottie’s kids,” and if anyone does object, we will strangle her protest at its birth. Balthasar will allow me to assist his research insofar as I am able.

August 23. Martin has made me cry again. It is not Martin’s fault but mine own, or rather my own body’s. I would not allow him to kiss me. It is bad enough just being next to him, holding his hand or arm. I am sensibly aroused, and that is not to be. He places me on a pedestal, as though it is my goodness that causes me to draw back. Hell and damnation! It is the perversity of my anatomy that is the cause. I cannot bear to lose him, as I must if he were to learn my secret. Yet neither can I stand to deceive him! Oh, Diary, what on earth can I do? I have promised him there is no other boy. Now he is going back to his nasty university for another year. There is no girl waiting for Martin there, he swears. My competitor is the Cornell Aeronautics Club!

August 29. Dorothy visited me today. She says we absolutely must convene the Daughters of Charlotte again. All summer, Doro has been corresponding zealously to sustain the morale of our small band. We are not so many, Tottie’s former patients, nor has she left us entirely adrift, but some of the group are seriously troubled, she says. We must help one another. That includes Alexandra Cooper.

Doro wants me to host a meeting at Aunt’s house. I am of two minds about this, Diary. The consequences of exposure are one thing for Dorothy, who is legally male and whose medical history could be unearthed by any reporter with patience — and another for me, who has assumed the legal identity of Evelyn Westcott, my Aunt Enid’s own daughter, grievously lost to her in infancy.

August 30. Aunt Enid says we must do what we must. Dorothy is sending out a typewritten notice to all the “girls,” bidding them reunite at Eutaw Place on Saturday, September 13. Aunt and I shall host luncheon. Balthasar will be the guest of honor.

September 14. Again I am overwhelmed by my good fortune, Diary. Several of our sisterhood lead miserable, marginal lives. As one by one we told our stories yesterday, our need for mutual support was manifest. Neither Margaret nor Julia can bear any longer to remain at home; Aunt has offered them assistance so they might share satisfactory accomodation while continuing their educations here in the city. Rachel’s very conservative uncles — both rabbis, I think — pray for her constantly. She is sustained, she says, by her parents’ good sense and the support of her physician, Dr. Nathan Weiss. Ingrid is Scandinavian, tall, very blonde and prone, she says, to terrible dreams. Eilidh has a twelve year-old brother whose manner is, she says, becoming more feminine than even her own; she asks if she might share her ration of Balthasar’s elixir with him? Maeve, quite broad of beam, confessed to being troubled by an attraction to other women; sometimes this causes her such distress that she refuses Balthasar’s potion. Sylvia claims to be perfectly content, and terribly grateful that Balthasar has continued Tottie’s work; Helen said much the same, but without conviction, I think.

Cecily sent word that she would attend our meeting but in the event did not; Dorothy has made a note to track her down. Jane Ellen is ill. After renewing vows of absolute confidentiality, we have all exchanged addresses and filled out sheets with a medical history and the names of our doctors and other people we trust.

I introduced Alexandra all round, and then at Dorothy’s invitation, Balthasar recounted his association with Dr. Tottie. Tottie had seen his keen interest, he said, and encouraged him to work with her as a colleague rather than as a servant. It was a kindness that perhaps could only be appreciated in full by a Negro.

Balthasar confided to the rest of the girls what Doro, Alexandra and I knew: he and Tottie had been nearing a refinement of the elixir that would enable it to be taken orally as lozenges, rather than by injection. These pills are intended to be stable at room temperature. If effective, they will free us of our tether to the precincts of Baltimore. Balthasar has continued this work, he said, thanks to the kind provision of Aunt Enid and with my assistance. He has begun tests on small mammals.

At luncheon and after, the walls of shyness came tumbling down; there was vivacious and intimate chatter amongst our group. I sought out the little Jewess, Rachel, and plied her with questions about Dr. Weiss. Tottie had spoken of him with the greatest esteem and now, she being lost to us, I hoped he would accept me as a patient. Rachel has taken on my commission.

September 24, 1908. Invitations came last week from my dear friend and former maid, Moira. She says Dorothy and I must join her at the vaudeville “for a special treat.” Of course we accepted. Arriving at the Gaiety Theatre, we found my friend and many of her large family seated just right of center in the loge. “What’s the treat? You must tell us!” I demanded of Moira.

“Shh,” was all she replied, pointing to the stage where amid a sort of throbbing music that I took to be Levantine, the curtain was being pulled back to reveal a sumptuous hareem. Upon a mound of pillows in the center was the sultan, bejeweled, befeathered and besatined, drawing languidly upon a hookah, surrounded by women in deshabillé of various degrees. His Omnipotency, I knew from the advertising placards, was none other than the celebrated Ella Shields. Rising with a slight bow to the audience, she began to declaim in a low contralto the delights of the decadent East. As she prowled among the “ladies” of the hareem, I found myself sensibly agitated by the dissonance of the spectacle. I knew that the women were all men or boys, and the Sultan, Miss Shields, is justly famous as an impersonator of men.

My little rod stiffened, forcing me to sit just so that it would not be noticed.

A gasp arose from the O’Tooles and Hallorans as one of the “girls” flung himself, singing, at the feet of the Sultan to crave a boon. Where had I heard that pure, high voice before? Had it been singing “Danny Boy”?

Moira dug her elbow into my rib cage. “Well, what do you think? Brilliant, isn’t he?”

An incandescent bulb flashed on in my brain. “It’s Henrietta, isn’t it? Oh, how absolutely wicked!”

I really ought to have figured it out, Diary. Dorothy and I were utterly charmed by Henrietta, who reappeared several times more in the course of the evening. Variously, he was a beribboned “daughter” to Miss Shields in a domestic comedy skit, a blackfaced minstrel wench, and, in the last number but one, a charming ingenue in a duet with a gallant young “soldier.” I wish that I could wear a gown with Henrietta’s panache! Or sing half as well!

The crowd was on its feet at the end of the show. Of course, the greatest applause was for Miss Shields, who concluded the program with her signature song, “Bertie from Baltimore.” Our Henrietta, however, was a most respectable second in the favor of the crowd. I congratulated Moira.

“Harry’s done nothing but practice for months,” Moira replied. “He’s determined not to be a railway worker, and this is his chance, he says.”

September 30. Today I made a friend of Winifred Clem, the English ‘visiting student’ at Bryn Mawr School. Winifred’s father is a professor of botany who is teaching for a year at Hopkins. My new chum is preparing for university, and, with Miss Hamilton’s permission, will take classes as though she were a member of our senior class.

Sally said Winifred, who is in her American history and English literature classes, already knows more about both subjects than all the rest of the girls put together. Of course, I sought out this phenom myself to recruit her for our Debate Club.

She is not much to look at, Diary. Winifred peers out at the world through very thick lenses encased in dark tortoiseshell rims; this evidently is what causes her to hold her head at a birdlike angle. She spends not a lot of time on her toilette, either, I think. Oh, Winifred is quite clean, her boots are shined and her hair is brushed, but that is about as far as it goes.

Today, she was at a table alone in the lunchroom with a book. “May I join you,” I asked. “I think you normally dine with Mary Alice, but. . . .”

“Oh, yes, of course! Mary Alice has stayed home with tummy flu, I don’t doubt. She was complaining when we parted yesterday.

“You are the famous Evelyn Westcott, I think, and I’m Win. Pleased to meet you! What do you think of Mrs. Humpfry Ward?”

“Oh, dear, what am I famous for,” I asked, stalling for time while I tried to think of something brilliant to say about Mrs. Humpfry Ward, whoever she is. Anything!

“You were pointed out to me as the titan of the hockey squad. I am a total dud myself, have asthma on top of being nearly blind, so I am envious of athletes.

“But, look here, Evelyn! Mrs. Ward has gotten 37,000 signatures on this “Manifesto” against votes for women. She is quoted as saying that ‘the deciding power of the parliamentary vote should be left to men, whose physical force is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the state.’ Might makes right! Ooh, just wouldn’t that get Christabel wound up!”

I clucked at Mrs. Humpfry Ward’s pronouncement and waited for enlightenment.

“Christabel’s my cousin, and a lawyer. She and her mother, my Aunt Emmaline, have founded the Women’s Social and Political Union and are terrorizing all our politicians. I can’t wait to go back home and participate in a riot for the suffrage!”

“Surely you exaggerate,” I ventured.

“Not at all. Christabel has quite persuaded me. Unless we women force the men to confront the issues, we shall be put off until Doomsday. Gradualism and prayer have done the Cause no good at all!”

Winifred is the ‘real McCoy,’ Diary. By the time she finished telling me about the WSPU’s campaign, I believed her fully capable of chaining herself to the rail at the House of Commons.

She has agreed to partner with me in the debate with St. Tim’s. I immediately sought out Miss Blume. We have been searching for a proper topic, and now I had it: “Resolved, men will never grant women the suffrage until they are compelled to.”

October 2. Diary, I have perhaps found a clue to the chemical composition of Balthasar’s extract. Dr. Prochnik has been tutoring me in the properties of the organic molecules. For lab work, we are determining their molecular weights. After I had produced the expected results from analysis of a number of well-studied substances, I proposed to him that I should attempt analysis of animal urine. Herr Schneider expressed doubt that anything of consequence could eventuate, but relented when I assured him that I have a reliable source of the fresh product.

Urine is a complex fluid. Urea is of course its dominant component, but there many other waste products in the broth! The answer to my search, I venture, lies in determining how the urine of pregnant sows differs from the urine of sows that have not been impregnated.

October 4 (Sunday). I have lived in Baltimore already almost two and one-half years, and yet until today I have not ventured into the eastern part of the City. It is not that I am prejudiced against immigrants — at least I don’t think so. I am simply out of my element there. Coming to Baltimore from Perkinstown, Pa. was already a huge alteration in my native environment. Finding my way through neighborhoods where the language of the street is not English but rather Italian, Polish or Yiddish is yet another huge leap for me. But this noon, there I was.

Ironic, isn’t it, Diary? The streets of East Baltimore are redolent of spices that I have never tasted, they resound with tongues I cannot understand, yet the streets bear names like Wolfe, Broadway, Milton and Highland. In the center of this ethnic broth is the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Scarce a stone’s throw distant are the offices of Doctor Nathan Weiss on Washington Street.

