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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dear Enemy
+
+Author: Jean Webster
+
+Release Date: July 3, 2008 [EBook #238]
+Last updated: November 14, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAR ENEMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mike Lynch
+
+
+
+
+
+DEAR ENEMY
+
+By Jean Webster
+
+
+
+STONE GATE, WORCESTER,
+
+MASSACHUSETTS,
+
+December 27.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I
+understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the
+making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that
+you have chosen me to disburse the money? Me--I, Sallie McBride, the
+head of an orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or
+have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is this the raving of
+two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of
+one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo.
+
+And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? My dear
+Judy,--likewise my dear Jervis,--I see through you! I know exactly
+the kind of family conference that has been held about the Pendleton
+fireside.
+
+"Isn't it a pity that Sallie hasn't amounted to more since she left
+college? She ought to be doing something useful instead of frittering
+her time away in the petty social life of Worcester. Also [Jervis
+speaks] she is getting interested in that confounded young Hallock, too
+good-looking and fascinating and erratic; I never did like politicians.
+We must deflect her mind with some uplifting and absorbing occupation
+until the danger is past. Ha! I have it! We will put her in charge of
+the John Grier Home." Oh, I can hear him as clearly as if I were there!
+On the occasion of my last visit in your delectable household Jervis and
+I had a very solemn conversation in regard to (1) marriage, (2) the low
+ideals of politicians, (3) the frivolous, useless lives that society
+women lead.
+
+Please tell your moral husband that I took his words deeply to heart,
+and that ever since my return to Worcester I have been spending one
+afternoon a week reading poetry with the inmates of the Female Inebriate
+Asylum. My life is not so purposeless as it appears.
+
+Also let me assure you that the politician is not dangerously imminent;
+and that, anyway, he is a very desirable politician, even though
+his views on tariff and single tax and trade-unionism do not exactly
+coincide with Jervis's.
+
+Your desire to dedicate my life to the public good is very sweet, but
+you should look at it from the asylum's point of view.
+
+Have you no pity for those poor defenseless little orphan children?
+
+I have, if you haven't, and I respectfully decline the position which
+you offer.
+
+I shall be charmed, however, to accept your invitation to visit you in
+New York, though I must acknowledge that I am not very excited over the
+list of gaieties you have planned.
+
+Please substitute for the New York Orphanage and the Foundling Hospital
+a few theaters and operas and a dinner or so. I have two new evening
+gowns and a blue and gold coat with a white fur collar.
+
+I dash to pack them; so telegraph fast if you don't wish to see me for
+myself alone, but only as a successor to Mrs. Lippett. Yours as ever,
+
+Entirely frivolous,
+
+And intending to remain so,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+P.S. Your invitation is especially seasonable. A charming young
+politician named Gordon Hallock is to be in New York next week. I am
+sure you will like him when you know him better. P.S. 2. Sallie taking
+her afternoon walk as Judy would like to see her:
+
+
+I ask you again, have you both gone mad?
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+February 15.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+We arrived in a snowstorm at eleven last night, Singapore and Jane and
+I. It does not appear to be customary for superintendents of orphan
+asylums to bring with them personal maids and Chinese chows. The night
+watchman and housekeeper, who had waited up to receive me, were thrown
+into an awful flutter. They had never seen the like of Sing, and thought
+that I was introducing a wolf into the fold. I reassured them as to his
+dogginess, and the watchman, after studying his black tongue, ventured a
+witticism. He wanted to know if I fed him on huckleberry pie.
+
+It was difficult to find accommodations for my family. Poor Sing was
+dragged off whimpering to a strange woodshed, and given a piece of
+burlap. Jane did not fare much better. There was not an extra bed in
+the building, barring a five-foot crib in the hospital room. She, as you
+know, approaches six. We tucked her in, and she spent the night folded
+up like a jackknife. She has limped about today, looking like a decrepit
+letter S, openly deploring this latest escapade on the part of her
+flighty mistress, and longing for the time when we shall come to our
+senses, and return to the parental fireside in Worcester.
+
+I know that she is going to spoil all my chances of being popular with
+the rest of the staff. Having her here is the silliest idea that was
+ever conceived, but you know my family. I fought their objections step
+by step, but they made their last stand on Jane. If I brought her along
+to see that I ate nourishing food and didn't stay up all night, I might
+come--temporarily; but if I refused to bring her--oh, dear me, I am not
+sure that I was ever again to cross the threshold of Stone Gate! So here
+we are, and neither of us very welcome, I am afraid.
+
+I woke by a gong at six this morning, and lay for a time listening to
+the racket that twenty-five little girls made in the lavatory over my
+head. It appears that they do not get baths,--just face-washes,--but
+they make as much splashing as twenty-five puppies in a pool. I rose and
+dressed and explored a bit. You were wise in not having me come to look
+the place over before I engaged.
+
+While my little charges were at breakfast, it seemed a happy time
+to introduce myself; so I sought the dining room. Horror piled on
+horror--those bare drab walls and oil-cloth-covered tables with tin
+cups and plates and wooden benches, and, by way of decoration, that one
+illuminated text, "The Lord Will Provide"! The trustee who added that
+last touch must possess a grim sense of humor.
+
+Really, Judy, I never knew there was any spot in the world so
+entirely ugly; and when I saw those rows and rows of pale, listless,
+blue-uniformed children, the whole dismal business suddenly struck
+me with such a shock that I almost collapsed. It seemed like an
+unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine to one hundred little
+faces when what they need is a mother apiece.
+
+I plunged into this thing lightly enough, partly because you were too
+persuasive, and mostly, I honestly think, because that scurrilous Gordon
+Hallock laughed so uproariously at the idea of my being able to manage
+an asylum. Between you all you hypnotized me. And then of course, after
+I began reading up on the subject and visiting all those seventeen
+institutions, I got excited over orphans, and wanted to put my own ideas
+into practice. But now I'm aghast at finding myself here; it's such a
+stupendous undertaking. The future health and happiness of a hundred
+human beings lie in my hands, to say nothing of their three or four
+hundred children and thousand grandchildren. The thing's geometrically
+progressive. It's awful. Who am I to undertake this job? Look, oh, look
+for another superintendent!
+
+Jane says dinner's ready. Having eaten two of your institution meals,
+the thought of another doesn't excite me.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+The staff had mutton hash and spinach, with tapioca pudding for dessert.
+What the children had I hate to consider.
+
+I started to tell you about my first official speech at breakfast this
+morning. It dealt with all the wonderful new changes that are to come to
+the John Grier Home through the generosity of Mr. Jervis Pendleton,
+the president of our board of trustees, and of Mrs. Pendleton, the dear
+"Aunt Judy" of every little boy and girl here.
+
+Please don't object to my featuring the Pendleton family so prominently.
+I did it for political reasons. As the entire working staff of the
+institution was present, I thought it a good opportunity to emphasize
+the fact that all of these upsetting, innovations come straight from
+headquarters, and not out of my excitable brain.
+
+The children stopped eating and stared. The conspicuous color of my
+hair and the frivolous tilt of my nose are evidently new attributes in a
+superintendent. My colleagues also showed plainly that they consider me
+too young and too inexperienced to be set in authority. I haven't seen
+Jervis's wonderful Scotch doctor yet, but I assure you that he will have
+to be VERY wonderful to make up for the rest of these people, especially
+the kindergarten teacher. Miss Snaith and I clashed early on the subject
+of fresh air; but I intend to get rid of this dreadful institution
+smell, if I freeze every child into a little ice statue.
+
+This being a sunny, sparkling, snowy afternoon, I ordered that dungeon
+of a playroom closed and the children out of doors.
+
+"She's chasin' us out," I heard one small urchin grumbling as he
+struggled into a two-years-too-small overcoat.
+
+They simply stood about the yard, all humped in their clothes, waiting
+patiently to be allowed to come back in. No running or shouting or
+coasting or snowballs. Think of it! These children don't know how to
+play.
+
+STILL LATER.
+
+
+I have already begun the congenial task of spending your money. I bought
+eleven hot-water bottles this afternoon (every one that the village drug
+store contained) likewise some woolen blankets and padded quilts. And
+the windows are wide open in the babies' dormitory. Those poor little
+tots are going to enjoy the perfectly new sensation of being able to
+breathe at night.
+
+There are a million things I want to grumble about, but it's half-past
+ten, and Jane says I MUST go to bed.
+
+Yours in command,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. Before turning in, I tiptoed through the corridor to make sure that
+all was right, and what do you think I found? Miss Snaith softly closing
+the windows in the babies' dormitory! Just as soon as I can find
+a suitable position for her in an old ladies' home, I am going to
+discharge that woman.
+
+Jane takes the pen from my hand.
+
+Good night.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+February 20.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Dr. Robin MacRae called this afternoon to make the acquaintance of the
+new superintendent. Please invite him to dinner upon the occasion of his
+next visit to New York, and see for yourself what your husband has done.
+Jervis grossly misrepresented the facts when he led me to believe
+that one of the chief advantages of my position would be the daily
+intercourse with a man of Dr. MacRae's polish and brilliancy and
+scholarliness and charm.
+
+He is tall and thinnish, with sandy hair and cold gray eyes. During the
+hour he spent in my society (and I was very sprightly) no shadow of a
+smile so much as lightened the straight line of his mouth. Can a shadow
+lighten? Maybe not; but, anyway, what IS the matter with the man? Has he
+committed some remorseful crime, or is his taciturnity due merely to his
+natural Scotchness? He's as companionable as a granite tombstone!
+
+Incidentally, our doctor didn't like me any more than I liked him. He
+thinks I'm frivolous and inconsequential, and totally unfitted for this
+position of trust. I dare say Jervis has had a letter from him by now
+asking to have me removed.
+
+In the matter of conversation we didn't hit it off in the least. He
+discussed broadly and philosophically the evils of institutional care
+for dependent children, while I lightly deplored the unbecoming coiffure
+that prevails among our girls.
+
+To prove my point, I had in Sadie Kate, my special errand orphan. Her
+hair is strained back as tightly as though it had been done with a
+monkey wrench, and is braided behind into two wiry little pigtails.
+Decidedly, orphans' ears need to be softened. But Dr. Robin MacRae
+doesn't give a hang whether their ears are becoming or not; what he
+cares about is their stomachs. We also split upon the subject of
+red petticoats. I don't see how any little girl can preserve any
+self-respect when dressed in a red flannel petticoat an irregular inch
+longer than her blue checked gingham dress; but he thinks that red
+petticoats are cheerful and warm and hygienic. I foresee a warlike reign
+for the new superintendent.
+
+In regard to the doctor, there is just one detail to be thankful for: he
+is almost as new as I am, and he cannot instruct me in the traditions
+of the asylum. I don't believe I COULD have worked with the old doctor,
+who, judging from the specimens of his art that he left behind, knew as
+much about babies as a veterinary surgeon.
+
+In the matter of asylum etiquette, the entire staff has undertaken my
+education. Even the cook this morning told me firmly that the John Grier
+Home has corn meal mush on Wednesday nights.
+
+Are you searching hard for another superintendent? I'll stay until she
+comes, but please find her fast.
+
+Yours,
+
+With my mind made up,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+SUP'T'S OFFICE,
+
+JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+February 27.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Are you still insulted because I wouldn't take your advice? Don't you
+know that a reddish-haired person of Irish forebears, with a dash of
+Scotch, can't be driven, but must be gently led? Had you been less
+obnoxiously insistent, I should have listened sweetly, and been saved.
+As it is, I frankly confess that I have spent the last five days in
+repenting our quarrel. You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you
+see, I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from this present
+predicament, I shall in the future be guided (almost always) by your
+judgment. Could any woman make a more sweeping retraction than that?
+
+The romantic glamour which Judy cast over this orphan asylum exists only
+in her poetic imagination. The place is AWFUL. Words can't tell you
+how dreary and dismal and smelly it is: long corridors, bare walls;
+blue-uniformed, dough-faced little inmates that haven't the slightest
+resemblance to human children. And oh, the dreadful institution smell!
+A mingling of wet scrubbed floors, unaired rooms, and food for a hundred
+people always steaming on the stove.
+
+The asylum not only has to be made over, but every child as well, and
+it's too herculean a task for such a selfish, luxurious, and lazy person
+as Sallie McBride ever to have undertaken. I'm resigning the very first
+moment that Judy can find a suitable successor, but that, I fear, will
+not be immediately. She has gone off South, leaving me stranded, and of
+course, after having promised, I can't simply abandon her asylum. But in
+the meantime I assure you that I'm homesick.
+
+Write me a cheering letter, and send a flower to brighten my private
+drawing room. I inherited it, furnished, from Mrs. Lippett. The wall
+is covered with a tapestry paper in brown and red; the furniture is
+electric-blue plush, except the center table, which is gilt. Green
+predominates in the carpet. If you presented some pink rosebuds, they
+would complete the color scheme.
+
+I really was obnoxious that last evening, but you are avenged.
+
+Remorsefully yours,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. You needn't have been so grumpy about the Scotch doctor. The man is
+everything dour that the word "Scotch" implies. I detest him on sight,
+and he detests me. Oh, we're going to have a sweet time working together
+
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+February 22.
+
+My dear Gordon:
+
+Your vigorous and expensive message is here. I know that you have plenty
+of money, but that is no reason why you should waste it so frivolously.
+When you feel so bursting with talk that only a hundred-word telegram
+will relieve an explosion, at least turn it into a night lettergram. My
+orphans can use the money if you don't need it.
+
+Also, my dear sir, please use a trifle of common sense. Of course I
+can't chuck the asylum in the casual manner you suggest. It wouldn't
+be fair to Judy and Jervis. If you will pardon the statement, they have
+been my friends for many more years than you, and I have no intention
+of letting them go hang. I came up here in a spirit of--well, say
+adventure, and I must see the venture through. You wouldn't like me if
+I were a short sport. This doesn't mean, however, that I am sentencing
+myself for life; I am intending to resign just as soon as the
+opportunity comes. But really I ought to feel somewhat gratified that
+the Pendletons were willing to trust me with such a responsible post.
+Though you, my dear sir, do not suspect it, I possess considerable
+executive ability, and more common sense than is visible on the surface.
