Saturday
May 31, 1958
Dear Diary,
...“Siccum, Spotty! GO! SICCUM!” I yelled. Spot knows that siccum means for him to chase. So he jumped up and started looking around. Finally he spied the cat and took off to chase it. But the cat saw him coming and high-tailed it straight to the barn and got away. Now the cat was a long ways away from Spotty to begin with, and I knew Spot would never catch up to it. I didn't want him to. It was kind of a trick on Spot. And watching the goofy way he acted was making me laugh! But Dad heard me and saw Spotty chasing after the cat and got mad. I didn't know that, though, until I saw him coming toward me with a kinnikinnick switch in his hand and a mad look on his face. “Did you just sic Spot onto that cat? WELL, DID YA'?” He yelled so loud at me. I was really scared. I knew he was going to beat me with that stick. I nodded my head yes anyway, and I said, “But I was just playing, Dad.” He said, “Well I'm sure not playing!” He grabbed me by my left hand and yanked me out of the swing real rough. He put my left hand between his knees and held it tight that way like it was in a vise. He held my other hand with his left hand. I couldn't get away from him at all. Then he whipped me and whipped me right on my bare legs with that stick like a bullwhip! Afterwards I came to my room and laid on my bed and cried a long time. I stayed here until time to go to confession. When I told Father Kotz that I sicced a dog onto a cat, he asked me, “You believe that is a sin?”And I said, “Why, yes, Father, it must be.”


Monday
October 6, 1958
Dear Diary,
When we walked home from school today, my back was hurting so bad that I couldn't keep up with Jody and Rosie. They got so far ahead of me that I was left all alone. But I didn't feel like I was all alone. I never do, even when I am. Something is always there with me. I just can't see it. I can't hear it, either, but I feel it. I know I have a Guardian Angel, too, but that's not what it is. (I don't know how I know that, I just do!) And I'm not scared of it. It's just something that's always there with me. But I feel it mostly when I'm all by myself. I feel it when I'm out roaming with Spotty, then he runs off from me. I feel it when I climb way up high to my lookout spot in the barn. And I feel it when I just sit between the cornrows. Whatever it is makes me feel really happy inside. I wonder sometimes if maybe it could be God?


Thursday
October 23, 1958
Dear Diary,
After school today I sat out by the old shed so I could be by myself. I saw autumn all around me. And I listened to the cornfield rustling, and I saw the red and orange and gold trees. I wish things could always be pretty and nice like this. And I wish I could stay this age forever. I like being twelve and I don't think being a grown up will be so fun. The orange barn cat saw me and came over to me. I held him and petted him and he purred his head off. After awhile he left. Then I started thinking about how winter was coming. It made me real sad because I know the leaves and plants and the grass all die then. When I came back in the house I told Mama, “I love autumn but I hate winter because everything's dead!” And she said, “Honey, don't you know by now that things aren't dead, they're just sleeping? In the spring they all wake up again and 'spring' back to life.”


Wednesday
October 29, 1958
Dear Diary,
I sat out on the cement foundation at school the whole lunch recess. Mama said that now winter is just around the corner. When it's all cold and snowy I won't be sitting on the cement. So I'd better do it while I have the chance. Mr. Lewis was picking his popcorn today. He waved at me. And the rock trucks were going in and out of the quarry. But that's on the other side of the popcorn field and they can't see me. I don't want them to see me, either. I just wanted to look around and smell autumn in the air. And I thought about what Mama said, that Indian Summer is ending and winter is close. And what she said the other day, too, that things don't really die, that they're just sleeping, and they'll wake up again. Then I thought about all those poor people that Starkweather killed. And I thought about my little cousin Tommy, and my Uncle Johnny, and Father Chaney, and Dwayne the barber, and even my Grandpa Foster. Then there were the animals, all those pigs that got cholera, Stinky the rooster, Dinky duck, and Lad, the dog—even the screech owl that Dad shot out of the swing tree, and that bull snake that Mama killed with the axe! They all died, and not a single one of them came back!


Thursday
November 20, 1958
Dear Diary,
...as I looked out over everything from my lookout spot high in the barn, it made me think about something I've never thought about before. Would the way all of this seems to me be the same way it would seem to someone else? Would it look the same and smell the same and sound the same? Would someone else love all these things the same way I do? I wonder if the way everything seems to me is the same way it seems to other people? How would I ever know?