Invoking the names of both Tottie Clathrop and my new friend Rachel Klimintz, I had written Dr. Weiss for an appointment. He replied at once in the affirmative, and bade me come today at one, after his regular Sunday hours, that we might become tolerably well acquainted.

I arrived on the hour, and entered Dr. Weiss’s office whilst a lady clad entirely in black scuttled out. Soon I was sizing up Weiss, and he me. Having decided that my interlocutor was perfectly “O.K.” by my standards, I found myself imagining what he saw. (I find I do this more and more, Diary!)

“Hmm. Rather typical American type, I think. Raised as a boy, she says. Well, she doesn’t look a bit of it now, though it must have scrambled her brains. Rachel says this Evelyn is “top drawer.” Coming from Rachel, that means a lot.”

“Do you miss Tottie,” Dr. Weiss asked, abruptly interrupting my reverie.

“Oh, dear God, yes I do!” I blurted out. “Yes — we can hardly do without her!”

“But, there is Balthasar Bishop. . . “ he prompted.

There is indeed Balthasar,” I replied. “And I trust him with all my heart, but we cannot put the weight on his shoulders alone.”

“What do you wish of me, then?”

“I have intimated that to you already, sir,” I replied, maintaining my composure as best I could. “I have need of a sympathetic physician. I am not the only one. If you are resolved to assist us to live as best we can under the circumstances, we shall all be extremely grateful to you.”

“Hmm, yes — would you be so kind as to disrobe? I would like to examine you, and then, I expect, I shall have to ask you a great many more questions.”

Dr. Nathan Weiss absented himself for several moments while I removed my boots, hose, jacket, waist, skirt and petticoat. Clad only in my chemise and drawers, I awaited his return.

“Those must come off, too” said he.

I did as Dr. Weiss bade me, revealing the preposterous apparatus with which I was born — features that had persuaded my parents to raise me as a boy as long as that premise could be sustained.

“Hmm” said he again, having drawn a sample of my blood and directed me to contribute also a sample of my urine. “I imagine that you yourself are incontrovertable proof that Balthasar’s Extract does work.” I nodded in the affirmative, and related the almost miraculous effect that it evidenced.

“I have been transformed beyond my own imagination and perhaps also yours,” I replied. “Here is a copy of the charts that Tottie kept. Within a few months, my breasts and hips attained the dimensions expected of a girl my age, my voice ceased from breaking, and it was only by diligent application that I maintained my strength and skills as a hockeyist for the Bryn Mawr squad. And let me say, Doctor — all those changes were a great relief!”

“I would be remiss” he answered, “if I did not ask you if, withal, you have . . . uh . . . feelings of a sexual nature?”

Many girls, I suppose, would be loath to admit to such feelings, but fortified by my conversations with my sister-in-law Ruth, I was resolved to regard these as normal. Even so, I blushed when queried by Rachel’s friend and doctor, my own physician-presumptive.

The flush subsided, and I answered Dr. Weiss as best I could. “Yes, I do. Sometimes unbidden, my male part stiffens and jerks. At other times, it is the proximity and kindness of a friend that quickens its interest.”

“And, Evelyn . . . when this happens, is the object of the interest . . . male or female?

I suppose I blushed once again, but there was no reason to lie. “Sometimes one, and sometimes the other,” I said. “I wonder what I should feel.”

Doctor Weiss examined my parts and then bade me dress. A lot of conversation came next. He told me that there is no explaining ‘feelings’ and I should not feel odd either way. We talked not just about me, but about all of Tottie’s Daughters. (Thus far, he only knows Rachel and me.)

Boldly, I put to Dr. Weiss the question that had brought me to his office: “Will you,” I said, “serve as physician to all of us? We do not need you as our counselor in matters of mental hygiene beyond such limits as make you comfortable. We need you, rather, as one who can hold our secrets and see to our physical needs. You must understand, sir, that several of us are unable to visit an ordinary physician!”

He brooded for a moment before answering in the affirmative. “Yes, I will do it. My niece Rachel has already been persuasive; to that you now add the weight of your own advice. Send the girls to me. I will merit their confidence. They can pay me as they are able. And you, young lady — go home! You are in perfect health!”

October 10. Halloween falls on a Saturday night this year. Aunt Enid has agreed that I may have a party.

October 12 (Columbus Day). Eureka! I have spent all day in the Chemistry Laboratory at school. Because it was a holiday, I could work undisturbed (except for Dr. Prochnik, who kindly came by to let me in and, as darkness was falling, to lock me out). The elusive substance, I am sure of it now after several repetitions, has a molecular weight of about 240; that would make it a glycol molecule. I have brought home a very small quantity well-packed in ice. It is most of the amount I have been able to concentrate. Balthasar and I will try it on some of his guinea pigs.

October 14. To be sure of a sufficient number of boys for the Halloween party, I have enlisted several of the girls as organizers. Our theme will be “Arabian Nights.” Clandestine copies of Lady Isabella Bird’s memoires and of Sir Richard Burton’s scandalous tales are being passed around. The girls are mining them for ideas. Aunt Enid has invited her friend, Mr. Wilkinson, to advise us. He is the head of the Oriental Department at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

October 17. Met Doro downtown to shop for things for our costumes. I have bought a splendid scimitar at a theatrical supplies shop. I proposed that she also dress as a Musselman knight, but Dorothy absolutely refuses to play the man. She has bought yards of gauzey fabric and tiny bells. I have thought long about inviting my friend Alexandra to the party . . . but concluded that it would be too awkward, and probably uncomfortable for her.

October 20. Miss Blume has met the debate coach at St. Tim’s. They have agreed to our challenge. The combat is fixed for November 11 at Latin. Each side will field five pairs of debaters.

November 1. Heavens, Diary! What a party!

Mr. Wilkinson arrived in mid-afternoon with three turbaned musicians borrowed from the Imperial Turkish Embassy. Their music was splendid — from their oudhs and sakhbuts they produced all kinds of exotic rhythms and scales, and a few Viennese waltzes as well.

Aunt’s house was full of my friends. The table was piled high with figs and dates. Some of the guests were more successful than others in their disguises. Ted Rawlings came as the hind end of a camel; his goofy friend Peter was the head! Tho Flora Cooper was a most charming Christian slave girl, Christy was quite out of her usual character as a belly dancer. Doro at the last moment abandoned her harem girl getup and appeared in blackface as — well, as her idea of — an Ethopian eunuch! Aunt Enid and Mr. Wilkinson portrayed missionaries to us benighted heathen.

I am smitten with Sally’s brother, Frank Campbell. He swashbuckled in about eight o’clock, fitted out as a Moorish corsair. Frank has returned this summer from the Rocky Mountains, where he worked as a cow-boy for the experience of it. He has acquired ropy muscles and he affects a “now there, ma’am, you hang on a little” sort of drawl that I cannot resist. Frank is back in school at St. John’s College. I reminded him that we met at his parents’ farm in Chestertown two summers ago.

“Yes,” he recalled. “You were a funny little thing — witty and awkward at the same time. I am not surprised that you have grown into a beauty.”

November 4, 1908. Oh, sweet Jesus, Diary! That walrus Taft has won the Presidency in a landslide. He is from the conservative side of the Republican Party. Why did I think William Jennings Bryan had a chance to win the election, when no one but men are allowed to vote?

Better news from Mother. She writes that I now have both a nephew, two year-old Eugene Tucker, and a niece, new baby Julia. I have sent congratulations to Ruth and Eben.

November 5. It seems I have powers as a medium. Upon my declaration in a trance two summers ago that Dorothy’s errant father was somewhere in the jungles of Asia, Mrs. Downey sent enquiries to lawyers in all of the principal ports there. Recently, she has had a reply from a M. Constant DuCroix, Esq., in Saigon, which is the principal city of French Indo-China. It seems that an American, Rufus Downey, is one of the colony’s greats — a rubber baron, in fact. (That explains the rows and rows of trees I saw in the crystal ball, Diary!)

M. DuCroix reported that the said Mr. Downey arrived fourteen years earlier, and is now in failing health. If Mrs. Downey intends legal action, he added, she would be well-advised to act promptly.

Dorothy’s mother is resolved to travel immediately to Saigon to press her claim. No arguments can convince her otherwise. Her marriage to Dorothy’s father was never legally terminated. Under French law, his legitimate children are heir to three-fourths of his wealth. Mrs. Downey has put herself under the protection of a Scottish gentleman, Major MacKenzie, who with his family is en route to Singapore. They will leave Baltimore for San Francisco on Monday by rail, and there will take passage on a ship to Hong Kong.

Dorothy has confided that her mother has mortgaged their house to get money for the long trip. Doro is to stay with me and Aunt Enid! That last bit delights me no end, she is like a sister, but of course we both fear for her mother’s safe passage.

November 10. Final practice today for the debate with St. Timothy’s. Each side will field four teams of two -- two teams to argue “pro,” and two “con.” I thank God that Win and I will argue for militancy; we could not put our hearts into the opposite view.

November 13. We have out-jawed St. Tim’s, 3-1. My partner Win was simply brilliant. Beatrice and one of the ‘10’s, Cecily Harper, even managed to win a match arguing “con” -- I cannot imagine how! There was a reporter present from the Sun.

November 15. A marvellous article is in today’s Sun about the great debate. Concluded we girls are all so articulate and well-informed, men have nothing to fear if women like us vote. . . .

November 18. We have been challenged by Boy’s Latin. They propose to meet us in February to debate that “Resolved, the vote is not what women really want.” Maybe the boys are trying to shock us. Well, Miss Blume has allowed us to accept their impertinent challenge.

November 22. I met Mrs. Tolliver by chance at the bootmaker’s yesterday. She consoled me on loss on Friday to St. Tim’s in field hockey. “It was a hard-fought game,” I replied stoically. “This time they were the better team.”

Martin, is piled high with schoolwork at Cornell, said his mother; we shall not see him this Thanksgiving holiday or even at Christmas. All the other Tollivers will again travel to Ithaca, New York for the holidays. Mrs. Tolliver promised to carry a small present to Martin from me.

November 23. On a postcard of a San Francisco cable car, Mrs. Downey reports her embarkation on the SS Galatea on November 16.

November 28, 1908. It is exactly a year since Tottie dined with us at Eutaw Place. Doro and I asked Aunt Enid please not to make an event of Thanksgiving this year; we should be miserable throughout, recalling dear Tottie. Confessing that her own sentiments were much the same, Aunt agreed that we shall pass the holiday in quiet contemplation rather than in feasting.

