It’s been done before but I read a story earlier today that totally inspired me so I wrote this. For now it’s a one-shot but if enough people are interested then I will write separate chapters for some of the different girls adding more detail and whatnot into their lives. Enjoy

Disclaimer: I do not own American Girl or any of the characters but the made up children and Amanda at the end.

It Shall Be Passed

Summery: A Nez Perce girl starts a diary on some paper given to her by a woman in a town close to her tribe. Having learned to speak and write in English from this woman Kaya begins a short diary.

Italics diary entries

"." speaking

'.' thoughts

Kaya sat down in her tent. She removed the papers given to her from her sack and looked at them. Searching for a hard place to write she found her ink and quill that had also been given to her. Lying on her stomach the 15 year old entered the date of July 4th and began to write. After she filled 5 pages with the interesting beginning of America she bound all the pages between 2 flaps of spare buffalo skin with a small strip of leather. Her tribe was packing its things for the winter to move to another location. Kaya's mother poked her head into the small tent and told Kaya to get moving. Kaya packed the make-shift diary in with her other belongings and forgot about it.

5 years later as the tribe settled into an old camp ground Kaya unpacked her families belongings. Her daughter was sleeping in the corner as her husband went hunting with the other men. Having unpacked their things she found the make-shift diary she had started. Reading over what she had previously wrote with a smile on her face she filled the remaining 5 pages with what had happened to her. The start of the war hadn't really affected her too greatly as the tribe had previously been too far away. She placed her still sleeping daughter on her back and left the tent with the diary tucked into her sack. The 20 year old Nez Perce woman made the 2 mile hike to the city where she had received the paper 5 years previous. Williamsburg was a beautiful city but Kaya could tell that the War was taking its toll. Strolling through the streets as people starred at her she made her way to the Merriman house. It was Mrs. Merriman who had given her the paper. She knocked on the door and Mrs. Merriman answered. "Mrs. Merriman?" Kaya asked. She had gotten better at English. "Goodness. Kaya is that you?" Mrs. Merriman asked. A smile graced their faces. "It's me. I have brought back the paper you gave me those 5 years ago. I have filled the pages with my story" Kaya said and handing over the make-shift diary. Mrs. Merriman looked through it. "It shall be passed" Mrs. Merriman said quietly and with an understanding Kaya left the city and rejoined her tribe.

The day that Felicity Merriman turned 15 she was given a most peculiar gift from her mother in private. "What is it mother?" Felicity asked as she examined it. "When you were 5 years old I taught a girl from the Nez Perce tribe outside the city how to speak and write in English. I gave her some paper and she filled the pages with her story. She was 15. 5 years ago while you were in class with Mrs. Manderly she returned and gave me this. Her story is now held on these pages and I promised that it shall be passed. I pass this onto you now Lissie so that you may follow her example and leave your own story. I have had the pages holding her story bound into a larger book which is what you see" Mrs. Merriman said. "Thank-you mother" Felicity said. Mrs. Merriman left the room and Felicity took up her ink well and quill. At least 200 pages including the 10 pages holding Kaya's story were now enclosed in a handsome blue hard cover book. Felicity opened it to the 1st available page and wrote her name, her age and the year in the corner neatly. She spent 3 hours filling pages with her adventures with Elizabeth to her courtship with Ben Davidson her father’s apprentice. As her mother called her down for lunch she blew on the ink to dry it before closing the book and placing it on her bookshelf. She hurried down to lunch with her family and forgot about the book. That diary would sit on her bookshelf for another 15 years before it was picked up again.