+If I chose to put my whole soul into this enterprise, I could make the
+rippingest superintendent that any 111 orphans ever had.
+
+I suppose you think that's funny? It's true. Judy and Jervis know it,
+and that's why they asked me to come. So you see, when they have
+shown so much confidence in me, I can't throw them over in quite the
+unceremonious fashion you suggest. So long as I am here, I am going to
+accomplish just as much as it is given one person to accomplish every
+twenty-four hours. I am going to turn the place over to my successor
+with things moving fast in the right direction.
+
+But in the meantime please don't wash your hands of me under the belief
+that I'm too busy to be homesick; for I'm not. I wake up every morning
+and stare at Mrs. Lippett's wallpaper in a sort of daze, feeling as
+though it's some bad dream, and I'm not really here. What on earth was I
+thinking of to turn my back upon my nice cheerful own home and the good
+times that by rights are mine? I frequently agree with your opinion of
+my sanity.
+
+But why, may I ask, should you be making such a fuss? You wouldn't be
+seeing me in any case. Worcester is quite as far from Washington as the
+John Grier Home. And I will add, for your further comfort, that whereas
+there is no man in the neighborhood of this asylum who admires red hair,
+in Worcester there are several. Therefore, most difficult of men, please
+be appeased. I didn't come entirely to spite you. I wanted an adventure
+in life, and, oh dear! oh dear! I'm having it! PLEASE write soon, and
+cheer me up. Yours in sackcloth,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+February 24. Dear Judy:
+
+You tell Jervis that I am not hasty at forming judgments. I have a
+sweet, sunny, unsuspicious nature, and I like everybody, almost. But no
+one could like that Scotch doctor. He NEVER smiles.
+
+He paid me another visit this afternoon. I invited him to accommodate
+himself in one of Mrs. Lippett's electric-blue chairs, and then sat
+down opposite to enjoy the harmony. He was dressed in a mustard-colored
+homespun, with a dash of green and a glint of yellow in the weave, a
+"heather mixture" calculated to add life to a dull Scotch moor. Purple
+socks and a red tie, with an amethyst pin, completed the picture.
+Clearly, your paragon of a doctor is not going to be of much assistance
+in pulling up the esthetic tone of this establishment.
+
+During the fifteen minutes of his call he succinctly outlined all the
+changes he wishes to see accomplished in this institution. HE forsooth!
+And what, may I ask, are the duties of a superintendent? Is she merely a
+figurehead to take orders from the visiting physician?
+
+It's up wi' the bonnets o' McBride and MacRae!
+
+I am,
+
+Indignantly yours, SALLIE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Monday.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am sending this note by Sadie Kate, as it seems impossible to reach
+you by telephone. Is the person who calls herself Mrs. McGur-rk and
+hangs up in the middle of a sentence your housekeeper? If she answers
+the telephone often, I don't see how your patients have any patience
+left.
+
+As you did not come this morning, per agreement, and the painters did
+come, I was fain to choose a cheerful corn color to be placed upon the
+walls of your new laboratory room. I trust there is nothing unhygienic
+about corn color.
+
+Also, if you can spare a moment this afternoon, kindly motor yourself
+to Dr. Brice's on Water Street and look at the dentist's chair and
+appurtenances which are to be had at half-price. If all of the pleasant
+paraphernalia of his profession were here,--in a corner of your
+laboratory,--Dr. Brice could finish his 111 new patients with much more
+despatch than if we had to transport them separately to Water Street.
+Don't you think that's a useful idea? It came to me in the middle of
+the night, but as I never happened to buy a dentist's chair before, I'd
+appreciate some professional advice. Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+March 1.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Do stop sending me telegrams!
+
+Of course I know that you want to know everything that is happening, and
+I would send a daily bulletin, but I truly don't find a minute. I am so
+tired when night comes that if it weren't for Jane's strict discipline,
+I should go to bed with my clothes on.
+
+Later, when we slip a little more into routine, and I can be sure that
+my assistants are all running off their respective jobs, I shall be the
+regularest correspondent you ever had.
+
+It was five days ago, wasn't it, that I wrote? Things have been
+happening in those five days. The MacRae and I have mapped out a plan of
+campaign, and are stirring up this place to its sluggish depths. I like
+him less and less, but we have declared a sort of working truce. And the
+man IS a worker. I always thought I had sufficient energy myself, but
+when an improvement is to be introduced, I toil along panting in his
+wake. He is as stubborn and tenacious and bull-doggish as a Scotchman
+can be, but he does understand babies; that is, he understands their
+physiological aspects. He hasn't any more feeling for them personally
+than for so many frogs that he might happen to be dissecting.
+
+Do you remember Jervis's holding forth one evening for an hour or so
+about our doctor's beautiful humanitarian ideals? C'EST A RIRE! The man
+merely regards the J. G. H. as his own private laboratory, where he
+can try out scientific experiments with no loving parents to object.
+I shouldn't be surprised anyday to find him introducing scarlet fever
+cultures into the babies' porridge in order to test a newly invented
+serum.
+
+Of the house staff, the only two who strike me as really efficient are
+the primary teacher and the furnace-man. You should see how the children
+run to meet Miss Matthews and beg for caresses, and how painstakingly
+polite they are to the other teachers. Children are quick to size up
+character. I shall be very embarrassed if they are too polite to me.
+
+Just as soon as I get my bearings a little, and know exactly what we
+need, I am going to accomplish some widespread discharging. I should
+like to begin with Miss Snaith; but I discover that she is the niece
+of one of our most generous trustees, and isn't exactly dischargeable.
+She's a vague, chinless, pale-eyed creature, who talks through her nose
+and breathes through her mouth. She can't say anything decisively and
+then stop; her sentences all trail off into incoherent murmurings. Every
+time I see the woman I feel an almost uncontrollable desire to take her
+by the shoulders and shake some decision into her. And Miss Snaith is
+the one who has had entire supervision of the seventeen little tots aged
+from two to five! But, anyway, even if I can't discharge her, I have
+reduced her to a subordinate position without her being aware of the
+fact.
+
+The doctor has found for me a charming girl who lives a few miles from
+here and comes in every day to manage the kindergarten. She has big,
+gentle, brown eyes, like a cow's, and motherly manners (she is just
+nineteen), and the babies love her.
+
+At the head of the nursery I have placed a jolly, comfortable
+middle-aged woman who has reared five of her own and has a hand with
+bairns. Our doctor also found her. You see, he is useful. She is
+technically under Miss Snaith, but is usurping dictatorship in a
+satisfactory fashion. I can now sleep at night without being afraid that
+my babies are being inefficiently murdered.
+
+You see, our reforms are getting started; and while I acquiesce with
+all the intelligence at my command to our doctor's basic scientific
+upheavals, still, they sometimes leave me cold. The problem that keeps
+churning and churning in my mind is: How can I ever instil enough love
+and warmth and sunshine into those bleak little lives? And I am not sure
+that the doctor's science will accomplish that.
+
+One of our most pressing INTELLIGENT needs just now is to get our
+records into coherent form. The books have been most outrageously
+unkept. Mrs. Lippett had a big black account book into which she jumbled
+any facts that happened to drift her way as to the children's family,
+their conduct, and their health. But for weeks at a time she didn't
+trouble to make an entry. If any adopting family wants to know a child's
+parentage, half the time we can't even tell where we got the child!
+
+     "Where did you come from, baby dear?"
+     "The blue sky opened, and I am here,"
+
+is an exact description of their arrival.
+
+We need a field worker to travel about the country and pick up all
+the hereditary statistics she can about our chicks. It will be an easy
+matter, as most of them have relatives. What do you think of Janet Ware
+for the job? You remember what a shark she was in economics; she simply
+battened on tables and charts and surveys.
+
+I have also to inform you that the John Grier Home is undergoing a very
+searching physical examination, and it is the shocking truth that out
+of the twenty-eight poor little rats so far examined only five are up to
+specification. And the five have not been here long.
+
+Do you remember the ugly green reception room on the first floor? I have
+removed as much of its greenness as possible, and fitted it up as the
+doctor's laboratory. It contains scales and drugs and, most professional
+touch of all, a dentist's chair and one of those sweet grinding
+machines. (Bought them second-hand from Doctor Brice in the village, who
+is putting in, for the gratification of his own patients, white enamel
+and nickel-plate.) That drilling machine is looked upon as an infernal
+engine, and I as an infernal monster for instituting it. But every
+little victim who is discharged FILLED may come to my room every day for
+a week and receive two pieces of chocolate. Though our children are not
+conspicuously brave, they are, we discover, fighters. Young Thomas Kehoe
+nearly bit the doctor's thumb in two after kicking over a tableful of
+instruments. It requires physical strength as well as skill to be dental
+adviser to the J. G. H. . . . . . . . . . .
+
+Interrupted here to show a benevolent lady over the institution. She
+asked fifty irrelevant questions, took up an hour of my time, then
+finally wiped away a tear and left a dollar for my "poor little
+charges."
+
+So far, my poor little charges are not enthusiastic about these new
+reforms. They don't care much for the sudden draft of fresh air that has
+blown in upon them, or the deluge of water. I am shoving in two baths
+a week, and as soon as we collect tubs enough and a few extra faucets,
+they are going to get SEVEN.
+
+But at least I have started one most popular reform. Our daily bill
+of fare has been increased, a change deplored by the cook as causing
+trouble, and deplored by the rest of the staff as causing an immoral
+increase in expense. ECONOMY spelt in capitals has been the guiding
+principle of this institution for so many years that it has become a
+religion. I assure my timid co-workers twenty times a day that, owing to
+the generosity of our president, the endowment has been exactly doubled,
+and that I have vast sums besides from Mrs. Pendleton for necessary
+purposes like ice cream. But they simply CAN'T get over the feeling that
+it is a wicked extravagance to feed these children.
+
+The doctor and I have been studying with care the menus of the past, and
+we are filled with amazement at the mind that could have devised them.
+Here is one of her frequently recurring dinners:
+
+BOILED POTATOES BOILED RICE BLANC MANGE
+
+
+It's a wonder to me that the children are anything more than one hundred
+and eleven little lumps of starch.
+
+Looking about this institution, one is moved to misquote Robert
+Browning.
+
+     "There may be heaven; there must be hell;
+     Meantime, there is the John Grier--well!"
+S. McB.
+
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Saturday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Dr. Robin MacRae and I fought another battle yesterday over a very
+trivial matter (in which I was right), and since then I have adopted for
+our doctor a special pet name. "Good morning, Enemy!" was my greeting
+today, at which he was quite solemnly annoyed. He says he does not wish
+to be regarded as an enemy. He is not in the least antagonistic--so long
+as I mold my policy upon his wishes!
+
+We have two new children, Isador Gutschneider and Max Yog, given to us
+by the Baptist Ladies' Aid Society. Where on earth do you suppose those
+children picked up such a religion? I didn't want to take them, but the
+poor ladies were very persuasive, and they pay the princely sum of four
+dollars and fifty cents per week per child. This makes 113, which makes
+us very crowded. I have half a dozen babies to give away. Find me some
+kind families who want to adopt.
+
+You know it's very embarrassing not to be able to remember offhand how
+large your family is, but mine seems to vary from day to day, like the
+stock market. I should like to keep it at about par. When a woman
+has more than a hundred children, she can't give them the individual
+attention they ought to have.
+
+
+Monday.
+
+
+This letter has been lying two days on my desk, and I haven't found the
+time to stick on a stamp. But now I seem to have a free evening ahead,
+so I will add a page or two more before starting it on a pleasant
+journey to Florida.
+
+I am just beginning to pick out individual faces among the children.
+It seemed at first as though I could never learn them, they looked so
+hopelessly cut out of one pattern, with those unspeakably ugly uniforms.
+Now please don't write back that you want the children put into new
+clothes immediately. I know you do; you've already told me five times.
+In about a month I shall be ready to consider the question, but just now
+their insides are more important than their outsides.
+
+There is no doubt about it--orphans in the mass do not appeal to me. I
+am beginning to be afraid that this famous mother instinct which we hear
+so much about was left out of my character. Children as children are
+dirty, spitty little things, and their noses all need wiping. Here
+and there I pick out a naughty, mischievous little one that awakens a
+flicker of interest; but for the most part they are just a composite
+blur of white face and blue check.
+
+With one exception, though. Sadie Kate Kilcoyne emerged from the mass
+the first day, and bids fair to stay out for all time. She is my special
+little errand girl, and she furnishes me with all my daily amusement.
+No piece of mischief has been launched in this institution for the last
+eight years that did not originate in her abnormal brain. This young
+person has, to me, a most unusual history, though I understand it's
+common enough in foundling circles. She was discovered eleven years
+ago on the bottom step of a Thirty-ninth Street house, asleep in a
+pasteboard box labeled, "Altman & Co."
+
+"Sadie Kate Kilcoyne, aged five weeks. Be kind to her," was neatly
+printed on the cover.
+
+The policeman who picked her up took her to Bellevue where the
+foundlings are pronounced, in the order of their arrival, "Catholic,
+Protestant, Catholic, Protestant," with perfect impartiality. Our Sadie
+Kate, despite her name and blue Irish eyes, was made a Protestant. And
+here she is growing Irisher and Irisher every day, but, true to her
+christening, protesting loudly against every detail of life.
+
+Her two little black braids point in opposite directions; her little
+monkey face is all screwed up with mischief; she is as active as a
+terrier, and you have to keep her busy every moment. Her record of
+badnesses occupies pages in the Doomsday Book. The last item reads:
+
+"For stumping Maggie Geer to get a doorknob into her mouth--punishment,
+the afternoon spent in bed, and crackers for supper."
+
+It seems that Maggie Geer, fitted with a mouth of unusual stretching
+capacity, got the doorknob in, but couldn't get it out. The doctor
+was called, and cannily solved the problem with a buttered shoe-horn.
+"Muckle-mouthed Meg," he has dubbed the patient ever since.
+
+You can understand that my thoughts are anxiously occupied in filling
+every crevice of Sadie Kate's existence.