December 3, 1908. Henry Halloran is home for Christmas after touring with Ella
Shields and her company for eight weeks. They have been as far west as St. Louis, Missouri. I’ve insisted he come with Moira to call at Aunt’s — but as his alter ego, Miss Henrietta, of course!

December 7. Aunt Enid is cross that I have invited Moira and “Henrietta” to call at Eutaw Place. It is because Moira was in service here, and her sister and cousin still are on our household staff. Such things are simply not done, said Aunt.

I replied that Moira is my dear friend, and her brother a charming young fellow with rare talents (on which I did not elaborate)! If Aunt did not wish to receive them personally, so be it — but I desired with all my heart that she would allow me to welcome my friends to 1319 Eutaw Place.

My aunt yielded with just a bit of her accustomed grace. It is settled, then. Moira and the baby and “Henrietta” and a friend will come to tea next Saturday afternoon. I have invited Dorothy, too. Cook has promised sorbet and her sinfully rich tiramisu cake.

Aunt has relented — after hearing of Harry’s special talents, she says she will join us “for a while.”

December 12 (after supper). Oh, Diary, what fun! We are all simply entranced by “Henrietta!” There being four in all — Moira, her baby, “Henrietta” and a friend — they came by cab.

Defended from the chill only by scarves, Doro and I ran down to the sidewalk to meet Moira and Henrietta as they arrived. I regarded the assured young woman who had accompanied “Henrietta” as she tipped the coachman. Could it be that she also was an “actress”?

She joined us then, and Moira spoke. “May I introduce Miss Thornton, Harry’s governess? It is a strict condition of Miss Ella’s that he shall be under her supervision while travelling with the show. Miss Thornton sees to it that he doesn’t fall behind in schoolwork and, of course, that he is safe from harm in other ways.”

Ah, she was all woman, then! Miss Thornton nodded politely, and expressed pleasure at being included in our party.

I introduced Dorothy, we all exclaimed over the excellence of the day and went inside to the parlor. There the ladies removed their coats and hats, Aunt Enid joined us, and introductions were made all over again.

Aunt bade us sit, and immediately seized command of the conversation. “So — you are the gifted young man I’ve been hearing of, are you?” she said, regarding “Henrietta.”

“Yes, ma’am. I am Henry Halloran. Professionally, I’m known as Henrietta Hawkins. Thank you for allowing me to call on . . . er, at Eutaw Place.”

The illusion, if that’s what it was, Diary, is complete. Harry’s afternoon dress was a shade of green — olive, perhaps — that set off his coloring extraordinarily well. He wore an embroidered waist with puffed sleeves, a seven gored skirt and gray kid blucher boots. Befitting his tender years — he is barely 15 -- there was only a lace handkerchief pinned to the waist by way of garniture. . .

This is silly! From now on I shall omit the quotation marks and male pronouns. When Harry is Henrietta, she is all girl — no less than my dear friend Dorothy!

Yet. . . it was not only the clothes. Aunt Enid had expected some genre of burlesque, I suppose, not the elegant and well-spoken creature who sat demurely on the edge of her chair. Henrietta’s smile, the timbre of her voice and the tilt of her head were the epitome of maidenly charm; she made me feel positively clumsy!

I was reminded of the hugely comical scene in Mr. Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, when the flower girl Eliza Doolittle, after weeks of coaching by Professor Higgins, has tea with the snobbish Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her friends, and absolutely charms all the ladies. It was hard not to giggle, Diary! My aunt’s jaw was hanging wide open as Henrietta explained that “Miss Ella has quite taken me under her wing. She says that with diligent application, I shall become every bit as proficient an illusionist as she. I intend to do my best.”

The show is going to England! Miss Ella Shields has just signed a contract for three months’ of engagements at music halls in London and other cities. They will sail from New York on the 22nd of January . . . Harry, Miss Thornton and all.

December 15. Henrietta has returned a charming note of thanks for Aunt’s hospitality. With it, she has forwarded an invitation. The Ella Shields troupe wishes the honor of our presence at a holiday masquerade ball on December 29. All the guests are requested to come attired as members of the sex they are not. To my astonishment, Aunt says ‘of course’ she will allow me and Doro to go — and she will accompany us!

I love disguises. Who shall I be? To be the sex I am not? But in truth, my sex is ambiguous, once my petticoats are stripped away. The logic of it is that I should go as a boy whose true sex is equally obscure. Perhaps Shakespeare’s Rosalind, in her disguse as Ganymede?

Dorothy will go as poor Oscar Wilde. I wish I’d thought of that!

December 16. What a brazen hussy I am! I have picked up the telephone and invited Frank Campbell to escort me to the Shields troupe masquerade. He agreed immediately. O, he will make a splendid Calamity Jane or Annie Oakley!

December 19. The Daughters of Charlotte will meet for holiday cheer this afternoon at Doebreiners Ice Cream Parlor. Dorothy is a diligent Secretary; she will not take “no” for an answer, and has secured pledges from all. Though it is on a Saturday, Rachel has promised that she will “slip out somehow.” For the first time, all thirteen of us will meet as one.

December 20. I have just been to Balthasar’s house, carrying presents for the children. That was only a pretext — Alexandra did not appear for our party yesterday; I was worried. Now I know the reason, and have the taste of ashes in my mouth. My colored friend was turned away at Doebreiners’ door! I ought to have foreseen a problem. What a dolt I am!

Alexandra said she was not surprised; such things are common. She supposed that had I told Doebreiners she had been engaged to entertain us as a musician, she might have allowed her to join us upstairs. That is something to remember, I suppose. Well, we shall not go there again — or anywhere else where my friend may be humiliated.

Christmas Day, 1908. Snow has been falling since yesterday noon. It is heaped high on the sidewalks and streets and we cannot possibly go out today. No matter, Dorothy, Aunt and I are snug and warm, and have passed the morning exchanging and opening presents.

Dorothy of course is terribly lonesome for her mother. There have been no letters yet from the far side of the world, only a telegram reporting Mrs. Downey’s safe arrival in Hong Kong on December 8.

December 27. The lovely snow has turned to brown mush already; such are Baltimore winters. Both Frank Campbell and Ted Rawlings have tramped through it today to 1319 Eutaw Place to be transformed into belles for the masquerade ball. With Pegeen’s expert help on the sewing machine, we have altered dresses and petticoats to encompass and disguise their male dimensions. The fall I wore when I first came to Baltimore is a perfect match for Ted’s hair. Frank must make do with a wig that he has found at the Campbells — it does not suit him, but he is not of a mind to spend twenty dollars on one that does.

By teatime, we had made marvellous progress. Conceiving that they required training in deportment, Dorothy and I required our beaus to wait upon Aunt in their new finery (minus shoes, for we have none that will fit their big feet). “Aunt Enid,” I said with a bow (for I had dressed as Ganymede), “it is our honor to present the Misses Griselda and Portulaca, the stepsisters of Princess Cinderella.” Ted executed a sort of curtsey; Frank was not so successful, and collapsed suddenly in a heap of organdy silk.

Once “Oscar” (Dorothy) and I had perched the “young ladies” on chairs and taught them to hold their teacups with elbows in and pinky prettily extended, Aunt enquired if they did not feel rather silly thus attired. Frank confessed that he had suppressed an urge to flee at one or two instances earlier in the afternoon, but now had come to enjoy the “game.” Ted pronounced himself quite at ease, and delighted to have the company of Masters Oliver and Ganymede. He confessed that he had always thought it a bit unfair that the girls should have all the pretty clothes.

December 28. With my maid Patsy's help, Pegeen has finished all the costumes, including Aunt’s. Dorothy and I have just returned from a shopping expedition. We found shoes that will fit Ted nicely and add two inches to his height. Frank’s feet are hopelessly large; he shall have to make do with his opera pumps; it is just as well, he already towers over me!

December 30. What a splendid party it was! The boys came to Eutaw Place to dress, and when we were all encostumed (Aunt Enid brilliant — and perfectly lecherous — as Benjamin Franklin), Gideon drove us all in the brougham to the Belvedere Hotel on Chase Street. The ballroom was already filling with the oddest miscellany of creatures — bearded and mustachioed “ladies,” long-haired men, beings who seemed in their choice of raiment to fit neither category, or either, or both. Compared to their guests, the sixteen members of the Shields troupe seemed to be quite normal.

As soon as he was freed of the receiving line, young Harry Halloran joined us, fairly bursting with excitement. He was gotten up in a silk brocade kimono and black Japanese wig. “Hello, Evi, Dorothy, how swell you are; O, it’s Mr. Benjamin Franklin, isn’t it? Is that really you, Mrs. Westcott? Who are these lovely ladies? How do you like me as Cho-Cho-san? Oh, and may I present his Excellency the Lord High Executioner?”

Lord Koko, garbed in a black kimono and hung with swords, was none other than the renowned impersonatrice Miss Ella Shields herself. Wooden clogs raised her to an imperious height. Our hostess greeted us warmly, then swept Aunt Enid away to meet other guests of her age.

I cannot fathom how “Henrietta” plays the girl so perfectly. In her manner, she is far more feminine than I will ever be. Frank and Ted simply gawked at her as she complimented them on their gowns.

“Lt. Pinkerton” wandered near, saw “Cho-cho” engrossed in conversation with us, scowled at me and “Oscar,” and turned on his heel. Harry could not suppress a giggle. “She is madly jealous — though I’ve given her no encouragement. Silly goose!”

“It is remarkable,” Frank said to me much later that night, after we had danced ourselves weary, “how oddly unsexed I feel in this dress and undergarments. Yet you seem to think nothing of strutting the boy in your velvet suit and cap. And whereas every glance in the mirror reveals me an imposter and clown (and I am happy at that!), you make a manly lad, Fauntleroy’s own mother’s dream. How do you do it?”

“O,” I said, squeezing his arm, “perhaps I am just a better actor than you, dear Portulaca. I was something of a tomboy as a child. And no artifice can hide those cowboy muscles of yours.”

December 31. Another year is gone! Aunt Enid and I have had a long talk about my future. I confessed my desire to study medicine. “I should like nothing more than to continue the work that Dr. Tottie began,” I said. “If you will finance my studies, I shall make it my first duty to pay you back when I am able.”

“O, tut, child! Why should you pay me back” my aunt exclaimed. “I have more money than I can ever spend — perhaps more than I can give away — why should I not spend it on one so deserving as you?