Felicity Davidson let out a sigh of relief as her husband returned from the store. His arrival earned him all the attention of 13 year old Melissa, 10 year old Mathew, 7 year old Michaela, 4 year old Mandy, and 2 year old Madden. She had started dinner and had put Melissa in charge of watching the 2 youngest but a fight had started out between Michaela and Mandy and she had to intervene. She was glad that Ben had returned home earlier than expected. Dinner was placed on the table and they sat to eat. Felicity's parents had left them the house soon after they were married and moved with Nan, William and Polly out to the Plantation also leaving them the store. Williamsburg had been in a decline after the war but after a few years it had picked itself up and was running smoothly again. Nan had been married 4 years after Felicity to a man she had met while visiting with them in the city. She and Kip Thatcher had made house only a few streets from them and Nan had 3 children. William who had married just that year was living with his wife on the plantation as he had inherited it. Polly was just beginning to court and she and Mr. and Mrs. Merriman were staying in a cottage on the plantation. As Felicity tucked Michaela into bed, the youngest 2 already in bed in another room as well as Mathew in his own room she asked for a story. Melissa who had the regular thoughts of a 13 year old believed herself to be too old for bed time stories and rolled her eyes. Felicity picked a book off the shelf without looking at it and sat in the chair next to Michaela’s bed. She opened the book to find the diary she had forgotten about. "What is it mother?" Michaela asked. "When I was 15 my mother gave this to me. It held the story of a young Nez Perce woman. This diary was given back to my mother by the Nez Perce woman and I have the beginning of my own story in it but I have not seen it for 15 years" Felicity said. "Read it to us mother" Melissa said now interested. At their request Felicity read the diary to them. After they had fallen asleep she left the room quietly with the diary tucked under her arm. She joined Ben downstairs. "What's that?" Ben asked. "A diary that my mother gave me when I turned 15. I must finish writing my story" Felicity said and sat at the writing desk. She wrote well into the night long after Ben had gone to bed. Her last sentence before she was too tired to continue was 'It shall be passed'. The next day Felicity gave the book its new home on a shelf in the room she and Ben shared. The diary sat there forgotten but with Felicity's complete story contained within it. When Felicity's first granddaughter was married Felicity gave her the book to carry with her on her travels. As the young married couple was traveling through Mexico in 1829 the book fell from their bags and was picked up by a 15 year old girl who had suffered her own amount of hardship.

"Josephina. Josephina come inside it's getting late" a woman called. The 15 year old Josephina went into the house clutching the book she had found in the road. She had to wait until after dinner before she could read it but when she did she felt as if she had known the previous two writers. Feeling the need to add her story to theirs she wrote. Her writing continued around her many chores for a few days before she put it in her trunk and forgot about it. 15 years later Josephina was cleaning out the trunk to pass the trunk onto her 10 year old daughter and she found the diary. Reading her previous entry she allowed a few tears to be shed over the loss of her mother before finishing what she had started. She wrapped the book in brown paper and wrote out an address before taking it to the mail office. The book would be sent to some distant family in America. She returned home and eventually forgot about the diary. Unbeknownst to Josephina the book traveled from post office to post office for close to 5 years before settling in the corner of the post office in Williamsburg where it had come from to collect dust. For 7 years the brown paper covered book sat forgotten in the corner of the small post office until one of the new workers picked it up. He dusted it off and found the address of the intended to still be clear. He traced over it so that it was more visible and sent it along through the post.

Back on its journey the book went through post office after post office again until finally in 1879 the book came to rest at its intended residence. The occupants of the house that the book had arrived at were not the intended however. They had moved years before and in their place the Larson family had moved onto the farm. Having immigrated from Sweden 5 years previous they had had many adventure's of their own. Kirsten, the 15 year old daughter was in the house to receive the book while her family was out tending the farm. She opened it curious and was drawn into the world of Kaya, Felicity and Josephina. The address from the book had come had been too faded for Kirsten to read otherwise she would have written to Josephina. Instead she began her own story in the book. Her travels across the ocean and then across America filled 15 pages before she set the book in the bottom drawer of her desk intending to get back to it at a later date. That date wasn't for another 10 years. She now had a family of her own. Still living on the farm Kirsten stumbled across the book in the bottom drawer of her old desk as she was in the attic of the barn. Her desk had been moved out here when she had gotten a better one when she was 17. Now 25 with 2 young children she found the book again and finished her story as the previous three woman had. It was the next night that a runaway slave by the name of Addy asked for shelter in their home. Kirsten and her husband willingly let the young girl into the house and gave her a place to sleep for a few nights as she rested. Having heard Addy's story Kirsten decided that the diary had finished with her and needed to be passed. She slipped it into the sack of the young girl before she left and the book journeyed on.