+
+There are a million subjects that I ought to consult with the president
+about. I think it was very unkind of you and him to saddle me with your
+orphan asylum and run off South to play. It would serve you right if I
+did everything wrong. While you are traveling about in private cars, and
+strolling in the moonlight on palm beaches, please think of me in the
+drizzle of a New York March, taking care of 113 babies that by rights
+are yours--and be grateful.
+
+I remain (for a limited time),
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+SUP'T JOHN GRIER HOME.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+I am sending herewith (under separate cover) Sammy Speir, who got
+mislaid when you paid your morning visit. Miss Snaith brought him to
+light after you had gone. Please scrutinize his thumb. I never saw a
+felon, but I have diagnosed it as such. Yours truly, S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+SUP'T JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+March 6.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I don't know yet whether the children are going to love me or not, but
+they DO love my dog. No creature so popular as Singapore ever entered
+these gates. Every afternoon three boys who have been perfect in
+deportment are allowed to brush and comb him, while three other good
+boys may serve him with food and drink. But every Saturday morning the
+climax of the week is reached, when three superlatively good boys give
+him a nice lathery bath with hot water and flea soap. The privilege of
+serving as Singapore's valet is going to be the only incentive I shall
+need for maintaining discipline.
+
+But isn't it pathetically unnatural for these youngsters to be living
+in the country and never owning a pet? Especially when they, of all
+children, do so need something to love. I am going to manage pets for
+them somehow, if I have to spend our new endowment for a menagerie.
+Couldn't you bring back some baby alligators and a pelican? Anything
+alive will be gratefully received.
+
+This should by rights be my first "Trustees' Day." I am deeply grateful
+to Jervis for arranging a simple business meeting in New York, as we
+are not yet on dress parade up here; but we are hoping by the first
+Wednesday in April to have something visible to show. If all of the
+doctor's ideas, and a few of my own, get themselves materialized, our
+trustees will open their eyes a bit when we show them about.
+
+I have just made out a chart for next week's meals, and posted it in the
+kitchen in the sight of an aggrieved cook. Variety is a word hitherto
+not found in the lexicon of the J.G.H. You would never dream all of
+the delightful surprises we are going to have: brown bread, corn pone,
+graham muffins, samp, rice pudding with LOTS of raisins, thick vegetable
+soup, macaroni Italian fashion, polenta cakes with molasses, apple
+dumplings, gingerbread--oh, an endless list! After our biggest girls
+have assisted in the manufacture of such appetizing dainties, they will
+almost be capable of keeping future husbands in love with them.
+
+Oh, dear me! Here I am babbling these silly nothings when I have some
+real news up my sleeve. We have a new worker, a gem of a worker.
+
+Do you remember Betsy Kindred, 1910? She led the glee club and was
+president of dramatics. I remember her perfectly; she always had lovely
+clothes. Well, if you please, she lives only twelve miles from here. I
+ran across her by chance yesterday morning as she was motoring through
+the village; or, rather, she just escaped running across me.
+
+I never spoke to her in my life, but we greeted each other like the
+oldest friends. It pays to have conspicuous hair; she recognized me
+instantly. I hopped upon the running board of her car and said:
+
+"Betsy Kindred, 1910, you've got to come back to my orphan asylum and
+help me catalogue my orphans."
+
+And it astonished her so that she came. She's to be here four or five
+days a week as temporary secretary, and somehow I must manage to keep
+her permanently. She's the most useful person I ever saw. I am hoping
+that orphans will become such a habit with her that she won't be able to
+give them up. I think she might stay if we pay her a big enough salary.
+She likes to be independent of her family, as do all of us in these
+degenerate times.
+
+In my growing zeal for cataloguing people, I should like to get our
+doctor tabulated. If Jervis knows any gossip about him, write it to me,
+please; the worse, the better. He called yesterday to lance a felon on
+Sammy Speir's thumb, then ascended to my electric-blue parlor to
+give instructions as to the dressing of thumbs. The duties of a
+superintendent are manifold.
+
+It was just teatime, so I casually asked him to stay, and he did! Not
+for the pleasure of my society,--no, indeed,--but because Jane appeared
+at the moment with a plate of toasted muffins. He hadn't had any
+luncheon, it seems, and dinner was a long way ahead. Between muffins
+(he ate the whole plateful) he saw fit to interrogate me as to my
+preparedness for this position. Had I studied biology in college? How
+far had I gone in chemistry? What did I know of sociology? Had I visited
+that model institution at Hastings?
+
+To all of which I responded affably and openly. Then I permitted myself
+a question or two: just what sort of youthful training had been required
+to produce such a model of logic, accuracy, dignity, and common sense
+as I saw sitting before me? Through persistent prodding I elicited a
+few forlorn facts, but all quite respectable. You'd think, from his
+reticence, there'd been a hanging in the family. The MacRae PERE was
+born in Scotland, and came to the States to occupy a chair at Johns
+Hopkins; son Robin was shipped back to Auld Reekie for his education.
+His grandmother was a M'Lachlan of Strathlachan (I am sure she sounds
+respectable), and his vacations were spent in the Hielands a-chasing the
+deer.
+
+So much could I gather; so much, and no more. Tell me, I beg, some
+gossip about my enemy--something scandalous by preference.
+
+Why, if he is such an awfully efficient person does he bury himself in
+this remote locality? You would think an up-and-coming scientific man
+would want a hospital at one elbow and a morgue at the other. Are you
+sure that he didn't commit a crime and isn't hiding from the law?
+
+I seem to have covered a lot of paper without telling you much. VIVE LA
+BAGATELLE! Yours as usual,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. I am relieved on one point. Dr. MacRae does not pick out his own
+clothes. He leaves all such unessential trifles to his housekeeper, Mrs.
+Maggie McGurk.
+
+Again, and irrevocably, good-by!
+
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Wednesday.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Your roses and your letter cheered me for an entire morning, and it's
+the first time I've approached cheerfulness since the fourteenth of
+February, when I waved good-by to Worcester.
+
+Words can't tell you how monotonously oppressive the daily round of
+institution life gets to be. The only glimmer in the whole dull affair
+is the fact that Betsy Kindred spends four days a week with us. Betsy
+and I were in college together, and we do occasionally find something
+funny to laugh about.
+
+Yesterday we were having tea in my HIDEOUS parlor when we suddenly
+determined to revolt against so much unnecessary ugliness. We called in
+six sturdy and destructive orphans, a step-ladder, and a bucket of hot
+water, and in two hours had every vestige of that tapestry paper off
+those walls. You can't imagine what fun it is ripping paper off walls.
+
+Two paperhangers are at work this moment hanging the best that our
+village affords, while a German upholsterer is on his knees measuring my
+chairs for chintz slip covers that will hide every inch of their plush
+upholstery.
+
+Please don't get nervous. This doesn't mean that I'm preparing to spend
+my life in the asylum. It means only that I'm preparing a cheerful
+welcome for my successor. I haven't dared tell Judy how dismal I find
+it, because I don't want to cloud Florida; but when she returns to New
+York she will find my official resignation waiting to meet her in the
+front hall.
+
+I would write you a long letter in grateful payment for seven pages, but
+two of my little dears are holding a fight under the window. I dash to
+separate them.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+March 8.
+
+My dear Judy:
+
+I myself have bestowed a little present upon the John Grier Home--the
+refurnishing of the superintendent's private parlor. I saw the first
+night here that neither I nor any future occupant could be happy
+with Mrs. Lippett's electric plush. You see, I am planning to make my
+successor contented and willing to stay.
+
+Betsy Kindred assisted in the rehabilitation of the Lippett's chamber
+of horrors, and between us we have created a symphony in dull blue and
+gold. Really and truly, it's one of the loveliest rooms you've ever
+seen. The sight of it will be an artistic education to any orphan.
+New paper on the wall, new rugs on the floor (my own prized Persians
+expressed from Worcester by an expostulating family). New casement
+curtains at my three windows, revealing a wide and charming view,
+hitherto hidden by Nottingham lace. A new big table, some lamps and
+books and a picture or so, and a real open fire. She had closed the
+fireplace because it let in air.
+
+I never realized what a difference artistic surroundings make in the
+peace of one's soul. I sat last night and watched my fire throw nice
+highlights on my new old fender, and purred with contentment. And I
+assure you it's the first purr that has come from this cat since she
+entered the gates of the John Grier Home.
+
+But the refurnishing of the superintendent's parlor is the slightest
+of our needs. The children's private apartments demand so much basic
+attention that I can't decide where to begin. That dark north playroom
+is a shocking scandal, but no more shocking than our hideous dining room
+or our unventilated dormitories or our tubless lavatories.
+
+If the institution is very saving, do you think it can ever afford to
+burn down this smelly old original building, and put up instead some
+nice, ventilated modern cottages? I cannot contemplate that wonderful
+institution at Hastings without being filled with envy. It would be some
+fun to run an asylum if you had a plant like that to work with. But,
+anyway, when you get back to New York and are ready to consult the
+architect about remodeling, please apply to me for suggestions. Among
+other little details I want two hundred feet of sleeping porch running
+along the outside of our dormitories.
+
+You see, it's this way: our physical examination reveals the fact that
+about half of our children are aenemic--aneamic--anaemic (Mercy! what
+a word!), and a lot of them have tubercular ancestors, and more have
+alcoholic. Their first need is oxygen rather than education. And if the
+sickly ones need it, why wouldn't it be good for the well ones? I should
+like to have every child, winter and summer, sleeping in the open air;
+but I know that if I let fall such a bomb on the board of trustees, the
+whole body would explode.
+
+Speaking of trustees, I have met up with the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff, and
+I really believe that I dislike him more than Dr. Robin MacRae or
+the kindergarten teacher or the cook. I seem to have a genius for
+discovering enemies!
+
+Mr. Wykoff called on Wednesday last to look over the new superintendent.
+
+Having lowered himself into my most comfortable armchair, he proceeded
+to spend the day. He asked my father's business, and whether or not he
+was well-to-do. I told him that my father manufactured overalls, and
+that, even in these hard times, the demand for overalls was pretty
+steady.
+
+He seemed relieved. He approves of the utilitarian aspect of overalls.
+He had been afraid that I had come from the family of a minister or
+professor or writer, a lot of high thinking and no common sense. Cyrus
+believes in common sense.
+
+And what had been my training for this position?
+
+That, as you know, is a slightly embarrassing question. But I produced
+my college education and a few lectures at the School of Philanthropy,
+also a short residence in the college settlement (I didn't tell him
+that all I had done there was to paint the back hall and stairs). Then
+I submitted some social work among my father's employees and a few
+friendly visits to the Home for Female Inebriates.
+
+To all of which he grunted.
+
+I added that I had lately made a study of the care of dependent
+children, and casually mentioned my seventeen institutions.
+
+He grunted again, and said he didn't take much stock in this new-fangled
+scientific charity.
+
+At this point Jane entered with a box of roses from the florist's.
+That blessed Gordon Hallock sends me roses twice a week to brighten the
+rigors of institution life.
+
+Our trustee began an indignant investigation. He wished to know where I
+got those flowers, and was visibly relieved when he learned that I had
+not spent the institution's money for them. He next wished to know who
+Jane might be. I had foreseen that question and decided to brazen it
+out.
+
+"My maid," said I.
+
+"Your what?" he bellowed, quite red in the face.
+
+"My maid."
+
+"What is she doing here?"
+
+I amiably went into details. "She mends my clothes, blacks my boots,
+keeps my bureau drawers in order, washes my hair."
+
+I really thought the man would choke, so I charitably added that I paid
+her wages out of my own private income, and paid five dollars and fifty
+cents a week to the institution for her board; and that, though she was
+big, she didn't eat much.
+
+He allowed that I might make use of one of the orphans for all
+legitimate service.
+
+I explained--still polite, but growing bored--that Jane had been in my
+service for many years, and was indispensable.
+
+He finally took himself off, after telling me that he, for one,
+had never found any fault with Mrs. Lippett. She was a common-sense
+Christian woman, without many fancy ideas, but with plenty of good solid
+work in her. He hoped that I would be wise enough to model my policy
+upon hers!
+
+And what, my dear Judy, do you think of that?
+
+The doctor dropped in a few minutes later, and I repeated the Hon.
+Cyrus's conversation in detail. For the first time in the history of our
+intercourse the doctor and I agreed.
+
+"Mrs. Lippett indeed!" he growled. "The blethering auld gomerel! May the
+Lord send him mair sense!"
+
+When our doctor really becomes aroused, he drops into Scotch. My latest
+pet name for him (behind his back) is Sandy.
+
+Sadie Kate is sitting on the floor as I write, untangling sewing-silks
+and winding them neatly for Jane, who is becoming quite attached to the
+little imp.
+
+"I am writing to your Aunt Judy," say I to Sadie Kate. "What message
+shall I send from you?"
+
+"I never heard of no Aunt Judy."
+
+"She is the aunt of every good little girl in this school."
+
+"Tell her to come and visit me and bring some candy," says Sadie Kate.
+
+I say so, too.
+
+My love to the president,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+March 13.
+
+MRS. JUDY ABBOTT PENDLETON,
+
+Dear Madam:
+
+Your four letters, two telegrams, and three checks are at hand, and
+your instructions shall be obeyed just as quickly as this overworked
+superintendent can manage it.
+
+I delegated the dining room job to Betsy Kindred. One hundred dollars
+did I allow her for the rehabilitation of that dreary apartment. She
+accepted the trust, picked out five likely orphans to assist in the
+mechanical details, and closed the door.
+
+For three days the children have been eating from the desks in the
+schoolroom. I haven't an idea what Betsy is doing; but she has a lot
+better taste than I, so there isn't much use in interfering.
+
+It is such a heaven-sent relief to be able to leave something to
+somebody else, and be sure it will be carried out! With all due respect
+to the age and experience of the staff I found here, they are not very
+open to new ideas. As the John Grier Home was planned by its noble
+founder in 1875, so shall it be run today.
