At that time, Pearl’s head was full of dreams. Based on entries in her diary, she had become fixated on a local beau who made occasional visits to the Adkins home.

     “It’s been a many sad and dreary days since I had last seen him,” Pearl wrote on February 6, 1922. “I almost count the hours and minutes of his absence. So why worry? Life is what we make it. Oh dear, when shall I see you again?”

     “Oh, you are here,” she wrote later that day. “As I looked up from my work I gazed straight into the kindest eyes I’d ever seen — deep and unfathomable like a well of clear, pure water where my famished soul might drink. His clear sweet voice broke the spell, and I dropped my gaze while the hot blood burned over my neck and cheeks. It has the same affect now as I write this as when it happened. It causes my heart to beat wildly and my hand to tremble so I can’t work at my sewing.”

     The following day, Pearl’s thoughts drifted away from romance and more toward her handicap.

     “A day remembered by me if by no other,” she wrote on February 7, “but no one remembers me or my lonely life. Shut up here a helpless cripple for all this time.”

     Four days later, on February 11, Pearl was stirred to write again about the object of her affection.

     “Oh, I wish I could see my darling boy this evening. It seems that every one comes — all but the one I love.”

     “Now alone in my little hut,” she wrote on the 12th, “but my thoughts and dreams has wondered to one in a far distant country.”

     “He has completely gone out of my presence but not out of my mind,” Adkins wrote on March 14. “He is always with me in my day dreams. He will never be mine but nothing can prevent my loving him forever and ever. I see him now as I last saw him as he stood gazing out the window at the mist and rain. Aw, how he looked and looked as if he was grieving about some thing. He made a sad picture. It makes me cry when alone and to imagine him standing there. Oh God, that could I shut that out of my mind my life wouldn’t be so lonely. I don’t see what makes me always think of him when I know he cares nothing for me. All there is left for me to do is hope and pray for his love.”

     On March 29, Pearl wrote, “Oh, what a sweet dream I had last night and I feel that it’s coming to pass. Why shouldn’t it come to pass? Haven’t I suffered long enough?”