Addy didn't discover the book for another 5 years for it had buried itself at the bottom of a bag among her possessions. She had found her family and freed them and they now lived as free colored people which were few and far between. When she discovered the book she remembered the kind woman and her young family that had let her stay with them for a few days. Feeling obligated to continue the diary Addy wrote in her story. Her run from slavery and her freedom as well as being reunited with her family. She stowed the book under the floorboard beneath her bed before running off the school. The book lay in the small space under that floorboard for 20 years. Addy's 15 year old daughter found it at she was cleaning her room. Smiling as she remember what she had felt when she 1st found the book she took it and filled an additional 10 pages with the rest of her story ending it with the same sentence that Felicity Davidson had 'It shall be passed'. She allowed her daughter and husband to read it before placing it on the bookshelf and it was but a fleeting thought in their minds as they forgot about it.

As Addy hunted for a bedtime story to read to her 4th grandchild she came across the diary again. It had been 13 years since she had seen it. She read the story of Felicity Merriman to her grandchildren before bed and wondered what she should do with the diary. The pages that had been used were yellowing around the edges. She wrapped the book to preserve its history and placed it in the box of gowns that she had made for a client. She closed the box up and the next day the fairly elderly lady took the box filled with gowns. Addy smiled as she watched the box leave. Hopefully another young woman would find the book as she had and record their own story in it.

It was 1909 before another young woman with a story of her own received the book. Samantha's grandmother with whom she lived had found the book in a box of new gowns that she had purchased. Intrigued by the book she read it but felt that the diary needed to wait for the proper girl to write her story in it so she placed it in her bedside table to await the next story teller. When Samantha turned 15 in 1909 her grandmother gave it to her as Mrs. Merriman had given the book to Felicity. By the end of her 15th birthday Samantha had read the stories 3 times over and was beginning her own. Her friendship with Nellie and the beau she liked were included. When it was time for bed she put the book away in her bedside table and, like all the others, she forgot about it. Samantha found it again a few weeks after she had married the young man she had written about, in 1917. Having packed almost everything else in her room there was one drawer she hadn't opened it years. She pulled the bedside table drawer out to find the faded blue book. She carefully took the book out and opened it to find the ink from all previous entries was as clear as if they had written it the day before. While the pages were yellowing the book was in amazing condition. She packed the book in with her other things and forgot about it again.

Samantha's 12 year old daughter was looking through the old boxes in the attic for something to do that day when she found the book on top of some old clothes. She took it downstairs to her mother who was reading and drinking tea. "What do you have there?" Samantha asked. "A book. You wrote in it" Cecile said and handed it to her mother. "I haven't seen this in years" Samantha said and opened it careful to not crack the binding. After Samantha had put her children to bed with a few of the stories from the diary she sat down with her husband to finish it. His input helped her add things she would not have thought of as he was a writer. The diary preserved the stories of girls long dead and held over a hundred years of history.

It was another 10 years before the diary was passed again. Samantha sat in her living room with spunky 15 year old High School Student Kit Kittredge. An aspiring reporter Kit was doing a report on Samantha's child foundation. "Is there anything else you can tell me about that time?" Kit asked. "Tell you? No there is nothing else I can tell you but I can give you something" Samantha said. She stood from her chair and retried the diary from a nearby bookshelf. "This diary is over one hundred years old. It was started in 1769 by a girl named Kaya of the Nez Perce tribe. It has passed from generation to generation of girls with amazing stories to tell and I think your story may just be the next to grace these pages" Samantha said and handed the book over to Kit. "Did you write in it?" Kit asked. "I did. The woman in that diary have become like my best friends. Take care of it" Samantha said. Kit left the house in wonder about the book. She hurried home so that she could read it. The stories of what girls her own age had gone through were amazing. The great depression had hit people hard. Kit was lucky that her family wasn't too bad but books were no longer easy to get so Kit felt as if the book was a blessing. She sat down at her desk. While she usually typed she would make an exception for this book. She removed her pencil from behind her ear and began to write. She wrote late into the night but the chiming of the clock in the living room told her it was 2 in the morning and she had school. She put her pencil down and put the book on the shelf with her other stories. The book sat there forgotten for 10 years.