I began to sniffle with happiness.

“Evelyn, I mean what I said. You are the daughter I thought lost forever. How long since you came to live with me — two and one half years? You were such a sad, sweet boy then. I took a great risk, the risk of freeing you from your masculine fetters, and how you have bloomed, my dear! In spirit, in strength of character, you are everything I wished for in my own child.”

I soaked my handkerchief, blotting up the tears that streamed down my cheeks. How fortunate I am! If only I can live up to my Aunt’s expectations.

“Aunt Enid,” I said when I had recovered my composure, “God willing, I shall not fail you. May I ask another favor, a special favor?” She nodded. “You recall Alexandra Cooper, don’t you? She is a terribly gifted musician. Can you help her to study at the Peabody Conservatory?”

Sunday, January 3rd. Frank Campbell telephoned yesterday. He was about to return to college, he said, and wished to see me first. Amused by his preemptory summons, I accepted his offer to lunch at a steakhouse not far from our house. Frank was at the Ox and Flagon already when I arrived, having come directly from church, and offered me a taste from the stein he nestled in his hairy paw. “This is excellent dark beer; would you like some?” I chose a glass of white wine instead. That set the scene: we were two grown-up people with minds of our own — notwithstanding that I am still 16 and he is barely 20.

Frank thanked me for accepting his abrupt invitation. He should have sent a thank you note after the Masquerade, he said. That event had made an impression on him, in fact, he’d been brooding about it, no, brooding about me and my friends and himself. He’d felt odd, twitchy, the entire evening in his dress and wig, and he assumed that was the normal way to feel. Yet I had seemed fully at ease, perhaps a bit extroverted actually in my guise as Rosalind in disguise as the boy, Ganymede. Well, girls are different. But then, Henry Halloran was entirely comfortable and convincing as his alter ego, Henrietta. Frank understood that, he said. Harry has found a way to fascinate women; there is no doubt about his real sex and that is the wonder of his acting skill.

Frank paused that we might order our meal. I chose oysters Rockefeller, and he a porterhouse steak and chips. Did I want another glass of wine? I did not. Might he have another beer? Yes (what else could I say?).

Dorothy, Frank continued, is so female that she could not even be convincing as Oscar Wilde. That left Ted. Ted Rawlings and Frank had been close ever since they could remember; best friends at school and in summer holidays as well. After graduation from Latin, Frank had gone west and Ted begun painting. People said he had talent, which is swell, if true. But, Frank asked me, had I noticed how greatly his chum Ted seemed to enjoy dressing up as a girl?

I confessed that I’d perhaps noticed that, but I had been charmed by Frank’s awkwardness far more than I had remarked anything about Ted. He was, I pointed out, Dorothy’s beau.

“Speaking of awkward, Sally says you were the clumsiest girl she’d ever seen when you first came to Bryn Mawr.” Frank made a statement but I read it as a question, as I was supposed to.

“I was fresh from the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Fortunately, I was a demon with a hockey stick. Your sister and a few others were kind to me, too.”

“She says you are now a cinch for ‘Best Girl.’”

“We shall see. I have a talent for getting tangled up. It’s Sally who deserves the prize.”

The entrees came; we applied ourselves to them silently for a few moments till Frank spoke again. “To tell the truth, Evelyn, I am very attracted to you.”

“For my part,” I replied truthfully, “I am attracted yet apprehensive. You are a great deal older than I.”

“I take it that I may call on you then? There is no understanding between you and Martin Tolliver?”

“O, Martin is a good friend, no more than that. Yes, I shall be happy if you call. My aunt likes you, and I trust you shall not disappoint her.”

January 7, 1909. Dorothy has had a letter at last from her mother. Mrs. Downey was seasick for days, but much improved by the time of the SS Galatea’s arrival in Hong Kong. (The crossing took exactly three weeks, with a stop in Yokohama, Japan. She had embarked from San Francisco on November 16 under the protection of Major MacKenzie.) Mrs. Downey would continue to Saigon unescorted on the morrow (December 10) she said, on the Messageries Maritimes steamer Alsace.

January 15, 1909. With Aunt Enid’s knowledge and Miss Thornton’s consent, “Henrietta Hawkins” and I spent an afternoon together inspecting the paintings from Europe recently hung at the Art Museum. I had much to discuss, and “Etta” (I am bade address her so) was also in the mood to share confidences. So we lingered long in the café there over tea and cakes.

Henrietta was again splendidly turned out in a rather old-fashioned style. Miss Thornton and Miss Ella insist that she wear a corset, Etta says, to mold her body against its nature into a feminine form. The effect on my 14 year-old friend is stunning: Henrietta seems innocent and full of feminine allure at the same time. So winsome is she that she rivets the attention of everyone who shares the same space. Mine included, I must confess.

I had sought Etta’s company because — after giving the matter much thought — I wished my friend to know of Balthasar’s extract. Without it, Etta is doomed to grow tall, her voice to deepen, her shoulders to broaden. I had taken care to confide in Balthasar, who also reflected hard on the matter. We had concluded that I should take Henrietta into our confidence.

I explained the nature of the elixir, and how I came to know of it. My voice broke uncontrollably as I spoke of poor Tottie! Recovering, I asked Etta if, were she to be assured of a regular supply of the Balthasar’s extract, would she not wish to share its miraculous benefit?

I had expected Henrietta to be astounded by my confidences. Instead she shyly confessed that Moira had intimated the same to her, and for much the same reason — that is, she had encouraged Etta to ask me to secure for her a supply of the extract that stifles male development and, evidently by omission, allows an ample measure of female semblitude.

“Evelyn, dear friend, do not be angry with me,” Henrietta said softly. “You offer something rare, and I love you for your kindness. And yet — I shall refuse. Not because I am afraid, or ungrateful, but because my art does not permit it.

“The audience expects artifice, not alteration. Just as Ella Shields, every inch and breath a female, is able to persuade those watching her to suspend belief and thrill to her apparent manliness, so I aspire to achieve in the opposite quarter. If I can, I shall be, on the stage at least, a woman through art and not by chemistry.”

So that is it, Diary. Etta and the rest of the Shields company will leave for England on the Carpathia in scarce two weeks’ time. When I see her again, I think she will have either won her gamble or have nobly failed.

January 18. Another letter from Dorothy’s mother. She arrived in Saigon, French Indo-China, on December 14. She writes that it is a city of about 300,000 people. The great majority are of course Asians: Chinese, Indians and “Annamites.” She says the Annamites, who are the indigenous race, are very polite, work all the time and live in the most crowded conditions. The land is rich and the market is well supplied with all kinds of fresh food. Very few of the natives are wealthy, but they are by and large scrupulously clean and seem well-fed. Even so, the native quarters are deemed very unhealthy for white people.

There is a European community of perhaps 25,000 souls, also counting the Asian women who have married Frenchmen and their children, and it has all the amenities of civilization, even an opera house! Mrs. Downey considers that the Saigon Central Post Office would do credit to Baltimore. She has taken a room at the Majestic Hotel, a six story edifice with excellent plumbing and electric lifts. From her balcony, she has a fine view of a broad, muddy river and the busy quai below.

She has met M. DuCroix, the lawyer. Together they have reviewed her papers. DuCroix expresses confidence that Mrs. Downey’s claim on behalf of Dorothy to most of her husband’s estate will stand up in the colony’s Tribunal de Grand Instance; he pronounced her papers “complete and conclusive.” M. DuCroix has communicated the same to Mr. Downey’s solicitors. A meeting has been arranged for a few days’ hence — that is (or was) to be on December 19. It is understood that Mr. Downey is gravely ill.

January 22. Today the Ella Shields troupe sailed from New York for Liverpool. Aunt and I arranged for a good luck bouquet to be waiting in Henrietta’s stateroom. Our talented young friend telegraphed his thanks.

January 25. Today there was another letter from Dorothy’s mother, posted from Saigon on December 22. She writes that she has been suffering some intestinal distress; it is said to be a “rite de passage” for newcomers to the colony. There is good news — the solicitors have agreed that Edgar Downey was and remains the legal husband of Lutetia Downey and father of Dorothy. Further, they agree in principle that in the event of Downey’s death, Mrs. Downey is entitled to one-quarter of it. The rest will be shared equally by Dorothy and Downey’s three children by an Annamite woman. As Downey is counted among the richest men of the colony, it seems that Dorothy’s fortune is made!

January 30. I have been giving Alexandra some German lessons. She is determined that the words of the lieder she sings shall be pronounced as Herr Shubert intended. It is not a matter of learning to speak the language, only of singing it properly. Aunt Enid, who has a far better ear than I, declares that Alexandra's voice is of rare quality.

February 2. Diary! My aunt has made the most marvellous plan! As I had hoped, we shall go together to Europe after my graduation from Bryn Mawr. She has wanted to visit old friends in Paris and Vienna; this seems an excellent time to do so. O, there is nothing better to motivate me to throw myself into German for the rest of the year! Command of German is essential for anyone serious about science and medicine.

Perhaps we shall also travel in Italy — and I shall see Fiona again.

February 9. Mrs. Downey has met her husband, Dorothy’s father. He has a villa in the European quarter of Saigon, she writes. It is spacious, set in grounds that are a well-tended jungle of exotic flowers and vines and shaded by tall trees. Edgar Downey received her with his consort and two daughters.

He is gaunt, she says, and in pain despite calibrated doses of morphine. He sat propped up in a chair, unable to rise to greet her but perfectly lucid throughout their meeting. Speaking with difficulty, Downey begged her forgiveness that he had left her in want and with child eighteen years past. “It was an inexcusable act, yet God rewarded me with great wealth before punishing me with this wasting sickness. My riches are of no use to me now, but I can at least die happy that you, Dorothy, and my wife and children here are well-provided for.”

“Mr. Downey’s remorse was so manifest,” Dorothy’s mother wrote, “that against my intention, I forgave him then and there.”

She pronounces herself charmed by his present wife and daughters. (There is a son as well; his name is Etienne and he has been sent to France to prepare for university.) “I cannot pronounce her name at all properly — it is something like Bik—Nock — so we have agreed that I shall call her “Little Sister.” She and her daughters know little English, and I have no French, of course, so we communicate mainly by gestures sometimes supplemented by drawings! The girls are Sophie, 12, and Madeline, 10; they attend the school for French girls here.

Dorothy has sent back a letter to her half-sisters written in her best Bryn Mawr French, and another to her father.