+
+Incidentally, my dear Judy, your idea of a private dining room for the
+superintendent, which I, being a social soul, at first scorned, has
+been my salvation. When I am dead tired I dine alone, but in my live
+intervals I invite an officer to share the meal; and in the expansive
+intimacy of the dinner-table I get in my most effective strokes. When it
+becomes desirable to plant the seeds of fresh air in the soul of Miss
+Snaith, I invite her to dinner, and tactfully sandwich in a little
+oxygen between her slices of pressed veal.
+
+Pressed veal is our cook's idea of an acceptable PIECE DE RESISTANCE
+for a dinner party. In another month I am going to face the subject of
+suitable nourishment for the executive staff.
+
+Meanwhile there are so many things more important than our own comfort
+that we shall have to worry along on veal.
+
+A terrible bumping has just occurred outside my door. One little cherub
+seems to be kicking another little cherub downstairs. But I write on
+undisturbed. If I am to spend my days among orphans, I must cultivate a
+cheerful detachment.
+
+Did you get Leonora Fenton's cards? She's marrying a medical missionary
+and going to Siam to live! Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as
+Leonora presiding over a missionary's menage? Do you suppose she will
+entertain the heathen with skirt dances?
+
+It isn't any absurder, though, than me in an orphan asylum, or you as a
+conservative settled matron, or Marty Keene a social butterfly in Paris.
+Do you suppose she goes to embassy balls in riding clothes, and what on
+earth does she do about hair? It couldn't have grown so soon; she must
+wear a wig. Isn't our class turning out some hilarious surprises?
+
+The mail arrives. Excuse me while I read a nice fat letter from
+Washington.
+
+
+Not so nice; quite impertinent. Gordon can't get over the idea that it
+is a joke, S. McB. in conjunction with one hundred and thirteen orphans.
+But he wouldn't think it such a joke if he could try it for a few days.
+He says he is going to drop off here on his next trip North and watch
+the struggle. How would it be if I left him in charge while I dashed to
+New York to accomplish some shopping? Our sheets are all worn out, and
+we haven't more than two hundred and eleven blankets in the house.
+
+Singapore, sole puppy of my heart and home, sends his respectful love. I
+also, S. McB.
+
+
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Friday. My dearest Judy:
+
+You should see what your hundred dollars and Betsy Kindred did to that
+dining room!
+
+It's a dazzling dream of yellow paint. Being a north room, she thought
+to brighten it; and she has. The walls are kalsomined buff, with a
+frieze of little molly cottontails skurrying around the top. All of
+the woodwork--tables and benches included--is a cheerful chrome yellow.
+Instead of tablecloths, which we can't afford, we have linen runners,
+with stenciled rabbits hopping along their length. Also yellow bowls,
+filled at present with pussywillows, but looking forward to dandelions
+and cowslips and buttercups. And new dishes, my dear--white, with yellow
+jonquils (we think), though they may be roses; there is no botany expert
+in the house. Most wonderful touch of all, we have NAPKINS, the first
+we have seen in our whole lives. The children thought they were
+handkerchiefs and ecstatically wiped their noses.
+
+To honor the opening of the new room, we had ice-cream and cake for
+dessert. It is such a pleasure to see these children anything but cowed
+and apathetic, that I am offering prizes for boisterousness--to every
+one but Sadie Kate. She drummed on the table with her knife and fork and
+sang, "Welcome to dem golden halls."
+
+You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room door--"The Lord
+Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits.
+It's all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal children, who
+have a proper family and roof behind them; but a person whose only
+refuge in distress will be a park bench must learn a more militant creed
+than that.
+
+"The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world to use
+them in. Use them well, and you will be provided for; use them ill, and
+you will want," is our motto, and that with reservations.
+
+In the sorting process that has been going on I have got rid of eleven
+children. That blessed State Charities Aid Association helped me dispose
+of three little girls, all placed in very nice homes, and one to be
+adopted legally if the family likes her. And the family will like her;
+I saw to that. She was the prize child of the institution, obedient and
+polite, with curly hair and affectionate ways, exactly the little girl
+that every family needs. When a couple of adopting parents are choosing
+a daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though I
+were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a little thing
+turns the balance! The child smiles, and a loving home is hers for life;
+she sneezes, and it passes her by forever.
+
+Three of our biggest boys have gone to work on farms, one of them out
+West to a RANCH! Report has it that he is to become a cowboy and Indian
+fighter and grizzly-bear hunter, though I believe in reality he is to
+engage in the pastoral work of harvesting wheat. He marched off, a hero
+of romance, followed by the wistful eyes of twenty-five adventurous
+lads, who turned back with a sigh to the safely monotonous life of the
+J. G. H.
+
+Five other children have been sent to their proper institutions. One of
+them is deaf, one an epileptic, and the other three approaching
+idiocy. None of them ought ever to have been accepted here. This as an
+educational institution, and we can't waste our valuable plant in caring
+for defectives.
+
+Orphan asylums have gone out of style. What I am going to develop is a
+boarding school for the physical, moral, and mental growth of children
+whose parents have not been able to provide for their care.
+
+"Orphans" is merely my generic term for the children; a good many
+of them are not orphans in the least. They have one troublesome and
+tenacious parent left who won't sign a surrender, so I can't place them
+out for adoption. But those that are available would be far better off
+in loving foster-homes than in the best institution that I can ever
+make. So I am fitting them for adoption as quickly as possible, and
+searching for the homes.
+
+You ought to run across a lot of pleasant families in your travels;
+can't you bully some of them into adopting children? Boys by preference.
+We've got an awful lot of extra boys, and nobody wants them. Talk about
+anti-feminism! It's nothing to the anti-masculinism that exists in the
+breasts of adopting parents. I could place out a thousand dimpled little
+girls with yellow hair, but a good live boy from nine to thirteen is a
+drug on the market. There seems to be a general feeling that they track
+in dirt and scratch up mahogany furniture.
+
+Shouldn't you think that men's clubs might like to adopt boys, as a sort
+of mascot? The boy could be boarded in a nice respectable family, and
+drawn out by the different members on Saturday afternoons. They could
+take him to ball games and the circus, and then return him when they
+had had enough, just as you do with a library book. It would be very
+valuable training for the bachelors. People are forever talking about
+the desirability of training girls for motherhood. Why not institute a
+course of training in fatherhood, and get the best men's clubs to take
+it up? Will you please have Jervis agitate the matter at his various
+clubs, and I'll have Gordon start the idea in Washington. They both
+belong to such a lot of clubs that we ought to dispose of at least a
+dozen boys.
+
+I remain,
+
+The ever-distracted mother of 113.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+March 18.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have been having a pleasant respite from the 113 cares of motherhood.
+
+Yesterday who should drop down upon our peaceful village but Mr. Gordon
+Hallock, on his way back to Washington to resume the cares of the
+nation. At least he said it was on his way, but I notice from the map in
+the primary room that it was one hundred miles out of his way.
+
+And dear, but I was glad to see him! He is the first glimpse of the
+outside world I have had since I was incarcerated in this asylum. And
+such a lot of entertaining businesses he had to talk about! He knows the
+inside of all the outside things you read in the newspapers; so far as I
+can make out, he is the social center about which Washington revolves.
+I always knew he would get on in politics, for he has a way with him;
+there's no doubt about it.
+
+You can't imagine how exhilarated and set-up I feel, as though I'd come
+into my own again after a period of social ostracism. I must confess
+that I get lonely for some one who talks my kind of nonsensical talk.
+Betsy trots off home every week end, and the doctor is conversational
+enough, but, oh, so horribly logical! Gordon somehow seems to stand for
+the life I belong to,--of country clubs and motors and dancing and sport
+and politeness,--a poor, foolish, silly life, if you will, but mine own.
+And I have missed it. This serving society business is theoretically
+admirable and compelling and interesting, but deadly stupid in its
+working details. I am afraid I was never born to set the crooked
+straight.
+
+I tried to show Gordon about and make him take an interest in the
+babies, but he wouldn't glance at them. He thinks I came just to spite
+him, which, of course, I did. Your siren call would never have lured me
+from the path of frivolity had Gordon not been so unpleasantly hilarious
+at the idea of my being able to manage an orphan asylum. I came here to
+show him that I could; and now, when I can show him, the beast refuses
+to look.
+
+I invited him to dinner, with a warning about the pressed veal; but he
+said no, thanks, that I needed a change. So we went to Brantwood Inn and
+had broiled lobster. I had positively forgotten that the creatures were
+edible.
+
+This morning at seven o'clock I was wakened by the furious ringing of
+the telephone bell. It was Gordon at the station, about to resume his
+journey to Washington. He was in quite a contrite mood about the asylum,
+and apologized largely for refusing to look at my children. It was not
+that he didn't like orphans, he said; it was just that he didn't like
+them in juxtaposition to me. And to prove his good intentions, he would
+send them a bag of peanuts.
+
+I feel as fresh and revivified after my little fling as though I'd had a
+real vacation. There's no doubt about it, an hour or so of exciting talk
+is more of a tonic to me than a pint of iron and strychnine pills.
+
+You owe me two letters, dear Madam. Pay them TOUT DE SUITE, or I lay
+down my pen forever.
+
+Yours, as usual,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+Tuesday, 5 P.M. My dear Enemy:
+
+I am told that during my absence this afternoon you paid us a call and
+dug up a scandal. You claim that the children under Miss Snaith are not
+receiving their due in the matter of cod-liver oil.
+
+I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been carried out, but you
+must know that it is a difficult matter to introduce that abominably
+smelling stuff into the inside of a squirming child. And poor Miss
+Snaith is a very much overworked person. She has ten more children to
+care for than should rightly fall into the lot of any single woman, and
+until we find her another assistant, she has very little time for the
+fancy touches you demand.
+
+Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to abuse. When you feel in
+a fighting mood, I wish you would expend your belligerence upon me. I
+don't mind it; quite the contrary. But that poor lady has retired to her
+room in a state of hysterics, leaving nine babies to be tucked into bed
+by whomever it may concern.
+
+If you have any powders that would be settling to her nerves, please
+send them back by Sadie Kate.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Wednesday Morning.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; I am simply asking
+that you come to me with all complaints, and not stir up my staff in any
+such volcanic fashion as that of yesterday.
+
+I endeavor to carry out all of your orders--of a medical nature--with
+scrupulous care. In the present case there seems to have been
+some negligence; I don't know what did become of those fourteen
+unadministered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have made such a fuss
+about, but I shall investigate.
+
+And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in the summary
+fashion you demand. She may be, in certain respects, inefficient;
+but she is kind to the children, and with supervision will answer
+temporarily.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Thursday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+SOYEZ TRANQUILLE. I have issued orders, and in the future the children
+shall receive all of the cod-liver oil that by rights is theirs. A
+wilfu' man maun hae his way.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+March 22.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past few days--since the
+great Cod-Liver Oil War has been raging. The first skirmish occurred on
+Tuesday, and I unfortunately missed it, having accompanied four of
+my children on a shopping trip to the village. I returned to find the
+asylum teeming with hysterics. Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit.
+
+Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod-liver oil and the other
+for spinach, neither popular in our nursery. Some time ago--before I
+came, in fact--he had ordered cod-liver oil for all of the
+{aenemic} --Heavens! there's that word again! {aneamic}--children, and
+had given instructions as to its application to Miss Snaith. Yesterday,
+in his suspicious Scotch fashion, he began nosing about to find out why
+the poor little rats weren't fattening up as fast as he thought they
+ought, and he unearthed a hideous scandal. They haven't received a whiff
+of cod-liver oil for three whole weeks! At that point he exploded, and
+all was joy and excitement and hysterics.
+
+Betsy says that she had to send Sadie Kate to the laundry on an
+improvised errand, as his language was not fit for orphan ears. By the
+time I got home he had gone, and Miss Snaith had retired, weeping, to
+her room, and the whereabouts of fourteen bottles of cod-liver oil was
+still unexplained. He had accused her at the top of his voice of taking
+them herself. Imagine Miss Snaith,--she who looks so innocent and
+chinless and inoffensive--stealing cod-liver oil from these poor
+helpless little orphans and guzzling it in private!
+
+Her defense consisted in hysterical assertions that she loved the
+children, and had done her duty as she saw it. She did not believe in
+giving medicine to babies; she thought drugs bad for their poor little
+stomachs. You can imagine Sandy! Oh, dear! oh, dear! To think I missed
+it!
+
+Well, the tempest raged for three days, and Sadie Kate nearly ran her
+little legs off carrying peppery messages back and forth between us
+and the doctor. It is only under stress that I communicate with him by
+telephone, as he has an interfering old termagant of a housekeeper who
+"listens in" on the down-stairs switch. I don't wish the scandalous
+secrets of the John Grier spread abroad. The doctor demanded Miss
+Snaith's instant dismissal, and I refused. Of course she is a vague,
+unfocused, inefficient old thing, but she does love the children, and
+with proper supervision is fairly useful.
+
+At least, in the light of her exalted family connections, I can't
+pack her off in disgrace like a drunken cook. I am hoping in time to
+eliminate her by a process of delicate suggestion; perhaps I can make
+her feel that her health requires a winter in California. And also, no
+matter what the doctor wants, so positive and dictatorial is his manner
+that just out of self-respect one must take the other side. When he
+states that the world is round, I instantly assert it to be triangular.
+
+Finally, after three pleasantly exhilarating days, the whole business
+settled itself. An apology (a very dilute one) was extracted from him
+for being so unkind to the poor lady, and full confession, with promises
+for the future, was drawn from her. It seems that she couldn't bear
+to make the little dears take the stuff, but, for obvious reasons, she
+couldn't bear to cross Dr. MacRae, so she hid the last fourteen bottles
+in a dark corner of the cellar. Just how she was planning to dispose of
+her loot I don't know. Can you pawn cod-liver oil?
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Peace negotiations had just ended this afternoon, and Sandy had made a
+dignified exit, when the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff was announced. Two enemies in
+the course of an hour are really too much!
+
+The Hon. Cy was awfully impressed with the new dining room, especially
+when he heard that Betsy had put on those rabbits with her own
+lily-white hands. Stenciling rabbits on walls, he allows, is a fitting
+pursuit for a woman, but an executive position like mine is a trifle out
+of her sphere. He thinks it would be far wiser if Mr. Pendleton did not
+give me such free scope in the spending of his money.
