Horsing Around

15-year-old Helena wrote a hundred years ago today:

Monday, February 6, 1911. It snowed today. Hope it will stay for a while at least. Was rather cold today. Got too close to the stove pipe at school today and burned my hand. Didn’t feel very good. Put some black on a kid’s face, and then he put some on mine. I tried to prevent him. Got my arm scratched and tore my waist. Got a ride home from school today. (It was in a sleigh.)

I want to ask, “What in the world were you thinking?” Then I remember that it’s a hundred years later, that I can’t talk to the 15-year-old diary author, and that I’m looking at it through my “parent” lens. So I guess if I could talk to the teen-ager in the diary I’d just say, “It’s too bad you burned your hand, but it sure sounds like fun. Hope your mother wasn’t too mad about the waist.”