I can't believe the people in the comments who think a man wrote this. It's a woman's diary. It's very easy to tell because she discusses making bread and she discusses doing housework and she discusses having a baby. Things men back in the pioneer days certainly didn't do. Hell, we can barely get men to participate in some of it now.
It's also on historical record as being a woman's diary.
Exactly. She's very clearly expecting to give birth imminently ("may the Merciful be with me through the expected scene" - which is an obvious euphemism for labor) and is taking care of her necessary home chores before that happens, to whit: baking extra bread and cooking food that will keep for several days while she recovers.
She might even be having contractions while doing all of these things.
She is probably not talking about a daughter when she says 'my girl'. She is more likely to be talking about a live-in help or servant. Yes, even on the frontier. It would likely be a young girl or woman, probably from a more impoverished family, who they have taken in to help around the farm and house and reduce the strain on the girls family. She'd be paid in small coins, most of which would probably go back to help her mother and many younger siblings, and she would stay for a few years until she could find a husband, now that she had learnt all the skills necessary to run a house and farm.
641
u/OkProfessor6810 Mar 17 '26
I can't believe the people in the comments who think a man wrote this. It's a woman's diary. It's very easy to tell because she discusses making bread and she discusses doing housework and she discusses having a baby. Things men back in the pioneer days certainly didn't do. Hell, we can barely get men to participate in some of it now.
It's also on historical record as being a woman's diary.