February 13. Yesterday, Miss Blume announced the selections for our debate with Boys Latin. It will be held on March 9. Winifred Clem and I are paired again but must argue “con.” Why on earth did we accept this proposition? Are Win and I supposed to argue that women don’t want the vote? Or that we want the vote and much more?

February 14. It is not that I doubted that someday man would fly, Diary, just that I never imagined someone close to me would escape the tug of gravity — and now Martin writes that the machine that will bear him skyward is nearly complete. Martin describes this pastiche of wires and cloth as though he were singing the praises of a lover. I imagine the machine waiting patiently in a moonlit barn for a masculine impulse that will send it into the heavens. After the ice melts, Martin and his mates will take it to Hammondsport, a town 40 miles and two long lakes away from Ithaca. There they will send this aircraft aloft under the guidance of a Mr. Glenn Curtiss.

February 19. Dorothy’s father has passed on. He never received her letter, of course. “Mr. Downey’s last days were relatively free of pain,” her mother writes. “The end being inevitable, his doctors assisted him there by greater and greater doses of morphine. I had moved into the house, fancying that I could relieve Bik-Nok of some work, and indeed these past weeks we have indeed become like ‘sisters’,” sharing our bedside vigil.

“Mr. Downey passed away on January 21, the eve of the native ‘new year,’ which follows the cycles of the moon, while drumming and firecrackers resounded from the streets. I understand it is the “Year of the Rooster.” Now, while other families are visiting and feasting, we are dressed all in white, the color of mourning here, waiting until Downey may be decently buried. He insisted on the native rites. There is a man who plays incessantly on a horn that makes a noise very much like a bagpipe; to my ears it is tuneless. Since early this morning, there has been a parade of friends and family (hers) who light joss sticks and pay their last respects, and then sit with us and feast. I am accorded the respect due to an ‘elder wife.’

“I expect, my dear Dorothy,” continues Mrs. D, “that this intimacy may seem very bizarre to you, and in truth it has surprised me. I can not escape thinking that perhaps it is the Annamites, and not we Americans or the French who lord it over all here, who are the wiser and more civilized race.”

February 20. Diary, I am growing alarmingly fond of Frank Campbell. Annapolis is not so far away. Though I fear he neglects his schoolwork, Frank has come up to Baltimore nearly every weekend. We have been to the moving pictures, the vaudeville and once at my insistence to the Peabody for chamber music followed by iced cream. We have taken a long wintery walk up Druid Hill. I have permitted him to put his arm about my waist and kiss my cheek.

Frank is entirely the gentleman, and yet he excites me as Martin cannot. Perhaps it is because Martin seems to think of me almost by accident, when he is not thinking of aeroplanes or designing suspension bridges. When Frank is with me, it seems that I am all that matters to him. I have told him that I have high ambitions and am not at all ripe for plucking; that seems not to faze him one whit.

Martin is still very dear. I mailed him a package of handkerchiefs I have monogrammed — not too badly! They should reach Ithaca in time for his 19th birthday.

February 22 (Washington's Birthday). Dr. Prochnik allowed me to use the laboratory all day again this holiday. He is intrigued by my research (which he imagines has no immediate application). I have ten adolescent male guinea pigs at school. Referring to certain prior work by Steinach, an Austrian researcher, I have been feeding the purified extract to six of the guinea pigs, three of which I castrated. All six have developed female characteristics and behaviors. Physically, the six developed the nipples and mammary glands of females, and behaviorally, the six all presented the lordosis response when stroked, just like a female in estrus. The controls show no anatomical or behavioral changes.

February 23. I have been trying to think up a name for the substance. Gynol, perhaps? Or perhaps a word combining "estrus" with "diol," as the substance is a diol that induces behavior mimicking estrus. Estradiol? No, I like Gynol.

February 24. Yes, Martin confirms it. Curtiss is the aviator who won the Scientific American Trophy last summer.

February 28. My dear old Aunt will not yield to my entreaties. She is still set against buying an automobile. In her opinion, the trolley serves us (me) excellently for daily needs, and there is always Gideon and the brougham or the landau when the occasion requires it.

Doro is getting along very well with Ted Rawlings. He is teaching her to paint. They spend many hours together at his studio in the Rawlings house. She says he has made no untoward advances — that is fine with her.

March 5. Frank has been sent home from St. John’s College! He and the Dean have concluded that the classics are not for him. He cannot guess what to do now. Frank’s father wants him to join him and his uncle at the textile mill. Mr. Campbell’s health is failing rapidly, so Frank can hardly refuse him.

March 10. The Great Debate.

“Make no mistake. We want the vote and we want it now. The vote is the key — without it, women are condemned to a permanent inferiority.” That was me in our opening statement.

“Women’s moral superiority will vanish if they have the vote. Accept that God has given men and women different natures, and do not debase yours by seeking to be like men.” Bruce Somebody — skinny, with a big adam’s apple bobbing up and down!

“If you do not give us the vote, we shall wrest it from you. In doing so, women will discover their real strength. Of course we want equality of incomes, property rights, the right to divorce and to custody of our children. All that will follow naturally.” That was Win.

“Open the gates of suffrage, and what else may follow? Anarchy in social relations, no doubt.” A prig named Arthur Somerset.

“The notion that — other than certain biological facts — there is an essential difference between men and women is a fraud perpetrated by men to justify their domination of women inside and outside of marriage.” (Win, a bit shrill, perhaps, but right of course!)

“A recipe for confusion of sexual and moral roles and the disintegration of the social order!” (Arthur again.)

“Standards will fall to the lowest common denominator — the standards of the field hand or the immigrant masses.” (Bruce — could he believe this nonsense? Evidently yes, for he went on to apprehend mongrelization of the races and reversion to a primitive state, all because women might vote!)

“Let’s face it. You males are right. The argument about suffrage is in fact an argument about sex.” (Me -- I was improvising; a thought had suddenly come clear to me.) “As long as men can pretend that because of our sex — and the giddy, flighty things that it does to our brains — women should be denied the vote, the longer we can be denied also the right to compete with you and the right to govern our own bodies.”

“Had you awarded us the ballot with good grace, now it would not loom so large a test. Your dogged resistance confirms our suspicion that it is not to protect us but to contain us that you refuse us the vote.” (Me, again)

We’d won hands down; Win and I were sure of it. Our jury decided otherwise — Win and I were too strident, they said, unladylike! We had ourselves confessed that behind the campaign for the suffrage there lurked an ulterior motive. . . .
And, in a way, the jury was right. It is all about sex. To quote Elizabeth Elmy: “It is the fear of men that women will cease to be any longer their sexual slaves either in or out of marriage that is at the root of the whole opposition to our just claim. No doubt their fear is justified, for that is precisely what we do mean.”
I remember, when I was was a boy and still thought I should grow up to be a man — it was scarce three years ago — that to be a girl was to be an inherently lesser being, a being requiring management, a mere assistant and enabler, neither leader nor creator. Well, that’s a myth too many women have believed. That’s not the kind of woman I’m going to be.

March 12, 1909. It is the anniversary of Tottie’s cruel death. Dorothy and I have been quietly miserable all day long. The Daughters of Charlotte (or “Tottie’s Kids”) will meet again tomorrow at the YWCA in her honor.

March 14. By the testimony of the girls, our arrangement with Dr. Weiss is working well. All but two or three of us have now visited him. When feasible, he has communicated with their regular doctors. Dr. Weiss has treated several girls for serious complaints. Jane Ellen’s cough is appreciably better. Helen has not been well; we all urged her to consult Dr. Weiss and she has agreed. At breakfast this morning, I conveyed to Aunt Enid everyone’s gratitude for her generosity — she has given Dr. Weiss a substantial sum on account to cover medical costs that are beyond the means of any of the girls.

I reported that we have tested a dried and purer form of the extract successfully on the guinea pigs. It is stable at temperatures up to 120 degrees Farenheit. Since the beginning of February, Alexandra and I have been taking a lozenge daily in lieu of the monthly injections. If all goes well, the lozenges will be available to all of Tottie’s Girls by June.

Eilidh renewed her plea on account of her brother. The boy is miserable, she says. He absolutely refuses to go to school; neither blandishments nor threats can move him from his conviction that “God meant for me to be a girl.” Eilidh had no sooner spoken than half a dozen of us were crying, and testifying to our own torture before Balthasar’s extract and Tottie’s understanding had freed us to “be our real selves.”

I thought it my duty to remind the girls that Tottie would not treat males who had no physical abnormalities; her mission, she insisted, was to undo past mistakes in the assignment of gender and help young people “fit into their true sex.”

“What about me, then,” asked Dorothy. She was Tottie’s one exception, but only because she had taken a kitchen knife to her male member. I felt duty-bound to remind Doro of that fact.

Alexandra Cooper’s voice broke the silence that followed. “I, uh, maybe most of you know already that unlike the rest of you, Dr. Tottie did not choose me. My uncle Balthasar did. He saw me suffering, just like Sister Eilidh’s brother is suffering. He saw that every day for me was like Jesus hanging on the cross, and at last he couldn’t stand it any longer and cut me down.

“Everybody knows that the stuff my uncle makes tastes terrible, but it works. Physically, I was a normal boy; now I look and I feel 100% girl. I think you should make an exception for — what’s he call himself, Eilidh? — Alicia’s case.”

We women are creatures of sentiment, Diary. Eilidh said her parents hoped for our favorable judgment. A unanimous vote followed. Provided that Dr. Weiss examines the boy and discovers no physical or mental hygiene reason to deny treatment to “Alicia,” Balthasar is authorized to provide a double dose of the extract to Eilidh’s household.

March 23. Dorothy’s mother has found a packet to Manila. There she will board a steamship for Panama, cross the isthmus by rail, and in Panama City, seek a ship bound for Baltimore or Philadelphia. She posted a last letter before leaving Saigon on February 22. There has been a partial division of the estate; the great bulk of it will not become liquid until sale of the Downey plantations is completed. There are some 2900 acres of prime rubber trees, tended by nearly six hundred Annamite workers. M. DuCroix will see to the protection of the Downeys’ interest (for a hefty fee, I should imagine!). Dorothy’s mother is expected to dock in New York very soon. Were it not for school, I imagine Dorothy would be on the train to meet her! They who have never been apart have now been separated for nearly four months.