+
+While we were still contemplating Betsy's mural flight, an awful crash
+came from the pantry, and we found Gladiola Murphy weeping among the
+ruins of five yellow plates. It is sufficiently shattering to my nerves
+to hear these crashes when I am alone, but it is peculiarly shattering
+when receiving a call from an unsympathetic trustee.
+
+I shall cherish that set of dishes to the best of my ability, but if you
+wish to see your gift in all its uncracked beauty, I should advise you
+to hurry North, and visit the John Grier Home without delay.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+March 26. My dear Judy:
+
+I have just been holding an interview with a woman who wants to take
+a baby home to surprise her husband. I had a hard time convincing her
+that, since he is to support the child, it might be a delicate attention
+to consult him about its adoption. She argued stubbornly that it was
+none of his business, seeing that the onerous work of washing and
+dressing and training would fall upon her. I am really beginning to feel
+sorry for men. Some of them seem to have very few rights.
+
+Even our pugnacious doctor I suspect of being a victim of domestic
+tyranny, and his housekeeper's at that. It is scandalous the way Maggie
+McGurk neglects the poor man. I have had to put him in charge of an
+orphan. Sadie Kate, with a very housewifely air, is this moment sitting
+cross-legged on the hearth rug sewing buttons on his overcoat while he
+is upstairs tending babies.
+
+You would never believe it, but Sandy and I are growing quite
+confidential in a dour Scotch fashion. It has become his habit, when
+homeward bound after his professional calls, to chug up to our door
+about four in the afternoon, and make the rounds of the house to
+make sure that we are not developing cholera morbus or infanticide or
+anything catching, and then present himself at four-thirty at my library
+door to talk over our mutual problems.
+
+Does he come to see me? Oh, no, indeed; he comes to get tea and toast
+and marmalade. The man hath a lean and hungry look. His housekeeper
+doesn't feed him enough. As soon as I get the upper hand of him a little
+more, I am going to urge him on to revolt.
+
+Meanwhile he is very grateful for something to eat, but oh, so funny in
+his attempts at social grace! At first he would hold a cup of tea in
+one hand, a plate of muffins in the other, and then search blankly for a
+third hand to eat them with. Now he has solved the problem. He turns in
+his toes and brings his knees together; then he folds his napkin into
+a long, narrow wedge that fills the crack between them, thus forming a
+very workable pseudo lap; after that he sits with tense muscles
+until the tea is drunk. I suppose I ought to provide a table, but the
+spectacle of Sandy with his toes turned in is the one gleam of amusement
+that my day affords.
+
+The postman is just driving in with, I trust, a letter from you. Letters
+make a very interesting break in the monotony of asylum life. If you
+wish to keep this superintendent contented, you'd better write often.
+
+. . . . . . . .
+
+Mail received and contents noted.
+
+Kindly convey my thanks to Jervis for three alligators in a swamp.
+He shows rare artistic taste in the selection of his post cards. Your
+seven-page illustrated letter from Miami arrives at the same time. I
+should have known Jervis from the palm tree perfectly, even without the
+label, as the tree has so much the more hair of the two. Also, I have a
+polite bread-and-butter letter from my nice young man in Washington,
+and a book from him, likewise a box of candy. The bag of peanuts for the
+kiddies he has shipped by express. Did you ever know such assiduity?
+
+Jimmie favors me with the news that he is coming to visit me as soon
+as father can spare him from the factory. The poor boy does hate that
+factory so! It isn't that he is lazy; he just simply isn't interested in
+overalls. But father can't understand such a lack of taste. Having built
+up the factory, he of course has developed a passion for overalls,
+which should have been inherited by his eldest son. I find it awfully
+convenient to have been born a daughter; I am not asked to like
+overalls, but am left free to follow any morbid career I may choose,
+such as this.
+
+To return to my mail: There arrives an advertisement from a wholesale
+grocer, saying that he has exceptionally economical brands of oatmeal,
+rice, flour, prunes, and dried apples that he packs specially for
+prisons and charitable institutions. Sounds nutritious, doesn't it?
+
+I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each of whom would like
+to have a strong, husky boy of fourteen who is not afraid of work, their
+object being to give him a good home. These good homes appear with great
+frequency just as the spring planting is coming on. When we investigated
+one of them last week, the village minister, in answer to our usual
+question, "Does he own any property?" replied in a very guarded manner,
+"I think he must own a corkscrew."
+
+You would hardly credit some of the homes that we have investigated. We
+found a very prosperous country family the other day, who lived huddled
+together in three rooms in order to keep the rest of their handsome
+house clean. The fourteen-year girl they wished to adopt, by way of a
+cheap servant, was to sleep in the same tiny room with their own three
+children. Their kitchen-dining-parlor apartment was more cluttered up
+and unaired than any city tenement I ever saw, and the thermometer at
+eighty-four. One could scarcely say they were living there; they were
+rather COOKING. You may be sure they got no girl from us!
+
+I have made one invariable rule--every other is flexible. No child is
+to be placed out unless the proposed family can offer better advantages
+than we can give. I mean than we are going to be able to give in the
+course of a few months, when we get ourselves made over into a model
+institution. I shall have to confess that at present we are still pretty
+bad.
+
+But anyway, I am very CHOOSEY in regard to homes, and I reject
+three-fourths of those that offer.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Gordon has made honorable amends to my children. His bag of peanuts is
+here, made of burlap and three feet high.
+
+Do you remember the dessert of peanuts and maple sugar they used to
+give us at college? We turned up our noses, but ate. I am instituting it
+here, and I assure you we don't turn up our noses. It is a pleasure to
+feed children who have graduated from a course of Mrs. Lippett; they are
+pathetically grateful for small blessings.
+
+You can't complain that this letter is too short.
+
+Yours,
+
+On the verge of writer's cramp,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Off and on, all day Friday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+You will be interested to hear that I have encountered another
+enemy--the doctor's housekeeper. I had talked to the creature several
+times over the telephone, and had noted that her voice was not
+distinguished by the soft, low accents that mark the caste of "Vere de
+Vere"; but now I have seen her. This morning, while returning from the
+village, I made a slight detour, and passed our doctor's house. Sandy
+is evidently the result of environment--olive green, with a mansard roof
+and the shades pulled down. You would think he had just been holding a
+funeral.
+
+I don't wonder that the amenities of life have somewhat escaped the
+poor man. After studying the outside of his house, I was filled with
+curiosity to see if the inside matched.
+
+Having sneezed five times before breakfast this morning, I decided to
+go in and consult him professionally. To be sure, he is a children's
+specialist, but sneezes are common to all ages. So I boldly marched up
+the steps and rang the bell.
+
+Hark! What sound is that that breaks upon our revelry? The Hon. Cy's
+voice, as I live, approaching up the stairs. I've letters to write, and
+I can't be tormented by his blether, so I am rushing Jane to the door
+with orders to look him firmly in the eye and tell him I am out.
+
+. . . . . . . .
+
+On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined. He's gone.
+
+But those eight stars represent eight agonizing minutes spent in the
+dark of my library closet. The Hon. Cy received Jane's communication
+with the affable statement that he would sit down and wait. Whereupon
+he entered and sat. But did Jane leave me to languish in the closet? No;
+she enticed him to the nursery to see the AWFUL thing that Sadie Kate
+has done. The Hon. Cy loves to see awful things, particularly when done
+by Sadie Kate. I haven't an idea what scandal Jane is about to disclose;
+but no matter, he has gone.
+
+Where was I? Oh, yes; I had rung the doctor's bell.
+
+The door was opened by a large, husky person with her sleeves rolled up.
+She looked very businesslike, with a hawk's nose and cold gray eyes.
+
+"Well?" said she, her tone implying that I was a vacuum-cleaning agent.
+
+"Good morning." I smiled affably, and stepped inside. "Is this Mrs.
+McGurk?"
+
+"It is," said she. "An' ye'll be the new young woman in the orphan
+asylum?"
+
+"I am that," said I. "Is himself at home?"
+
+"He is not," said she.
+
+"But this is his office hour."
+
+"He don't keep it regular'."
+
+"He ought," said I, sternly. "Kindly tell him that Miss McBride called
+to consult him, and ask him to look in at the John Grier Home this
+afternoon."
+
+"Ump'!" grunted Mrs. McGurk, and closed the door so promptly that she
+shut in the hem of my skirt.
+
+When I told the doctor this afternoon, he shrugged his shoulders, and
+observed that that was Maggie's gracious way.
+
+"And why do you put up with Maggie?" said I.
+
+"And where would I find any one better?" said he. "Doing the work for
+a lone man who comes as irregularly to meals as a twenty-four-hour day
+will permit is no sinecure. She furnishes little sunshine in the home,
+but she does manage to produce a hot dinner at nine o'clock at night."
+
+Just the same, I am willing to wager that her hot dinners are neither
+delicious nor well served. She's an inefficient, lazy old termagant, and
+I know why she doesn't like me. She imagines that I want to steal away
+the doctor and oust her from a comfortable position, something of a
+joke, considering. But I am not undeceiving her; it will do the old
+thing good to worry a little. She may cook him better dinners, and
+fatten him up a trifle. I understand that fat men are good-natured.
+
+TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I don't know what silly stuff I have been writing to you off and on all
+day, between interruptions. It has got to be night at last, and I am too
+tired to do so much as hold up my head. Your song tells the sad truth,
+"There is no joy in life but sleep."
+
+I bid you good night.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+Isn't the English language absurd? Look at those forty monosyllables in
+a row!
+
+
+J. G. H.,
+
+April 1.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have placed out Isador Gutschneider. His new mother is a Swedish
+woman, fat and smiling, with blue eyes and yellow hair. She chose him
+out of the whole nurseryful of children because he was the brunettest
+baby there. She has always loved brunettes, but in her most ambitious
+dreams has never hoped to have one of her own. His name is going to be
+changed to Oscar Carlson, after his new dead uncle.
+
+My first trustees' meeting is to occur next Wednesday. I confess that I
+am not looking forward to it with impatience--especially as an inaugural
+address by me will be its chief feature. I wish our president were here
+to back me up! But at least I am sure of one thing. I am never going to
+adopt the Uriah Heepish attitude toward trustees that characterized Mrs.
+Lippett's manners. I shall treat "first Wednesdays" as a pleasant social
+diversion, my day at home, when the friends of the asylum gather for
+discussion and relaxation; and I shall endeavor not to let our pleasures
+discommode the orphans. You see how I have taken to heart the unhappy
+experiences of that little Jerusha.
+
+Your last letter has arrived, and no suggestion in it of traveling
+North. Isn't it about time that you were turning your faces back toward
+Fifth Avenue? Hame is hame, be 't ever sae hamely. Don't you marvel at
+the Scotch that flows so readily from my pen? Since being acquent' wi'
+Sandy, I hae gathered a muckle new vocabulary. The dinner gong! I leave
+you, to devote a revivifying half-hour to mutton hash. We eat to live in
+the John Grier Home.
+
+SIX O'CLOCK.
+
+
+The Hon. Cy has been calling again. He drops in with great frequency,
+hoping to catch me IN DELICTU. How I do not like that man! He is a pink,
+fat, puffy old thing, with a pink, fat, puffy soul. I was in a very
+cheery, optimistic frame of mind before his arrival, but now I shall do
+nothing but grumble for the rest of the day.
+
+He deplores all of the useless innovations that I am endeavoring to
+introduce, such as a cheerful playroom, prettier clothes, baths, and
+better food and fresh air and play and fun and ice-cream and kisses.
+He says that I will unfit these children to occupy the position in life
+that God has called them to occupy.
+
+At that my Irish blood came to the surface, and I told him that if
+God had planned to make all of these 113 little children into useless,
+ignorant, unhappy citizens, I was going to fool God! That we weren't
+educating them out of their class in the least. We were educating them
+INTO their natural class much more effectually than is done in the
+average family. We weren't trying to force them into college if they
+hadn't any brains, as happens with rich men's sons; and we weren't
+putting them to work at fourteen if they were naturally ambitious,
+as happens with poor men's sons. We were watching them closely and
+individually and discovering their level. If our children showed an
+aptitude to become farm laborers and nurse-maids, we were going to teach
+them to be the best possible farm laborers and nurse-maids; and if they
+showed a tendency to become lawyers, we would turn them into honest,
+intelligent, open-minded lawyers. (He's a lawyer himself, but certainly
+not an open-minded one.)
+
+He grunted when I had finished my remarks, and stirred his tea
+vigorously. Whereupon I suggested that perhaps he needed another lump of
+sugar, and dropped it in, and left him to absorb it.
+
+The only way to deal with trustees is with a firm and steady hand. You
+have to keep them in their places.
+
+Oh, my dear! that smudge in the corner was caused by Singapore's black
+tongue. He is trying to send you an affectionate kiss. Poor Sing thinks
+he's a lap dog--isn't it a tragedy when people mistake their vocations?
+I myself am not always certain that I was born an orphan asylum
+superintendent.
+
+Yours, til deth,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE,
+
+JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+April 4.
+
+THE PENDLETON FAMILY,
+
+Palm Beach, Florida.
+
+Dear Sir and Madam:
+
+I have weathered my first visitors' day, and made the trustees a
+beautiful speech. Everybody said it was a beautiful speech--even my
+enemies.
+
+Mr. Gordon Hallock's recent visit was exceptionally opportune; I gleaned
+from him many suggestions as to how to carry an audience.
+
+"Be funny."--I told about Sadie Kate and a few other cherubs that you
+don't know.
+
+"Keep it concrete and fitted to the intelligence of your audience."--I
+watched the Hon. Cy, and never said a thing that he couldn't understand.
+
+"Flatter your hearers."--I hinted delicately that all of these new
+reforms were due to the wisdom and initiative of our peerless trustees.
+
+"Give it a high moral tone, with a dash of pathos."--I dwelt upon the
+parentless condition of these little wards of Society. And it was very
+affecting--my enemy wiped away a tear!
+
+Then I fed them up on chocolate and whipped cream and lemonade and
+tartar sandwiches, and sent them home, expansive and beaming, but
+without any appetite for dinner.