Kit was visiting her parents with her husband and son when she found the book among her old stories. Curiously she read her entry again. Deciding that since she was a writer/reporter she couldn't let the story go unfinished she sat down and filled another 15 pages with writing. Kit had met a young woman who she felt would be a good addition to the diary while she was reporting a fundraiser years before. The girl, Molly had been collecting scraps of metal with her friends and Kit was assigned to report on the fundraisers being put on by the class the girl was in. Molly McIntire now attended the local high school and a few days after Kit returned with her husband and son from her visit with her parents she wrapped the book and took it to the High School. She wrote Molly's name on it and gave it to the secretary in the office to get to Molly. Kit left the building with her son on her hip and a smile on her face confident that Molly would add an interesting twist to the rest of the stories.

Molly McIntire was sitting in history class when ironically the diary found her by way of the office secretary. She opened it quietly and was surprised to find a note from the reporter she had met years before. Molly, you may not remember me and that's okay but we met a few years ago while you were collecting scrap metal for our troops. I was given this book when I was 15 by an amazing woman. Many women before her had written their stories in this diary before she received it and she wrote in her own story as well did I. It's your turn now. Read the stories of these amazing woman and then follow up with your. When the book is ready, it shall be passed. Molly had to wait until after school to begin reading the diary and by the time she got home she was more than anxious to read it. She curled up with some pillows on her bed and read the amazing adventure's of girls just like her from over a hundred years before. Molly didn't get the chance to write her own story that night but that weekend she spent all day writing about what it was like growing up during World War II and her adventure's with the friends she made. She put the book away in her keepsake box not intending to forget it but as was the natural order of things she did. However the book was content to wait.

Molly found it again as she was packing her things for her move after she got married but once it was in storage it was forgotten again. It wasn't until 1974 when Molly was 40 with 4 children, 2 daughters, 17 and 10, and 2 sons, 14 and 6, that she found the diary again. The pages were crinkly as the turned them as she was almost afraid to pass the book on again but as she reached her own entry to felt the need to add to it as all the others had. She finished her story with 20 pages remaining in the book. There was enough room in the book for one more girl to write in it and Molly smiled as she imagined who the girl would be and what she would write.

It was another 5 years before the book found it's final storyteller in a friend that Molly's youngest daughter brought home from school. The girl was new to the area and after hearing of some of the girls adventure's Molly decided that Julie Albright would be the last writer in the diary. Before she left Molly took her to the side and gave her the book explaining everything and asking her to take care of it. Julie took it home and like the girls before her read the stories with fascination. Julie filled 10 of the last 20 pages before putting the book away. She decided that she would save the last 10 pages for a rainy day. It rained many times over the next 15 years and still the book had not been finishes. Julie was married with a daughter of 8 by the time the book was taken off the shelf again. The last 10 pages were filled in an hour of all that had happened and she finished her entry and the book with a familiar sentence. 'It shall be passed'.

The book was indeed passed as Julie's 18 year old daughter found the diary in 2004. Almost 300 years of history were written in the diary and for Amanda, Julie's 18 year old daughter it was an amazing feat. She wrote a report on the diary for her Senior Demo class and within the year publishing company's from across America had heard of the diary and wanted to publish it. Amanda and Julie chose Scholastic Books to publish the diary. 'It Shall Be Passed: the diary holding 240 years of girls stories' was published on July 4th 2004 240 years after is had begun. 18 year old Amanda, 40 year old Julie, 70 year old Molly and 80 year old Kit were gathered at a bookstore to launch the book. The 3 women who had actually contributed to the diary read entries from the book for the people who had stopped by the store to hear them. The sun was shining that day in Williamsburg and you could feel the spirits of Kaya, Felicity, Josephina, and Kirsten, Addy and the recently passed Samantha who had passed at age 105 watching and smiling as their stories were indeed passed.