March 28. Yesterday a letter from Henrietta! She has lapped me, the minx! Her letter is 100% Etta; I shall copy it in verbatim:

Writing from Manchester, tour has been great success and will be extended to include Edinboro, Glasgow and a second fortnight in London. I am being starved and must exercise my voice to the point of strain daily to keep command of the upper registers. But I adore it — O, Evi, how swell it is when we have done excerpts from Pinafore (I am the captain’s daughter, Nell, of course, and Miss Ella is the Captain) and a great roar of approval rises from the audience!

My room has been filled with the gifts of admirers, flowers every night and more than once a brooch or necklace. There is speculation in the papers — am I or am I not?

And O, Evi, a most marvelous thing — it is scandalous, really, but as you already know everything about me, I shall tell you. If it is disagreeable, tell me and I shall be more discreet in the future.

We at last had a holiday at the end of our London run, a whole week of idlness beckoned, when I received an invitation, transmitted properly care of Miss Ella, from a Mr. Smythe to join him and his family at their country home. The invitation was accepted for me and my governess, Miss Thornton. On the appointed day, as a brougham waited outside our hotel, it was apparent that Miss T was in no shape to travel. She had been felled by a sudden flu. What to do? — the Smythes awaited below, I wanted desperately to go — when Mrs. Smythe herself appeared at our suite and undertook my protection.

It was like in the novels: big house, servants, etc. I was housed in the wing adjacent to Jonathan, who pressed his attentions until I had no alternative but to speak to his parents. I was immediately reassigned to the girls’ quarters, to share a suite surrounding the former nursery with Sophy, 15 and Olivia, 16. Both are English roses their parents are grooming for a match to some young lordling or other.

Dinner ended, we retired to our rooms and gratefully stripped to our chemises. Corsets really are tedious. At once S&O demanded proof of my sex. . . .at length I satisfied them with a brief glimpse that excited ahhs.

Shortly after midnight, I became aware of a scratching at my door. It was Olivia, who initiated me into the delights of intimate relations. Scance half an hour after Olivia left me with happy dreams, it was Sophy who demanded her turn. Understand me, Evi — I did not corrupt these girls. They corrupted me, and how lovely it is. Miss T would kill me, I think!

We shall be home again in May.

April 6. Flora and I have called out the girls for practice. No one needs to be reminded that we have lost the field hockey trophy to St. Tim’s. All are resolved to practice hard three afternoons a week that we may regain it!

April 8. At last Doro’s mother is returned to Baltimore after an heroic journey of more than 20,000 miles to restore her fortunes and especially Dorothy’s. Mrs. D. has rested these last few days’ at my Aunt’s, rehearsing the details of her adventure. One might be tempted to think her embellishing the story unless one had seen the small gold bars that she removed last night from the hem of her skirt, or seen the photographs she has brought back of Dorothy’s half-brother and half-sisters. They are fine-featured children who resemble Dorothy considerably notwithstanding their swarthier complexions and jet black hair.

April 12. I had thought Dorothy’s mother the giddiest of women. I see I have underestimated her. Perhaps it was constant awareness of the “wolf at the door” that caused her to behave so erratically. Now a telegram advises that their fortune is secure. The rubber estate has been sold and 43,000 dollars have been sent here by bank transfer. Mrs. Downey is so resolved to buy a certain house on Bolton Street, not two blocks away from Aunt, that she has offered as much as was asked.

Well, it is decided. My grades are such that I shall neither catch Mary Alice (let alone Beatrice) nor sink back a whit if I miss a week of school. Trudy Welch’s situation is no different, so I with Aunt Enid’s permission and she with her parents’ have accepted the invitations of my dear Martin Tolliver and his friend Tom Armstrong to be their guests at Cornell University.

I am told, informally and by whom I will not say except that she has participated already, that Cornell’s ‘Spring Weekend’ is a veritable bacchanale. I suppose we shall be in safe hands, however. Martin informs that for at least two days of the four, Trudy and I shall be guests of the Curtiss Aeroplane Works in Hammondsport, NY.

April 17. O, Diary, a most startling thing! I was at Dorothy’s house on Federal Hill this afternoon, helping her sort out things in anticipation of the Downeys’ move “uptown.” Returning home late, I chose to change trolleys at Druid Hill Avenue; it is a rough section, but I stood to gain a full ten minutes. Well, while I waited in the dusk for the uptown car, I heard a voice I knew instantly: it was Frank Campbell, speaking familiarly to a companion. Something stayed me from stepping out to greet him. His companion was a woman, I discerned, not especially young and definitely not respectable! It was all “Dearie” this and “Luv” that! I know I ought not have eavesdropped, but in fact I was trapped there — I could not help but overhear!

As the trolley approached, Frank gave the woman an envelope. “But when will you visit me again, dear Harold?” she asked him. He did not answer, only pressed her arm and ascended the car. I hesitated, bit my lip and followed him aboard.

Frank had taken the last empty seat. Of course, he rose and offered it to me, expressing pleasure at our chance encounter. I did not accept. My face, I am sure, betrayed my distress, for Frank’s smile vanished. “Frank Rawlings,” I whispered — perhaps hissed is a better verb — “I am greatly disillusioned. I shall not wish to see you again.”

Frank, gentleman enough to know the consequence of being caught red-handed, did not protest my reproach. Fortuitously, the trolley squealed to a stop at Dolphin Street. Red-faced, mumbling “sorry, sorry indeed,” he bolted from the car.

What now? Frank is charming but obviously a rogue. No, I shall not meet him again. I have heard too many stories of the diseases men contact when they frequent the demi-monde.

April 18. Flowers delivered with Frank's card. Not a word of explanation.

April 28. Alexandra Cooper sang at one of my aunt’s soirees last night, accompanying herself on the piano. She sang two of those lieder, a solo from Cavalleria Rusticana, and a gospel song as well. By arrangement, Mr. Endicott was present. Aunt Enid's friend is the arbiter of Baltimore’s musical taste — well, one of them — and the head of the admissions committee at the Peabody.

My task as the evening ended was to prevent Mr. Endicott from leaving with the other guests. Presently my aunt joined us and pressed the case for Alex’s admission. Yes, he agreed, she is unusally gifted for a Negro. Yes, the conservatory has scholarship funds for gifted students. But no, he maintained, my friend could not be allowed to matriculate at the Peabody Conservatory. Negros have a talent for mimicry and an extraordinary sense of rhythm, he said, but that can never make up for their inherent primitivism. It would not be fair to Alexandra to thrust her into situations that demanded more perseverence and artistic sensibility than she could ever command. For such good and proper reasons, the Peabody did not have places for colored persons; it was a matter of well-established policy, as Mrs. Westcott doubtless knew.

My dear Aunt Enid was furious, or seemed so though Endicott’s answer could not have been a surprise. “Then do this,” she hissed. “Recommend her to Oberlin. If they do not have ready money, I shall make them a donation.”

Endicott assented, and scuttled out the door. I thanked my aunt for her generosity to my friend. “It is all the same,” she said. “Once she has been accepted at Oberlin Conservatory, I shall simply stop my annual contribution to the Peabody. They won’t get another cent from me until they disestablish that odious ‘policy.’”

May 5. Well, Trudy and I are well-launched on our journey. Though she has been my classmate for two years and the mainstay of the basket-ball squad, I think I have only got to know her today. Trudy is a buxom, jolly girl, somewhat scatter-brained but awfully kind withal.

With only one change of trains, we will arrive this evening in Hammondsport. Martin and his friend Tom are there already. Tomorrow morning, they will test the machine they have built.

Yesterday was my 17th birthday. Aunt has given me a silver and amethyst brooch that was her mother's. I am wearing it now.

May 5, bis. The train was of course late. The boys were waiting at the station with Tom’s motorcar. My, it is good to see my Martin again! Trudy is pleased by her first sight of Tom. Mrs. Curtiss has put up Trudy and me comfortably in an upstairs room. Mr. Curtiss is downstairs, his diagrams spread on the dining table, enwreathed by cigar smoke and adoring undergraduates.

May 6. This morning we all trooped out to the Curtiss Works on the shore of Lake Keuka. There were several aircraft available for our inspection, including the “June Bug” which has won Mr. Curtiss the Scientific American Trophy. However, the center of attention today, of course, was the Cornell machine.

Eight or nine young men had come from the Cornell Engineering College altogether. The craft they have been working on all winter is not much bigger than a rowboat. It has just room for a pilot. Three flights were planned: Tom was to fly first, then another boy, and last of all my Martin.

On the dubious grounds that we had travelled the greatest distance for the event, Trudy and I were chosen to christen the “Butterfly.” We could not smash a bottle on it, of course, so we sprinkled its propeller with New York State champagne.

The control system of the Butterfly is of a new design. Martin says that achieving precise control of an aircraft is the great challenge at present. The design of the wing to provide “lift” is well understood, and powerful, lightweight gasoline engines have been developed by Mr. Curtiss. Guiding the craft is another matter. The person flying an airplane must control its movement precisely in three dimensions by pulling on wires to adjust “flaps.”

Tom Armstrong climbed aboard, started the engine, checked the controls, aimed the Butterfly into the wind and pulled out the throttle. Notwithstanding popping noises, the machine gathered speed. As it did, Trudy clenched my arm in a death grip. It neared the edge of the lake, Tom pulled back on the control wheel, and with a few yards to spare the diminutive craft was aloft! A great cheer went up from the Cornell boys.

Martin ran over to me and Trudy. “Look, it is responding perfectly,” he said, handing me a set of binoculars. Indeed, the Butterfly was dancing and darting in the air like its namesake! I gave my friend a hug and told him he must be very happy. He confessed that he was indeed, and added that only one thing could make him happier. I was at a loss to reply — though I am not surprised by Martin’s declarations of loyal affection, what can I answer him, Diary? At that moment, I was spared the necessity of a reply. A great shout went up — Tom Armstrong’s craft had dived suddenly, a few hundred yards from shore. Through Martin’s binoculars, I saw Tom pulling hard on the wheel, pulling the Butterfly almost level only a few feet above the water, then watching it slip inexorably to the right until a wing touched the water and the craft spun around hard. Scant seconds later, boats were alongside, pulling Tom from the lake and securing floats to the Butterfly.

“Tom is hurt,” I said to Trudy, handing her the binoculars.

They brought Tom ashore with utmost care. He was ruefully regarding his left leg, which was bent out at an odd angle, and cracking jokes as we awaited the ambulance. Visibly distressed, Trudy sponged Tom’s brow and commanded someone to fetch a blanket. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he told her. “It’s just some bruises. We’ll be dancing on Saturday.”

