From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This morning I am visiting the Bauers again and Ernestine and I had a lovely time together. We climbed the hayloft and jumped from one stack of hay to the other. Then we went outside and made lots of mud pies and then we went to see the new foal. It is so darling and it is so smart. It can stand and walk already. It stands right under its mother and drinks milk from her. My cousin Helen Violet can’t even stand up and she is over six months old. Mr. Bauer said that I could name the foal, it’s a girl. It was really hard to decide, there are so many lovely names that I wish I could have just for myself, like Allegra or Mimi or Elaine. Elaine was a very beautiful lady with golden hair who floated down a river on a barge with a lily in her hand, only it is a sad story and she is holding the lily because she is dead. Then I thought of Belinda. Belinda is a yellow hen in one of my books. Of course a little hen doesn’t remind me of a horse, but it doesn’t make any difference, I like the name. I told Mr. Bauer that I want to call the foal Belinda and he said fine, we would have a christening. He told Ernestine to go back to the house to fetch a pitcher of milk and some cookies and Mrs. Bauer, too. When they arrived, he began the ceremony and dipped his fingers in a watering pot and sprinkled a few drops of water on the baby horse and he said, “I christen thee Belinda in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” I know all about the Father and The Son but I don’t know about the Holy Ghost or what he has to do with it, I guess I will find out. Then we ate the cookies and drank the milk. I wanted to give Belinda a cookie, but Mr. Bauer said that she is too young yet.
Hilda recalls the story of Elaine’s unrequited love for Lancelot. Perhaps she had read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elaine” from Idylls of the King, 1859-1885 or “The Lady Lady of Shallott,” 1832.
I could not find a reference to a children’s book about a yellow hen named Belinda -- perhaps Hilda was recalling Billina the chicken in the Oz books. She was introduced in Ozma of Oz in 1907. For me, it’s an odd coincidence that the hen’s name is so close to my grandmother’s birthplace in Bohemia – Bilin, called Bílina in Czech.