+
+I dwell thus at length upon our triumph, in order to create in you a
+happy frame of mind, before passing to the higeous calamity that so
+nearly wrecked the occasion.
+
+     "Now follows the dim horror of my tale,
+     And I feel I'm growing gradually pale,
+          For, even at this day,
+          Though its smell has passed away,
+     When I venture to remember it, I quail!"
+
+
+You never heard of our little Tammas Kehoe, did you? I simply haven't
+featured Tammas because he requires so much ink and time and vocabulary.
+He's a spirited lad, and he follows his dad, a mighty hunter of
+old--that sounds like more Bab Ballads, but it isn't; I made it up as I
+went along.
+
+We can't break Tammas of his inherited predatory instincts. He shoots
+the chickens with bows and arrows and lassoes the pigs and plays
+bull-fight with the cows--and oh, is very destructive! But his crowning
+villainy occurred an hour before the trustees' meeting, when we wanted
+to be so clean and sweet and engaging.
+
+It seems that he had stolen the rat trap from the oat bin, and had set
+it up in the wood lot, and yesterday morning was so fortunate as to
+catch a fine big skunk.
+
+Singapore was the first to report the discovery. He returned to the
+house and rolled on the rugs in a frenzy of remorse over his part of the
+business. While our attention was occupied with Sing, Tammas was busily
+skinning his prey in the seclusion of the woodshed. He buttoned the pelt
+inside his jacket, conveyed it by a devious route through the length
+of this building, and concealed it under his bed where he thought it
+wouldn't be found.
+
+Then he went--per schedule--to the basement to help freeze the ice-cream
+for our guests. You notice that we omitted ice-cream from the menu.
+
+In the short time that remained we created all the counter-irritation
+that was possible. Noah (negro furnace man) started smudge fires at
+intervals about the grounds. Cook waved a shovelful of burning coffee
+through the house. Betsy sprinkled the corridors with ammonia. Miss
+Snaith daintily treated the rugs with violet water. I sent an emergency
+call to the doctor who came and mixed a gigantic solution of chlorid
+of lime. But still, above and beneath and through every other odor, the
+unlaid ghost of Tammas's victim cried for vengeance.
+
+The first business that came up at the meeting, was whether we should
+dig a hole and bury, not only Tammas, but the whole main building. You
+can see with what finesse I carried off the shocking event, when I tell
+you that the Hon. Cy went home chuckling over a funny story, instead of
+grumbling at the new superintendent's inability to manage boys.
+
+We've our ain bit weird to dree!
+
+As ever,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Friday, likewise Saturday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Singapore is still living in the carriage house, and receiving a daily
+carbolic-scented bath from Tammas Kehoe. I am hoping that some day, in
+the distant future, my darling will be fit to return.
+
+You will be pleased to hear that I have instituted a new method of
+spending your money. We are henceforth to buy a part of our shoes and
+drygoods and drug store comestibles from local shops, at not quite such
+low prices as the wholesale jobbers give, but still at a discount,
+and the education that is being thrown in is worth the difference. The
+reason is this: I have made the discovery that half of my children know
+nothing of money or its purchasing power. They think that shoes and corn
+meal and red-flannel petticoats and mutton stew and gingham shirts just
+float down from the blue sky.
+
+Last week I dropped a new green dollar bill out of my purse, and an
+eight-year-old urchin picked it up and asked if he could keep that
+picture of a bird. (American eagle in the center.) That child had never
+seen a bill in his life! I began an investigation, and discovered that
+dozens of children in this asylum have never bought anything or have
+ever seen anybody buy anything. And we are planning to turn them out
+at sixteen into a world governed entirely by the purchasing power of
+dollars and cents! Good heavens! just think of it! They are not to lead
+sheltered lives with somebody eternally looking after them; they have
+got to know how to get the very most they can out of every penny they
+can manage to earn.
+
+I pondered the question all one night, at intervals, and went to the
+village at nine o'clock the next morning. I held conferences with seven
+storekeepers; found four open-minded and helpful, two doubtful, and
+one actively stupid. I have started with the four--drygoods, groceries,
+shoes, and stationery. In return for somewhat large orders from us, they
+are to turn themselves and their clerks into teachers for my children,
+who are to go to the stores, inspect the stocks, and do their own
+purchasing with real money.
+
+For example, Jane needs a spool of blue sewing-silk and a yard of
+elastic; so two little girls, intrusted with a silver quarter, trot
+hand in hand to Mr. Meeker's. They match the silk with anxious care, and
+watch the clerk jealously while he measures the elastic, to make sure
+that he doesn't stretch it. Then they bring back six cents change,
+receive my thanks and praise, and retire to the ranks tingling with a
+sense of achievement.
+
+Isn't it pathetic? Ordinary children of ten or twelve automatically know
+so many things that our little incubator chicks have never dreamed of.
+But I have a variety of plans on foot. Just give me time, and you
+will see. One of these days I'll be turning out some nearly normal
+youngsters.
+
+
+LATER.
+
+
+I've an empty evening ahead, so I'll settle to some further gossip with
+you.
+
+You remember the peanuts that Gordon Hallock sent? Well, I was so
+gracious when I thanked him that it incited him to fresh effort. He
+apparently went into a toy shop, and placed himself unreservedly in the
+hands of an enterprising clerk. Yesterday two husky expressmen deposited
+in our front hall a crate full of expensive furry animals built to be
+consumed by the children of the rich. They are not exactly what I should
+have purchased had I been the one to disburse such a fortune, but my
+babies find them very huggable. The chicks are now taking to bed with
+them lions and elephants and bears and giraffes. I don't know what the
+psychological effect will be. Do you suppose when they grow up they will
+all join the circus?
+
+Oh, dear me, here is Miss Snaith, coming to pay a social call.
+
+
+Good-by.
+
+S.
+
+P.S. The prodigal has returned. He sends his respectful regards, and
+three wags of the tail.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+April 7. My dear Judy:
+
+I have just been reading a pamphlet on manual training for girls,
+and another on the proper diet for institutions--right proportions of
+proteins, fats, starches, etc. In these days of scientific charity, when
+every problem has been tabulated, you can run an institution by chart.
+I don't see how Mrs. Lippett could have made all the mistakes she did,
+assuming, of course,that she knew how to read. But there is one quite
+important branch of institutional work that has not been touched upon,
+and I myself am gathering data. Some day I shall issue a pamphlet on the
+"Management and Control of Trustees."
+
+I must tell you the joke about my enemy--not the Hon. Cy, but my first,
+my original enemy. He has undertaken a new field of endeavor. He says
+quite soberly (everything he does is sober; he has never smiled yet)
+that he has been watching me closely since my arrival, and though I am
+untrained and foolish and flippant (sic), he doesn't think that I am
+really so superficial as I at first appeared. I have an almost masculine
+ability of grasping the whole of a question and going straight to the
+point.
+
+Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in
+their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There
+is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him.
+I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost
+feminine.
+
+So, though Sandy quite plainly sees my faults, still, he thinks that
+some of them may be corrected; and he has determined to carry on my
+education from the point where the college dropped it. A person in
+my position ought to be well read in physiology, biology, psychology,
+sociology, and eugenics; she should know the hereditary effects of
+insanity, idiocy, and alcohol; should be able to administer the Binet
+test; and should understand the nervous system of a frog. In pursuance
+whereof, he has placed at my disposal his own scientific library of four
+thousand volumes. He not only fetches in the books he wants me to read,
+but comes and asks questions to make sure I haven't skipped.
+
+We devoted last week to the life and letters of the Jukes family.
+Margaret, the mother of criminals, six generations ago, founded a
+prolific line, and her progeny, mostly in jail, now numbers some twelve
+hundred. Moral: watch the children with a bad heredity so carefully that
+none of them can ever have any excuse for growing up into Jukeses.
+
+So now, as soon as we have finished our tea, Sandy and I get out
+the Doomsday Book, and pore over its pages in an anxious search for
+alcoholic parents. It's a cheerful little game to while away the
+twilight hour after the day's work is done.
+
+QUELLE VIE! Come home fast and take me out of it. I'm wearying for the
+sight of you.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+J. G. H.,
+
+Thursday morning. My dear Pendleton Family:
+
+I have received your letter, and I seize my pen to stop you. I don't
+wish to be relieved. I take it back. I change my mind. The person you
+are planning to send sounds like an exact twin of Miss Snaith. How can
+you ask me to turn over my darling children to a kind, but ineffectual,
+middle-aged lady without any chin? The very thought of it wrings a
+mother's heart.
+
+Do you imagine that such a woman can carry on this work even
+temporarily? No! The manager of an institution like this has got to be
+young and husky and energetic and forceful and efficient and red-haired
+and sweet-tempered, like me. Of course I've been discontented,--anybody
+would be with things in such a mess,--but it's what you socialists call
+a holy discontent. And do you think that I am going to abandon all of
+the beautiful reforms I have so painstakingly started? No! I am not
+to be moved from this spot until you find a superintendent superior to
+Sallie McBride.
+
+That does not mean, though, that I am mortgaging myself forever. Just
+for the present, until things get on their feet. While the face washing,
+airing, reconstructing period lasts, I honestly believe you chose the
+right person when you hit upon me. I LOVE to plan improvements and order
+people about.
+
+This is an awfully messy letter, but I'm dashing it off in three minutes
+in order to catch you before you definitely engage that pleasant,
+inefficient middle-aged person without a chin.
+
+Please, kind lady and gentleman, don't do me out of me job! Let me stay
+a few months longer. Just gimme a chance to show what I'm good for, and
+I promise you won't never regret it.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+J. G. H.,
+
+Thursday afternoon.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I've composed a poem--a paean of victory.
+
+Robin MacRae Smiled today.
+
+It's the truth! S. McB.
+
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+April 13.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I am gratified to learn that you were gratified to learn that I am going
+to stay. I hadn't realized it, but I am really getting sort of attached
+to orphans.
+
+It's an awful disappointment that Jervis has business which will keep
+you South so much longer. I am bursting with talk, and it is such a
+laborious nuisance having to write everything I want to say.
+
+Of course I am glad that we are to have the building remodeled, and I
+think all of your ideas good, but I have a few extra good ones myself.
+It will be nice to have the new gymnasium and sleeping-porches, but,
+oh, my soul does long for cottages! The more I look into the internal
+workings of an orphan asylum, the more I realize that the only type
+of asylum that can compete with a private family is one on the cottage
+system. So long as the family is the unit of society, children should be
+hardened early to family life.
+
+The problem that is keeping me awake at present is, What to do with the
+children while we are being made over? It is hard to live in a house and
+build it at the same time. How would it be if I rented a circus tent and
+pitched it on the lawn?
+
+Also, when we plunge into our alterations, I want a few guest rooms
+where our children can come back when ill or out of work. The great
+secret of our lasting influence in their lives will be our watchful care
+afterward. What a terrible ALONE feeling it must give a person not to
+have a family hovering in the background! With all my dozens of aunts
+and uncles and mothers and fathers and cousins and brothers and sisters,
+I can't visualize it. I'd be terrified and panting if I didn't have lots
+of cover to run to. And for these forlorn little mites, somehow or other
+the John Grier Home must supply their need. So, dear people, send me
+half a dozen guest rooms, if you please.
+
+Good-by, and I'm glad you didn't put in the other woman. The very
+suggestion of somebody else taking over my own beautiful reforms before
+they were even started, stirred up all the opposition in me. I'm afraid
+I'm like Sandy--I canna think aught is dune richt except my ain hand is
+in 't.
+
+Yours, for the present,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Sunday.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+I know that I haven't written lately; you have a perfect right to
+grumble, but oh dear! oh dear! you can't imagine what a busy person an
+orphan asylum superintendent is. And all the writing energy I possess
+has to be expended upon that voracious Judy Abbott Pendleton. If three
+days go by without a letter she telegraphs to know if the asylum has
+burned; whereas, if you--nice man--go letterless, you simply send us a
+present to remind us of your existence. So, you see, it's distinctly to
+our advantage to slight you often.
+
+You will probably be annoyed when I tell you that I have promised to
+stay on here. They finally did find a woman to take my place, but she
+wasn't at all the right type and would have answered only temporarily.
+And, my dear Gordon, it's true, when I faced saying good-by to this
+feverish planning and activity, Worcester somehow looked rather
+colorless. I couldn't bear to let my asylum go unless I was sure of
+substituting a life packed equally full of sensation.
+
+I know the alternative you will suggest, but please don't--just now. I
+told you before that I must have a few months longer to make up my mind.
+And in the meantime I like the feeling that I'm of use in the world.
+There's something constructive and optimistic about working with
+children; that is, if you look at it from my cheerful point of view,
+and not from our Scotch doctor's. I've never seen anybody like that man;
+he's always pessimistic and morbid and down. It's best not to be too
+intelligent about insanity and dipsomania and all the other hereditary
+details. I am just about ignorant enough to be light-hearted and
+effective in a place like this.
+
+The thought of all of these little lives expanding in every direction
+eternally thrills me. There are so many possibilities in our
+child garden for every kind of flower. It has been planted rather
+promiscuously, to be sure, but though we undoubtedly shall gather
+a number of weeds, we are also hoping for some rare and beautiful
+blossoms. Am I not growing sentimental? It is due to hunger--and there
+goes the dinner-gong! We are going to have a delicious meal: roast beef
+and creamed carrots and beet greens, with rhubarb pie for dessert. Would
+you not like to dine with me? I should love to have you.
+
+Most cordially yours,
+
+S. McB.
+
+P.S. You should see the number of poor homeless cats that these children
+want to adopt. We had four when I came, and they have all had kittens
+since. I haven't taken an exact census, but I think the institution
+possesses nineteen.
+
+
+April 15. My dear Judy:
+
+You'd like to make another slight donation to the J. G. H. out of
+the excess of last month's allowance? BENE! Will you kindly have the
+following inserted in all low-class metropolitan dailies:
+
+                Notice!
+     To Parents Planning to Abandon their Children:
+     Please do it before they have reached their third year.
+
+
+I can't think of any action on the part of abandoning parents that would
+help us more effectually. This having to root up evil before you begin
+planting good is slow, discouraging work.