The ambulance came and clattered off to the hospital. Trudy and I donned our dusters and followed with Martin in Tom’s automobile. When we arrived, Tom was already in the emergency room. From time to time the door opened, and we could hear him remonstrating with someone. Then all was quiet for an hour. At length, a doctor came out to speak to Mr. Curtiss.

“I’ve given the boy a shot of morphine to quiet him down and set the bone. They are putting him in a cast now. A rib is cracked, too, I think. Lucky it wasn’t worse. You fellows are crazy, Glenn.”

“Well, Hiram, we’d hate to see a fine emergency room like yours go unused. When can you discharge Tom?”

“I ought to keep him for a few days, but he insists he has an important obligation back in Ithaca. We’ll let him out tomorrow, I guess, if he isn’t worse.”

Friday evening, May 7. We are at last in Ithaca, NY. The sun was setting behind us as we arrived after rocketing 40 miles in Tom Armstrong’s Stanley Steamer automobile. My Martin drove it, of course, me next to him in an ankle length duster, cap, goggles and scarf, Trudy and Tom in back — he on pillows and very manfully enduring what must have been a great deal of pain, she adoringly stroking his cheek or chuffing his hair from time to time. Except for a brief, bouncy stretch above a town called Homer, the road was surprisingly firm. Only once was it necessary to change a tire.

Martin says he has urged his father to invest in Stanley Company shares. He is sure that within another twenty years, half the homes in America will have “steamers” in their stables.

Martin has delivered Trudy and me with his Aunt Polly and Uncle Spencer Richardson, kind people who live in the city below the Cornell campus, and has taken Tom off to bed. We are missing a dance tonight on account of Tom’s mishap, but we shall get an early start tomorrow!

Sunday. It is hard to write in this train, it jiggles so. O, we have had fun, Diary. The Cornell campus is splendid. I think I have seen it all. It is full of stately elms, and bordered on either side by deep gorges with streams at the bottom. Martin says they, like the long, deep lakes in this region, were carved by glaciers thousands of years ago. There are two score of handsome academic buildings atop the hill. The library is adorned by a bell tower with a marvellous carillon; at noon its peals resound for half an hour to the ends of the campus. Scattered about the edges of the campus are the dormitories and fraternity houses where the students live.

Martin belongs to one of the fraternities, Kappa Upsilon. If he did not, he should not have a social life, he said. Well, it was a nice enough place, and his “brothers” seemed well-behaved. Women are allowed within the “house” only on festive “weekends” like this one — there are three each year. After a jolly dinner, Martin and I walked to another “house” a hundred yards away. We were resigned to passing up a band concert to spend the evening instead with Tom and Trudy. As we arrived at Sigma Kappa Phi, however, there emerged from its great hall a litter borne by twelve stalwart lads, with Tom and Trudy atop it.

“What ho! Martin! Evelyn! Follow us! Onward, lads!” cried Martin’s plaster-cased chum. And so we did get to the concert, Diary, and when it was ended, to a gala dance. Two orchestras from New York City, one at either end of the huge new drill hall, took turns playing waltzes, tangos and rags. You know I liked it, Diary. I have learned a new step called the maxixe which leaves one quite breathless. Martin took care that I had plenty of partners from among his engineer friends and fraternity brothers, while Tom, seated in state atop his litter, directed his bearers one by one to wait on Trudy.

Last night, I slept as one dead, and was barely revived when Martin came round at eight. We could hardly skip Sunday services — he being a preacher’s son — but he knew a chapel where they raced through them in forty-five minutes. That left us time to see the Cornell Redmen win a hard-fought clash with the lacrosse team from Dartmouth College, and then to have a late lunch at Kappa Upsilon before we, and so many other boys with their dates, headed for the railroad station.

Trudy is thoroughly smitten. I literally had to pry her apart from her Tom when our train arrived. And I, Diary — what am I to do? Martin says he loves me, and will not desist from doing so. He is resolved that some day I must surrender!

May 14. While I was away at Cornell University last week, the girls put the finishing touches on our Decoration Day plan. We do not dare meet all together or at school for fear of giving it away; in fact, most of the girls know only that there will be a “manifestation” for womens’ suffrage — details to follow. I had not guessed that either Ellie Hochner or Sally Campbell would emerge as hellions, but they are as resolute as Winifred Clem, and so are Beatrice Cohen and Mary Alice Webb. Trudy and I could not seem less determined, of course, and we have all brought along many of the younger girls. There will be at least sixty of us.

May 20. We have revenged ourselves on St. Tim's, 4-2. Flora Cooper was brilliant!

May 31, 2 am. I am writing this in jail! I have just sent away my Aunt’s lawyer. I told Mr. Briggs that posting bail would render our manifestation meaningless; its whole point is to win publicity for the Cause by showing how brave we girls are, and how foolish are the elected men who direct the police.

Jail is not so bad, though it is a long while between trips to the WC. Eighteen of us from Bryn Mawr were snared by the forces of law and order. We are six to a cell, and the object of sympathy and curiosity to the other women here. They themselves have been brought in since early evening in ones and twos for, they say, such sins as “disorderly conduct” (crowned her husband with a frying pan when he tried to beat her) and “public lewdness” (chased a man down the street when he failed to compensate her for an evening’s company). We have taught them to sing with us — “Shout the Revolution” rings out spontaneously from all the cells. I am sure the reporters camped in the great hall of the Downtown Jail can hear us well.

O, our business yesterday morning was a perfect lark! At about 11 a.m., we girls were mingled unobtrusively among the crowd spread along three blocks of Pratt Street. Our wagon was parked on Liberty Street, which is but a block long here and runs uphill of Pratt. Trudy was stationed on the far side of Howard watching for the right moment. Perhaps half the floats and bands and marching societies had passed by Trudy before she gave the signal. In just a few seconds, girls up and down the street donned their sashes and formed up in the gap that had opened behind a brass band from Towson. The wagon was wheeled out, pins were pulled, and it was instantly draped with Suffrage for Women Now banners. Twenty-four girls in white dresses took up the traces. The rest were in two lines on either side, whilst Dorothy and I, Winifred and Beatrice and Ellie formed ourselves into a tableau atop the wagon.

It is a strange thing that once such a formation as a parade has begun to move, it does not readily cease to do so. We were swept along in the momentum of the march as far as Light Street before the marshals succeeded in halting the section that contained us. A troop of police on horses moved in. They were intent on cutting us out as one might remove a dead flower from a bouquet. It was not so easy. Our girls stood their ground or, if moved aside temporarily by the passage of a horse, reformed immediately. The fellows in the bands before us and behind us joined the game, spreading out with seeming innocence to make it harder for the police to maneuver, and striking up “Shout the Revolution.”

Tipped off by Mary Alice, reporters and a photographer managed to reach the scene just as the carnage began. The police had resolved to extract us from the parade by force. The representatives of the press had an excellent view of the guardians of law and order dragging me and my chums forcibly off the wagon, handcuffing us and other girls, loading us into a couple of trucks with grated windows and doors, and hauling us off to the Downtown Jail.

I can hardly wait to see this morning’s newspapers!

May 31, noon. Well, I am freed, at home (and forbidden to return to school until further notice). A halftone photo is on the front page of the American, which I have brought home for all the staff to see. It is possible to make out my face and Winifred’s as we are pulled down by the police. Aunt Enid will not speak to me.

My aunt is of the gradualist tendency — the line of thought that in fifty years of effort has won women the vote in Colorado, Utah and Idaho (a step up from polygamy, I will admit) and a handful of towns. She cannot help being a person of her generation, a generation that has won much for the Cause in other ways. Regrettably, she can not believe that our caper yesterday has hastened the day we shall vote!

I am commanded by a note from my Aunt to read and reflect on the editorial in this morning’s Sun. The editorial is written by a man, of course -- Baltimore’s conservative daily newspaper would not have a woman sit on its editorial board. The Sun reminds that it supports, nay has long supported, the eventual expansion of the suffrage to include women. It is surprised that young women who have benefited in every way from the best education Baltimore could give them would then behave so impulsively. Their brash disruption of a solemn occasion (the parade, Diary) opines the Sun, could not but raise questions about their readiness to engage in mature deliberation about the governance of the city, state or nation.

I have written back to Aunt Enid, apologizing sincerely that I have distressed her and quoting some lines from Mr. H. L. Mencken, the Sun’s columnist. Mr. Mencken is amused that it required two platoons of police troopers on horseback to rout sixty-five unarmed girls. He concludes that the police and the troglodytes who deploy them know that they were challenged by a cause that increases daily in its urgency. “On a day dedicated to those who have sacrificed for American liberty, young girls have dare to reach out and call for their own Liberty.” "This day is about the losses and sacrifices of war; what do women give to wars, except their sons and husbands and theirselves as nurses and their lives as victims, but we are talking about important things. How dare they interfere?. . . "No harm, except to the reputation of the mounted police brigade that harassed the young women" Mr. Mencken points out that the public’s property remains intact, nor, indeed, was the annual procession sensibly delayed by our irruption. No one was hurt except some of us girls, and none grievously — O, but of course the manly pride of the police troopers must have been hurt! Mencken concludes that in this instance, we have co-opted the press as a megaphone. It is his pleasure to assist. By reminding the public of young women’s aspirations in no uncertain way, we have advanced the day of our triumph.

In case Aunt Enid finds Mr. Mencken unpersuasive, I have placed in the same envelope the American’s photograph of me and Beatrice being dragged from atop the tableau. The caption describes us as “heroines.”

evening. By a typewritten letter delivered to our homes, Miss Hamilton has summoned all of us miscreants (and our parents and guardians) to a mass meeting tomorrow morning in the school field house.

June 1. Outside it was pouring. The field house stank of wet clothing. Miss Hamilton vented her displeasure for, it seemed, enternity. By our reckless behavior, she said, we girls have discredited Bryn Mawr School. (I think she means we have threatened its standing with wealthy donors!) We have betrayed the trust she put in us. Miss Hamilton has issued a statement condemning the disruption of the parade, she said, and had a copy delivered to the Mayor and to the Sun. She has telegraphed Miss Jane Addams to excuse her from the pending Graduation exercises.

Miss Hamilton said she was duty bound to report that Miss Addams has counseled forgiveness. It is characteristic of her great friend's magnanimity, she said, that JA has telegraphed back to inform that she would not dream of missing our Graduation exercises.

