Love Sonnets of a Shop Girl (Sonnet XIII)

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, October 3, 1913: Working for wages.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma worked long days on her father’s farm husking corn. Did she ever wish that she had a job in town—maybe as a clerk in a store?

Postcard showing Marsh Shoe Store, Milton a hundred years ago (postally used December 1910). — Postcard showing Marsh Shoe Store in the nearby town of Milton a hundred years ago (postally used December 1910).

It wasn’t all fun and glamor working in a store. Here’s what one of the sonnets published in 1913 in Love Sonnets of Shop Girl had to say:

Sonnet XIII

That floor-walker’s getting’ too breezy;

He hangs around me all the time.

I’ve wanted to let him down easy,

But he doesn’t get wise—he’s a lime.

I don’t like the way that he treats me –

You’d think that he owned me, the slob!

You’d think, by the way that he meets me,

I owed him my life—and my job!

.

He’s got to quit callin’ me “Baby”

And “Sister” and “Honey” and “Pet.”

I’ve quarreled with Terence; but maybe

He wouldn’t be tickled to get

A chance at this floor-walker Willie,

Who tried to get merry with muh!

Oh, wouldn’t he wallop him silly!

And then for the ambulance—huh?

.

But I won’t tell Terence; I merely

Will speak to this floor-walker gink,

And tell him, quite plainly and clearly,

Exactly the things that I think.

I don’t want to act at all shady,

But if he get uppish—the yap!—

I’ll lift up my hand like a lady

And bounce him a biff on the map.

Love Sonnets of a Shop Girl by Berton Braley was published in a 1913 book called Sonnets of a Suffragette. The entire book is available on the Internet Archive.

A Day to Relax and Develop Film

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, October 2, 1913: Ma and I staid at home today, while the rest of the family attended the Fair. To while away the time I got at my pictures and was quite satisfied with the result.

Source: Ladies Home Journal (May, 1913) — A woman developing film (photo source: *Ladies Home Journal*: May, 1913)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma–

Yeah! You got a free day when you could relax and enjoy your hobbies.

When I first read this diary entry, I felt sad that you didn’t get to go to the Milton Fair—but when I reread it I decided that you didn’t care.

You’ve worked so hard helping with the corn harvest—and I bet it feels really good that when your dad took a day off to go to the fair, you also got the day off.

You enjoy photography so much, and I can just picture you developing a roll of film and getting some awesome pictures.

Fairs A Hundred Years Ago

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, October 1, 1913:

October comes with the colder days.

Dresses the trees in gayest attire.

Garners the harvest in fields far and near

Into great heaps that all may admire.

This is Fair Week but not so the weather. Not going this year, so I won’t take it as hard as some.

Milton Fairgrounds (This picture may have been taken a few years after Grandma wrote this diary entry). Photo source: Milton History. org. Used with permission.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma –

Why aren’t you going to the Milton Fair? You had so much fun last year and even saw an airplane:

Saw a flying machine whirling aloft in the air for at least 10 minutes. I think twas quite a sight to see.

October 3, 1912

There are so many reasons people attend fairs. Here’s what the October, 1913 issue of Farm Journal said about the purpose of fairs:

The word fair, as now used in America, has lost much of its Old world meaning. In this country the fair, whether we call it a world’s fair or a state fair, a county fair or district fair, is an industrial exhibition. And this is as it should be.

It places the fair on a strictly business basis; it makes of it a practical, helpful thing. Conducted on an industrial, practical line, the fair is designed to help both the farmer and the city resident. It is the common meeting ground of all classes. At the fair the man who produces and the man who buys, the grower and the manufacturer, get together. They learn what each is capable of doing, and ascertain each other’s need.

It is remarkable how much benefit we can get out of the fair when we attend filled with a desire to learn—to gain something worthwhile.

The farmer who is seen “taking notes” at a fair—jotting down the name of this big apple, the weight of that monster pumpkin; who writes down all the information he can get about caring for hogs, poultry raising, feeding; who investigates the new kinds of machinery, and secures all available figures about up-to-date methods—that farmer will make his trip to the fair a valuable thing. He can do this and still have plenty of time to accompany his family to the side show, to take a whirl on the merry-go-round, or throw a ball at the doll babies.

Monthly Poem

For information about the monthly poems sees this previous post:

Monthly Poem in Diary