+
+We have one child here who has almost floored me; but I WILL NOT
+acknowledge myself beaten by a child of five. He alternates between
+sullen moroseness, when he won't speak a word, and the most violent
+outbursts of temper, when he smashes everything within reach. He has
+been here only three months, and in that time he has destroyed nearly
+every piece of bric-a-brac in the institution--not, by the way, a great
+loss to art.
+
+A month or so before I came he pulled the tablecloth from the officers'
+table while the girl in charge was in the corridor sounding the gong.
+The soup had already been served. You can imagine the mess! Mrs. Lippett
+half killed the child on that occasion, but the killing did nothing to
+lessen the temper, which was handed on to me intact.
+
+His father was Italian and his mother Irish; he has red hair and
+freckles from County Cork and the most beautiful brown eyes that ever
+came out of Naples. After the father was stabbed in a fight and the
+mother had died of alcoholism, the poor little chap by some chance or
+other got to us. I suspect that he belongs in the Catholic Protectory.
+As for his manners--oh dear! oh dear! They are what you would expect. He
+kicks and bites and swears. I have dubbed him Punch.
+
+Yesterday he was brought squirming and howling to my office, charged
+with having knocked down a little girl and robbed her of her doll. Miss
+Snaith plumped him into a chair behind me, and left him to grow quiet,
+while I went on with my writing. I was suddenly startled by an awful
+crash. He had pushed that big green jardiniere off the window-sill and
+broken it into five hundred pieces. I jumped with a suddenness that
+swept the ink-bottle to the floor, and when Punch saw that second
+catastrophe, he stopped roaring with rage and threw back his head and
+roared with laughter. The child is DIABOLICAL.
+
+I have determined to try a new method of discipline that I don't believe
+in the whole of his forlorn little life he has ever experienced. I am
+going to see what praise and encouragement and love will do. So, instead
+of scolding him about the jardiniere, I assumed that it was an accident.
+I kissed him and told him not to feel bad; that I didn't mind in the
+least. It shocked him into being quiet; he simply held his breath and
+stared while I wiped away his tears and sopped up the ink.
+
+The child just now is the biggest problem that the J. G. H. affords.
+He needs the most patient, loving, individual care--a proper mother
+and father, likewise some brothers and sisters and a grandmother. But I
+can't place him in a respectable family until I make over his language
+and his propensity to break things. I separated him from the other
+children, and kept him in my room all the morning, Jane having removed
+to safe heights all destructible OBJETS D'ART. Fortunately, he loves
+to draw, and he sat on a rug for two hours, and occupied himself with
+colored pencils. He was so surprised when I showed an interest in a
+red-and-green ferryboat, with a yellow flag floating from the mast, that
+he became quite profanely affable. Until then I couldn't get a word out
+of him.
+
+In the afternoon Dr. MacRae dropped in and admired the ferryboat, while
+Punch swelled with the pride of creation. Then, as a reward for being
+such a good little boy, the doctor took him out in his automobile on a
+visit to a country patient.
+
+Punch was restored to the fold at five o'clock by a sadder and wiser
+doctor. At a sedate country estate he had stoned the chickens, smashed
+a cold frame, and swung the pet Angora cat by its tail. Then when the
+sweet old lady tried to make him be kind to poor pussy, he told her to
+go to hell.
+
+I can't bear to consider what some of these children have seen and
+experienced. It will take years of sunshine and happiness and love to
+eradicate the dreadful memories that they have stored up in the far-back
+corners of their little brains. And there are so many children and so
+few of us that we can't hug them enough; we simply haven't arms or laps
+to go around.
+
+MAIS PARLONS D'AUTRES CHOSES! Those awful questions of heredity and
+environment that the doctor broods over so constantly are getting into
+my blood, too; and it's a vicious habit. If a person is to be of any
+use in a place like this, she must see nothing but good in the world.
+Optimism is the only wear for a social worker.
+
+"'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock"--do you know where that
+beautiful line of poetry comes from? "Cristabel," of English K. Mercy!
+how I hated that course! You, being an English shark, liked it; but
+I never understood a word that was said from the time I entered the
+classroom till I left it. However, the remark with which I opened this
+paragraph is true. It IS the middle of night by the mantelpiece clock,
+so I'll wish you pleasant dreams. ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Tuesday.
+
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You doctored the whole house, then stalked past my library with your
+nose in the air, while I was waiting tea with a plate of Scotch scones
+sitting on the trivet, ordered expressly for you as a peace-offering.
+
+If you are really hurt, I will read the Kallikak book; but I must tell
+you that you are working me to death. It takes almost all of my energy
+to be an effective superintendent, and this university extension course
+that you are conducting I find wearing. You remember how indignant you
+were one day last week because I confessed to having stayed up until one
+o'clock the night before? Well, my dear man, if I were to accomplish all
+the vicarious reading you require, I should sit up until morning every
+night.
+
+However, bring it in. I usually manage half an hour of recreation after
+dinner, and though I had wanted to glance at Wells's latest novel, I
+will amuse myself instead with your feeble-minded family.
+
+Life of late is unco steep. Obligingly yours,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+April 17.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Thank you for the tulips, likewise the lilies of the valley. They are
+most becoming to my blue Persian bowls.
+
+Have you ever heard of the Kallikaks? Get the book and read them up.
+They are a two-branch family in New Jersey, I think, though their
+real name and origin is artfully concealed. But, anyway,--and this is
+true,--six generations ago a young gentleman, called for convenience
+Martin Kallikak, got drunk one night and temporarily eloped with a
+feeble-minded barmaid, thus founding a long line of feeble-minded
+Kallikaks,--drunkards, gamblers, prostitutes, horse thieves,--a scourge
+to New Jersey and surrounding States.
+
+Martin later straightened up, married a normal woman, and founded a
+second line of proper Kallikaks,--judges, doctors, farmers, professors,
+politicians,--a credit to their country. And there the two branches
+still are, flourishing side by side. You can see what a blessing it
+would have been to New Jersey if something drastic had happened to that
+feeble-minded barmaid in her infancy.
+
+It seems that feeblemindedness is a very hereditary quality, and
+science isn't able to overcome it. No operation has been discovered for
+introducing brains into the head of a child who didn't start with them.
+And the child grows up with, say, a nine-year brain in a thirty-year
+body, and becomes an easy tool for any criminal he meets. Our prisons
+are one-third full of feeble-minded convicts. Society ought to segregate
+them on feeble-minded farms, where they can earn their livings in
+peaceful menial pursuits, and not have children. Then in a generation or
+so we might be able to wipe them out.
+
+Did you know all that? It's very necessary information for a politician
+to have. Get the book and read it, please; I'd send my copy only that
+it's borrowed.
+
+It's also very necessary information for me to have. There are eleven of
+these chicks that I suspect a bit, and I am SURE of Loretta Higgins. I
+have been trying for a month to introduce one or two basic ideas into
+that child's brain, and now I know what the trouble is: her head is
+filled with a sort of soft cheesy substance instead of brain.
+
+I came up here to make over this asylum in such little details as fresh
+air and food and clothes and sunshine, but, heavens! you can see what
+problems I am facing. I've got to make over society first, so that it
+won't send me sub-normal children to work with. Excuse all this
+excited conversation; but I've just met up with the subject of
+feeble-mindedness, and it's appalling--and interesting. It is your
+business as a legislator to make laws that will remove it from the
+world. Please attend to this immediately, And oblige,
+
+S. McBRIDE,
+
+Sup't John Grier Home.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+Dear Man of Science:
+
+You didn't come today. Please don't skip us tomorrow. I have finished
+the Kallikak family and I am bursting with talk. Don't you think we
+ought to have a psychologist examine these children?
+
+We owe it to adopting parents not to saddle them with feeble-minded
+offspring.
+
+You know, I'm tempted to ask you to prescribe arsenic for Loretta's
+cold. I've diagnosed her case; she's a Kallikak. Is it right to let her
+grow up and found a line of 378 feeble-minded people for society to care
+for? Oh dear! I do hate to poison the child, but what can I do?
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You aren't interested in feeble-minded people, and you are shocked
+because I am? Well, I am equally shocked because you are not. If you
+aren't interested in everything of the sort that there unfortunately is
+in this world, how can you make wise laws?
+
+You can't.
+
+However, at your request, I will converse upon a less morbid subject.
+I've just bought fifty yards of blue and rose and green and corn-colored
+hair-ribbon as an Easter present for my fifty little daughters. I am
+also thinking of sending you an Easter present. How would a nice fluffy
+little kitten please you? I can offer any of the following patterns:--
+
+
+Number 3 comes in any color, gray, black, or yellow. If you will let me
+know which you would rather have, I will express it at once.
+
+I would write a respectable letter, but it's teatime, and I see that a
+guest approaches.
+
+ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. Don't you know some one who would like to adopt a desirable baby
+boy with seventeen nice new teeth?
+
+
+April 20. My dear Judy:
+
+One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns! We've had a Good Friday
+present of ten dozen, given by Mrs. De Peyster Lambert, a high church,
+stained-glass-window soul whom I met at a tea a few days ago. (Who
+says now that teas are a silly waste of time?) She asked me about my
+"precious little waifs," and said I was doing a noble work and would be
+rewarded. I saw buns in her eye, and sat down and talked to her for half
+an hour.
+
+Now I shall go and thank her in person, and tell her with a great deal
+of affecting detail how much those buns were appreciated by my precious
+little waifs--omitting the account of how precious little Punch threw
+his bun at Miss Snaith and plastered her neatly in the eye. I think,
+with encouragement, Mrs. De Peyster Lambert can be developed into a
+cheerful giver.
+
+Oh, I'm growing into the most shocking beggar! My family don't dare
+to visit me, because I demand BAKSHISH in such a brazen manner. I
+threatened to remove father from my calling list unless he shipped
+immediately sixty-five pairs of overalls for my prospective gardeners.
+A notice from the freight office this morning asks me to remove two
+packing cases consigned to them by the J. L. McBride Co. of Worcester;
+so I take it that father desires to continue my acquaintance. Jimmie
+hasn't sent us anything yet, and he's getting a huge salary. I write him
+frequently a pathetic list of our needs.
+
+But Gordon Hallock has learned the way to a mother's heart. I was so
+pleasant about the peanuts and menagerie that now he sends a present of
+some sort every few days, and I spend my entire time composing thank-you
+letters that aren't exact copies of the ones I've sent before. Last week
+we received a dozen big scarlet balls. The nursery is FULL of them;
+you kick them before you as you walk. And yesterday there arrived a
+half-bushel of frogs and ducks and fishes to float in the bathtubs.
+
+Send, O best of trustees, the tubs in which to float them!
+
+I am, as usual,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Tuesday. My dear Judy:
+
+Spring must be lurking about somewhere; the birds are arriving from the
+South. Isn't it time you followed their example?
+
+Society note from the BIRD O' PASSAGE NEWS:
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. First Robin have returned from a trip to Florida. It is
+hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Jervis Pendleton will arrive shortly."
+
+Even up here in our dilatory Dutchess County the breeze smells green.
+It makes you want to be out and away, roaming the hills, or else down on
+your knees grubbing in the dirt. Isn't it funny what farmering instincts
+the budding spring awakens in even the most urban souls?
+
+I have spent the morning making plans for little private gardens for
+every child over nine. The big potato field is doomed. That is the only
+feasible spot for sixty-two private gardens. It is near enough to be
+watched from the north windows, and yet far enough away, so that their
+messing will not injure our highly prized landscape lawn. Also the earth
+is rich, and they have some chance of success. I don't want the poor
+little chicks to scratch all summer, and then not turn up any treasure
+in the end. In order to furnish an incentive, I shall announce that
+the institution will buy their produce and pay in real money, though I
+foresee we shall be buried under a mountain of radishes.
+
+I do so want to develop self-reliance and initiative in these children,
+two sturdy qualities in which they are conspicuously lacking (with the
+exception of Sadie Kate and a few other bad ones). Children who have
+spirit enough to be bad I consider very hopeful. It's those who are good
+just from inertia that are discouraging.
+
+The last few days have been spent mainly in charming the devil out of
+Punch, an interesting task if I could devote my whole time to it.
+But with one hundred and seven other little devils to charm away, my
+attention is sorely deflected.
+
+The awful thing about this life is that whatever I am doing, the other
+things that I am not doing, but ought to be, keep tugging at my skirts.
+There is no doubt but Punch's personal devil needs the whole attention
+of a whole person,--preferably two persons,--so that they could spell
+each other and get some rest.
+
+Sadie Kate has just flown in from the nursery with news of a scarlet
+goldfish (Gordon's gift) swallowed by one of our babies. Mercy! the
+number of calamities that can occur in an orphan asylum!
+
+9 P.M.
+
+
+My children are in bed, and I've just had a thought. Wouldn't it be
+heavenly if the hibernating system prevailed among the human young?
+There would be some pleasure in running an asylum if one could just tuck
+the little darlings into bed the first of October and keep them there
+until the twenty-second of April.
+
+I'm yours, as ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+April 24.
+
+Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.:
+
+This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent you ten minutes
+ago. Fifty words not being enough to convey any idea of my emotions, I
+herewith add a thousand.
+
+As you will know by the time you receive this, I have discharged the
+farmer, and he has refused to be discharged. Being twice the size of me,
+I can't lug him to the gate and chuck him out. He wants a notification
+from the president of the board of trustees written in vigorous language
+on official paper in typewriting. So, dear president of the board of
+trustees, kindly supply all of this at your earliest convenience.
+
+Here follows the history of the case:
+
+The winter season still being with us when I arrived and farming
+activities at a low ebb, I have heretofore paid little attention to
+Robert Sterry except to note on two occasions that his pigpens needed
+cleaning; but today I sent for him to come and consult with me in regard
+to spring planting.
+
+Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at ease in my office with
+his hat upon his head. I suggested as tactfully as might be that he
+remove it, an entirely necessary request, as little orphan boys were
+in and out on errands, and "hats off in the house" is our first rule in
+masculine deportment.
+
+Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened himself to be against
+whatever I might desire.