Even so, said Miss Hamilton, there must be consequences. All participants in "the riot" (her words!) are disqualified from participation in school activities for the
year. We senior girls who were arrested — obviously the ringleaders — are disqualified from the annual prize-giving! I shall not be best all-round girl after all. Even so, I don't regret our "rioting" a bit.

June 3. We have had to forfeit our match with the Baltimore Ladies Hockey Club. The exhibit of Dorothy's paintings that was to have been a highlight of the Graduation exercises has been cancelled. Trudy whispered to me that Miss Hamilton had determined to award the "Best Girl" prize to Ginnie Montgomery, but that Ginnie refused it. She told the Headmistress that she should have been with the rest of us on Pratt Street had not illness intervened. I confess Ginnie has a lot more character than I supposed. No prizes will be given this year. Well, I still don't regret our manifestation!

June 4. We (me, Doro, Sally and Trudy) are off to Annapolis early tomorrow morning! I had resigned myself to missing Plebe Weekend, but Aunt Enid has forgiven me just in time.

She did not disagree with the object of our action, Aunt has told me; only that it was reckless and dangerous. She has already lost one daughter, and cannot bear the thought of losing another.

June 6. My chum Billy Barkell has become quite a man. We have had considerable occasion to resume our friendship, and I believe he finds that as pleasing as do I.

The train disgorged the four of us Bryn Mawr girls and a few hundred others yesterday into a veritable sea of expectant midshipmen. Truth be told, I sensed we girls floated on a wave of male desire! (Ooh! Bad puns!)

Billy found us directly, with three friends in tow; these were immediately paired off with my own chums, and they escorted us to our “quarters” to refresh ourselves.

Leaving aside the military discipline that from time to time asserts itself, the boys at the Naval Academy are not so different from those at Cornell University, not in their notion of a good time. We sailed about on boats and did a great deal of dancing. The general opinion, as Sally, Doro, Trudy and I head home to Baltimore, is of time well spent. Sally professes herself “in love” with the naval cadet from New Orleans that was her weekend beau, while Doro is much taken with a Jason Somebody from Camden, Maine.

I . . . I am plotting how I can spend more time with Billy. In the first place, I find him quite attractive, if still a bit wooden. In the second — and this is something we talked of before we fell into an embrace in a secluded nook — we have between us no secrets of the most intimate kind. I cannot say that of any other man my age, Diary.

Billy reminded me that it was he, . . . that we were together when he first discovered his manhood. . . and I answered truthfully that when my own efforts at self-gratification failed, that same day had revealed to me that my manhood was doubtful. Does that sound as though it was a tender and intimate moment, Diary? Well, having confided as much, I sensed an irresistable attraction to Billy and he to me. Not in some silly romantic sense, but more, I should think, as would-be explorers of the empire of sensuality.

We shall meet again soon, Billy and I.

June 9, Doro's Birthday. Went to her house to deliver a present but found she had gone to the Rawlings again. Had a cup of tea with Mrs. Downey, who grilled me about Ted.

June 10, Graduation Day. What was supposed to be the crowning event of our lifetimes (up to now) has left a odd taste. There was a huge crowd, including reporters from as far away as Boston, not because of us girls, of course, but because Miss Addams was to speak.

We marched in, wearing our long white dresses and carrying our bouquets with our heads hung — yes, in remorse. Even though we believed we had done no wrong, we had felt the sting of Miss Hamilton's censure. Not until we reached our seats did we notice the table holding the prizes and know there had been a change of heart.

Though she had berated us unmercifully ten days earlier, the Headmistress was on this occasion strikingly subdued. She rambled for several minutes about the importance of loyalty, good sense and resistance to selfish impulses, and about responding with integrity to the challenges of the times. Most of us girls, and I think many of the parents too, just squirmed impatiently in our chairs. Knowing how intensely Miss Hamilton cares for the survival of Bryn Mawr School, I have almost forgiven her cowardice.

Miss Jane Addams was finally introduced. The most celebrated woman in America, the founder of Hull House (which is the model for Lawrence House here in Baltimore), is frail. She came forward hunched over like a very old lady, but I know her to not yet be fifty. She has a direct gaze. Her voice is strong but soft; it carried all the way to the back rows. The entire time Miss Addams spoke I thought her eyes and each word were directed at me, Diary. I am sure she spoke with our Memorial Day manifestation in her mind.

Miss Addams told us to rejoice in our accomplishments because they showed our strength. She knew, she said, that many of us had overcome hardships to get to this place. (Was she really looking straight at me?) But then she reminded that the opportunities were not of our own making; others had helped us.

Every time during childhood that we had asked for a treat or for dessert, Miss Addams said, many, many American children had been asking if there was to be dinner or supper or breakfast that day. She said that even our talents and our strength had been granted to us, not won.

Each Bryn Mawr girl, she said, might choose to squander the excellent education we had received at our School. Many young women of means chose to finish school and go on to live a life of ornamental uselessness. The record of the Class of 1909 indicated that we are of sterner stuff, she said. We are roused by inequity, offended by degradation, incensed by undeserved poverty, and resolved to improve the world we have inherited.

And make no mistake, said Miss Addams, it cries out for improvement.

The vote is but one means to an end: the transformation of the modern world. If the moral force of women is properly and relentless applied, Miss Addams declared, wars will end. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, prejudice and religious bigotry will join slavery and serfdom in the dustbin of history.

She did not doubt that many men, probably most men, are well-intentioned, said Miss Addams. But too many years of self-appointed command of the affairs of the planet has turned men into cynics about human nature. They do not comprehend, they do not imagine, that science and technology have given humankind unprecedented power — the power, should we wish to do so, to feed every child, to provide medical care for every mother and a decent home for every family. Women must light the way.

In a hundred years there might not be any hungry people in the world or at least not in our country, Miss Addams predicted, due to the advances in science she had seen in her life and which seem likely to continue. However, this will never happen if those with the most blessings see them as granting greater privilege, rather than a sacred duty. Each of us can be proud of what we have done so far with our ability, she said, but we must always remember that ability gives us responsibilities toward those not given the same gifts.

The preceding evening, Miss Jane Addams confided, she had sat with her friends Miss Edith Hamilton, Dr. Alice Hamilton, Mrs. Enid Westcott, Mary Garrett Cooper and others to take account of the Bryn Mawr School’s mission. Gradually a sense of the meeting had emerged, as the Quakers might say. It was that Bryn Mawr School and its students are duty-bound to bear witness to social wrongs, and among these, the continued denial of the vote to half the citizens of our country. Viewed in that light, the manifestation of May 30 — though it might be deemed impetuous and could have put many girls in harm’s way — could not be condemned.

Consistent with that conclusion, Miss Addams said, Miss Hamilton had agreed to reverse her decision about prize-giving! O my good Lord, Diary, my heart practically flipped in my throat! I had steeled myself against regret. I had repeated over and over that it did not matter, and yet it did. I did so want to be Best Girl, and that is how it has turned out after all!

June 12. Well, Diary, two days ago I was fired up with idealism, and I still am burning, really. But saving the world can wait a little. Today, O, I am wicked! First of all, I have deceived my Aunt Enid. She believed I was gone to the Coopers’ cottage on the Patapsco River for a graduation party. Gladly would I have been there, too, all else being equal. As it was, Dorothy made excuses for me while I got myself downtown to a barely respectable hotel. No, to tell the truth, not respectable at all — the staff kindly avoided eye contact as I crossed the lobby and entered the elevator. “The seventh floor, please,” I told the operator, and she, too, pretended no interest in my errand. I knocked on a door, it was opened by Billy, and I was nearly knocked over by a rush of male scent.

Billy is passing through Baltimore on his way home to Perkinstown. By the time his holiday there ends, Aunt Enid and I will be aboard the Mauretania, enroute to Europe for nearly a year. And so, Billy and I made a pact but gave no promises. We had agreed to explore this matter of “sex” as friends, in a sense picking up where we left off.

He was eager, so eager that at first I sought to pleasure Billy however I might. He was already half-undressed; I assisted him to disrobe completely, and he in turn assisted me. In no time afterward, it seemed, I had brought him to the point of an irresistable discharge, which event within a few moments returned Billy to a state where he could calmly listen to my own plan for this afternoon.

“I have no experience of physical sex, nothing beyond a kiss on the lips,” I said. “For some time, I have been aware that God has given me a different set of equipment. How different I am not yet sure, nor do I care so much to know that as to know what it may be good for. Your assignment, Mr. Midshipman, is to assist me in an inventory of my physical accoutrements and their uses. You are to proceed slowly; you will take care to explore every crevice, hollow, hill and promontory. Do you understand?”

Billy signified with a broad smile his readiness for this assignment.

Ah, how well he did his duty! The book that Ruth gave me hinted that there are countless ways that two people can give pleasure to each other. Billy and I discovered many today; I should like to think there are yet many more!

Resting entangled together halfway through the afternoon, I asked Billy if he thought it odd to be thus with me. “No,” he answered, and I think truthfully, “as it is not a matter of our marrying and having children, I do not suppose it matters how your particular organs are arranged, so long as we both find pleasure.

“I cannot say for sure, however — I suppose it does matter to me that you seem in important respects to be entirely a very lovely girl.”

I suppose Billy might have said more, had I not stifled his speech with kisses then.

June 15, 1909. Such a strange and powerful dream I have had, Diary! I dreamt of a great parade. There were thousands of people, marching and celebrating — but it was not for the suffrage. No, I knew by their strange garb and throbbing music that this parade was far in the future. There were men and women, men and men, women and women arm in arm, all making a mighty racket. More than a few of the marchers seemed something other than men or women. There were whites, blacks and every shade in-between, young people and old. What did they want? I strained to read the writing on their placards and to make out their chant. Then, as I sat up in bed, awakened in a cold sweat, I understood that the throng was marching for sexual freedom — the right of each human being to express his — or her — inner self, free of artificial categories, social norms and legal prescriptions.

June 17. Aunt Enid has bought our steamer tickets. We sail for Liverpool from New York on July 29 on the Mauretania! It has just captured the Blue Riband. We shall cross the Atlantic Ocean in barely five days!

Like the first two chapters of Evelyn's Diary, this one also was wonderfully improved by my friend and editor, Jan S. My medical and scientific advisor once again was the awesomely knowledgable Riottgrrl. Daphne