Fearing she might have missed something, Kim reread the entire entry and became impressed with the tragic irony that Elizabeth’s generosity might have caused her to spread the poisonous mold. Perhaps the unspecified evidence somehow proved Elizabeth’s responsibility.
For several minutes Kim stared out the window, pondering this new line of thinking. But try as she might, she couldn’t think of any way Elizabeth could have been implicated. At the time, no way existed to connect the mold with the fits.
Kim looked back at the diary. Carefully, she turned individual pages and glanced at other entries. Most were short: only a few sentences for each day, which included a terse description of the weather.
Kim closed the book and then reopened it from the front. The first entry was 5th December 1678, and was written in a larger, more hesitant script than the last entry fourteen years later. It merely described the day as cold and snowy and gave Elizabeth’s age: thirteen.
Kim closed the book. She wanted to savor the experience. Clutching it to her chest as if it were a treasure, Kim returned to the cottage. Moving a table and a chair to the middle of the room, she sat down. In full view of the portrait she randomly leafed through the pages. On 7 January 1682 Kim found a longer entry.
Elizabeth described the weather as being warm for the season of the year and cloudy. She then matter-of-factly mentioned that she’d been married that day to Ronald Stewart. That short sentence was followed by a long description of the fine carriage she rode from Salem Town. Elizabeth then related her joy and amazement at moving into such a fine house.
Kim smiled. As she read relatively lengthy descriptions of the rooms and their contents she understood that Elizabeth was relating her reactions to moving into the same house Kim was currently moving into. It was a charming coincidence to have found the book on such a day, and it made the three-hundred-year interval that separated Elizabeth and Kim seem suddenly short.
Kim made a quick subtraction and realized that Elizabeth had been only seventeen when she married. Kim could not imagine herself getting married at such an age, especially considering the emotional problems she had during the first few years of college.
Looking ahead in the diary, Kim learned that Elizabeth became pregnant only a few months later. Kim sighed. What would she have done with a child at that age? It was a frightening concept yet obviously Elizabeth had dealt with it admirably. It was also a stark reminder to Kim that birth control had not been available to Elizabeth, and how little control Elizabeth had over her destiny.
Reversing her direction in the notebook, Kim glanced at entries prior to Elizabeth’s marriage to Ronald. She stopped at another relatively long entry for 10 October 1681. Elizabeth recorded that on that hot, sunny day her father returned from Salem Town with an offer of marriage. Elizabeth went on to write:
I was at first troubled in spirit at such a strange affair since I know nothing of this gentleman yet father speaks well of him. Father says the gentleman espied me in September when he visited our land for purposes of timber for masts and spars for his ships. My father says it is for me to decide but that I should know the gentleman has offered most graciously to move us one and all to Salem Town where my father shall work in his company and my dear sister Rebecca should go to school.
A few pages on Elizabeth wrote:
I have told my father I shall accept the proposal of marriage. How can I not? Providence beckons as we have been living these years on poor land in Andover at constant threat of attack by red savages. Our neighbors on both sides have suffered such grave misfortune and many have been killed or taken captive in a most cruel way. I have tried to explain to William Paterson but he does not understand and I fear that he is now ill disposed toward me.
Kim paused and raised her eyes to Elizabeth’s portrait. She was moved by the realization she was reading the thoughts of a seventeen-year-old selfless girl willing to give up a teenage love and to take a chance with fate for the benefit of her family. Kim sighed and wondered when the last time was she had done something completely unselfish.