+
+I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that the diet of the
+John Grier Home in the year to come is to consist less exclusively of
+potatoes. At which our farmer grunted in the manner of the Hon. Cyrus
+Wykoff, only it was a less ethereal and gentlemanly grunt than a trustee
+permits himself. I enumerated corn and beans and onions and peas and
+tomatoes and beets and carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes.
+
+Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was good enough for him,
+he guessed they was good enough for charity children.
+
+I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre potato field was to
+be plowed and fertilized, and laid out into sixty individual gardens,
+the boys assisting in the work.
+
+At that Sterry exploded. The two-acre field was the most fertile and
+valuable piece of earth on the whole place. He guessed if I was to break
+that up into play gardens for the children to mess about in, I'd be
+hearing about it pretty danged quick from the board of trustees. That
+field was fitted for potatoes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was
+going to continue to raise them just as long as he had anything to say
+about it.
+
+"You have nothing whatever to say about it," I amiably replied. "I
+have decided that the two-acre field is the best plot to use for the
+children's gardens, and you and the potatoes will have to give way."
+
+Whereupon he rose in a storm of bucolic wrath, and said he'd be gol
+darned if he'd have a lot of these danged city brats interfering with
+his work.
+
+I explained--very calmly for a red-haired person with Irish
+forebears--that this place was run for the exclusive benefit of these
+children; that the children were not here to be exploited for the
+benefit of the place, a philosophy which he did not grasp, though my
+fancy city language had a slightly dampening effect. I added that what
+I required in a farmer was the ability and patience to instruct the
+boys in gardening and simple outdoor work; that I wished a man of
+large sympathies whose example would be an inspiring influence to these
+children of the city streets.
+
+Sterry, pacing about like a caged woodchuck, launched into a tirade
+about silly Sunday-school notions, and, by a transition which I did not
+grasp, passed to a review of the general subject of woman's suffrage.
+I gathered that he is not in favor of the movement. I let him argue
+himself quiet, then I handed him a check for his wages, and told him to
+vacate the tenant house by twelve o'clock next Wednesday.
+
+Sterry says he'll be danged if he will. (Excuse so many DANGEDS. It
+is the creature's only adjective.) He was engaged to work for this
+institution by the president of the board of trustees, and he will not
+move from that house until the president of the board of trustees tells
+him to go. I don't think poor Sterry realizes that since his arrival a
+new president has come to the throne.
+
+ALORS you have the story. I make no threats, but Sterry or McBride--take
+your choice, dear sir.
+
+I am also about to write to the head of the Massachusetts Agricultural
+College, at Amherst, asking him to recommend a good, practical man with
+a nice, efficient, cheerful wife, who will take the entire care of our
+modest domain of seventeen acres, and who will be a man with the right
+personality to place over our boys.
+
+If we get the farming end of this institution into running shape, it
+ought to furnish not only beans and onions for the table, but education
+for our hands and brains.
+
+
+I remain, sir, Yours most truly, S. McBRIDE, Superintendent of the John
+Grier Home.
+
+P.S. I think that Sterry will probably come back some night and throw
+rocks through the windows. Shall I have them insured?
+
+
+
+My dear Enemy:
+
+You disappeared so quickly this afternoon that I had no chance to thank
+you, but the echoes of that discharge penetrated as far as my library.
+Also, I have viewed the debris. What on earth did you do to poor Sterry?
+Watching the purposeful set of your shoulders as you strode toward the
+carriage house, I was filled with sudden compunction. I did not want the
+man murdered, merely reasoned with. I am afraid you were a little harsh.
+
+However, your technic seems to have been effective. Report says that he
+has telephoned for a moving wagon and that Mrs. Sterry is even now on
+her hands and knees ripping up the parlor carpet.
+
+For this relief much thanks.
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+April 26.
+
+Dear Jervis:
+
+Your vigorous telegram was, after all, not needed. Dr. Robin MacRae, who
+is a grand PAWKY mon when it comes to a fight, accomplished the business
+with beautiful directness. I was so bubbling with rage that immediately
+after writing to you I called up the doctor on the telephone, and
+rehearsed the whole business over again. Now, our Sandy, whatever his
+failings (and he has them), does have an uncommon supply of common
+sense. He knows how useful those gardens are going to be, and how worse
+than useless Sterry was. Also says he, "The superintendent's authority
+must be upheld." (That, incidentally, is beautiful, coming from him.)
+But anyway, those were his words. And he hung up the receiver, cranked
+up his car, and flew up here at lawless speed. He marched straight to
+Sterry, impelled by a fine Scotch rage, and he discharged the man with
+such vigor and precision, that the carriage house window was shattered
+to fragments.
+
+Since this morning at eleven, when Sterry's wagonload of furniture
+rumbled out of the gates, a sweet peace has reigned over the J. G. H.
+A man from the village is helping us out while we hopefully await the
+farmer of our dreams.
+
+I am sorry to have troubled you with our troubles. Tell Judy that she
+owes me a letter, and won't hear from me until she has paid it. Your ob'd't
+servant,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+In my letter of yesterday to Jervis I forgotted (Punch's word) to convey
+to you our thanks for three tin bathtubs. The skyblue tub with poppies
+on the side adds a particularly bright note to the nursery. I do love
+presents for the babies that are too big to be swallowed.
+
+You will be pleased to hear that our manual training is well under way.
+The carpenter benches are being installed in the old primary room,
+and until our schoolhouse gets its new addition, our primary class
+is meeting on the front porch, in accordance with Miss Matthew's able
+suggestion.
+
+The girls' sewing classes are also in progress. A circle of benches
+under the copper beech tree accommodates the hand sewers, while the big
+girls take turns at our three machines. Just as soon as they gain
+some proficiency we will begin the glorious work of redressing the
+institution. I know you think I'm slow, but it's really a task to
+accomplish one hundred and eighty new frocks. And the girls will
+appreciate them so much more if they do the work themselves.
+
+I may also report that our hygiene system has risen to a high level. Dr.
+MacRae has introduced morning and evening exercises, and a glass of milk
+and a game of tag in the middle of school hours. He has instituted a
+physiology class, and has separated the children into small groups, so
+that they may come to his house, where he has a manikin that comes apart
+and shows all its messy insides. They can now rattle off scientific
+truths about their little digestions as fluently as Mother Goose rhymes.
+We are really becoming too intelligent for recognition. You would never
+guess that we were orphans to hear us talk; we are quite like Boston
+children.
+
+2 P.M.
+
+
+O Judy, such a calamity! Do you remember several weeks ago I told you
+about placing out a nice little girl in a nice family home where I
+hoped she would be adopted? It was a kind Christian family living in
+a pleasant country village, the foster-father a deacon in the church.
+Hattie was a sweet, obedient, housewifely little body, and it looked
+as though we had exactly fitted them to each other. My dear, she was
+returned this morning for STEALING. Scandal piled on scandal: SHE HAD
+STOLEN A COMMUNION CUP FROM CHURCH!
+
+Between her sobs and their accusations it took me half an hour to gather
+the truth. It seems that the church they attend is very modern and
+hygienic, like our doctor, and has introduced individual communion cups.
+Poor little Hattie had never heard of communion in her life. In fact,
+she wasn't very used to church, Sunday-school having always sufficed for
+her simple religious needs. But in her new home she attended both, and
+one day, to her pleased surprise, they served refreshments. But they
+skipped her. She made no comment, however; she is used to being skipped.
+
+But as they were starting home she saw that the little silver cup had
+been casually left in the seat, and supposing that it was a souvenir
+that you could take if you wished, she put it into her pocket.
+
+It came to light two days later as the most treasured ornament of her
+doll's-house. It seems that Hattie long ago saw a set of doll's dishes
+in a toy shop window, and has ever since dreamed of possessing a set of
+her own. The communion cup was not quite the same, but it answered.
+Now, if our family had only had a little less religion and a little more
+sense, they would have returned the cup, perfectly unharmed, and have
+marched Hattie to the nearest toy shop and bought her some dishes. But
+instead, they bundled the child and her belongings into the first train
+they could catch, and shoved her in at our front door, proclaiming
+loudly that she was a thief.
+
+I am pleased to say that I gave that indignant deacon and his wife such
+a thorough scolding as I am sure they have never listened to from the
+pulpit. I borrowed some vigorous bits from Sandy's vocabulary, and sent
+them home quite humbled. As for poor little Hattie, here she is back
+again, after going out with such high hopes. It has an awfully bad moral
+effect on a child to be returned to the asylum in disgrace, especially
+when she wasn't aware of committing a crime. It gives her a feeling that
+the world is full of unknown pitfalls, and makes her afraid to take
+a step. I must bend all my energies now toward finding another set of
+parents for her, and ones that haven't grown so old and settled and good
+that they have entirely forgotten their own childhood.
+
+Sunday.
+
+
+I forgot to tell you that our new farmer is here, Turnfelt by name; and
+his wife is a love, yellow hair and dimples. If she were an orphan,
+I could place her in a minute. We can't let her go to waste. I have
+a beautiful plan of building an addition to the farmer's cottage, and
+establishing under her comfortable care a sort of brooding-house where
+we can place our new little chicks, to make sure they haven't anything
+contagious and to eliminate as much profanity as possible before turning
+them loose among our other perfect chicks.
+
+How does that strike you? It is very necessary in an institution as full
+of noise and movement and stir as this to have some isolated spot where
+we can put cases needing individual attention. Some of our children
+have inherited nerves, and a period of quiet contemplation is indicated.
+Isn't my vocabulary professional and scientific? Daily intercourse with
+Dr. Robin MacRae is extremely educational.
+
+Since Turnfelt came, you should see our pigs. They are so clean and pink
+and unnatural that they don't recognize one another any more as they
+pass.
+
+Our potato field is also unrecognizable. It has been divided with string
+and pegs into as many squares as a checker-board, and every child has
+staked out a claim. Seed catalogues form our only reading matter.
+
+Noah has just returned from a trip to the village for the Sunday papers
+to amuse his leisure. Noah is a very cultivated person; he not only
+reads perfectly, but he wears tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles while he
+does it. He also brought from the post office a letter from you, written
+Friday night. I am pained to note that you do not care for "Gosta
+Berling" and that Jervis doesn't. The only comment I can make is, "What
+a shocking lack of literary taste in the Pendleton family!"
+
+Dr. MacRae has another doctor visiting him, a very melancholy gentleman
+who is at the head of a private psychopathic institution, and thinks
+there's no good in life. But I suppose this pessimistic view is natural
+if you eat three meals a day with a tableful of melancholics. He goes
+up and down the world looking for signs of degeneracy, and finds them
+everywhere. I expected, after half an hour's conversation, that he would
+ask to look down my throat to see if I had a cleft palate. Sandy's taste
+in friends seems to resemble his taste in literature. Gracious! this is
+a letter!
+
+Good-by.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Thursday, May 2.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Such a bewildering whirl of events! The J. G. H. is breathless.
+Incidentally, I am on the way toward solving my problem of what to do
+with the children while the carpenters and plumbers and masons are here.
+Or, rather, my precious brother has solved it for me.
+
+This afternoon I went over my linen supply, and made the shocking
+discovery that we have only sheets enough to change the children's beds
+every two weeks, which, it appears, is our shiftless custom. While I
+was still in the midst of my household gear, with a bunch of keys at my
+girdle, looking like the chatelaine of a medieval chateau, who should be
+ushered in but Jimmie?
+
+Being extremely occupied, I dropped a slanting kiss on his nose, and
+sent him off to look over the place in charge of my two oldest urchins.
+They collected six friends and organized a baseball game. Jimmie came
+back blown, but enthusiastic, and consented to prolong his visit over
+the week end, though after the dinner I gave him he has decided to take
+his future meals at the hotel. As we sat with our coffee before the
+fire, I confided to him my anxiety as to what should be done with the
+chicks while their new brooder is building. You know Jimmie. In one half
+a minute his plan was formulated.
+
+"Build an Adirondack camp on that little plateau up by the wood lot.
+You can make three open shacks, each holding eight bunks, and move the
+twenty-four oldest boys out there for the summer. It won't cost two
+cents."
+
+"Yes," I objected, "but it will cost more than two cents to engage a man
+to look after them."
+
+"Perfectly easy," said Jimmie, grandly. "I'll find you a college fellow
+who'll be glad to come during the vacation for his board and a mere
+pittance, only you'll have to set up more filling board than you gave me
+tonight."
+
+Dr. MacRae dropped in about nine o'clock, after visiting the hospital
+ward. We've got three cases of whooping cough, but all isolated, and no
+more coming. How those three got in is a mystery. It seems there is a
+little bird that brings whooping cough to orphan asylums.
+
+Jimmie fell upon him for backing in his camp scheme, and the doctor gave
+it enthusiastically. They seized pencil and paper and drew up plans. And
+before the evening was over, the last nail was hammered. Nothing would
+satisfy those two men but to go to the telephone at ten o'clock and
+rouse a poor carpenter from his sleep. He and some lumber are ordered
+for eight in the morning.
+
+I finally got rid of them at ten-thirty, still talking uprights and
+joists and drainage and roof slants.
+
+The excitement of Jimmie and coffee and all these building operations
+induced me to sit down immediately and write a letter to you; but I
+think, by your leave, I'll postpone further details to another time.
+Yours ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Saturday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Will you be after dining with us at seven tonight? It's a real dinner
+party; we're going to have ice-cream.
+
+My brother has discovered a promising young man to take charge of the
+boys,--maybe you know him,--Mr. Witherspoon, at the bank. I wish to
+introduce him to asylum circles by easy steps, so PLEASE don't mention
+insanity or epilepsy or alcoholism or any of your other favorite topics.
+
+He is a gay young society leader, used to very fancy things to eat. Do
+you suppose we can ever make him happy at the John Grier Home? Yours in
+evident haste,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+Sunday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Jimmie was back at eight Friday morning, and the doctor at a quarter
+past. They and the carpenter and our new farmer and Noah and our two
+horses and our eight biggest boys have been working ever since. Never
+were building operations set going in faster time. I wish I had a dozen
+Jimmies on the place, though I will say that my brother works faster
+if you catch him before the first edge of his enthusiasm wears away. He
+would not be much good at chiseling out a medieval cathedral.
+
+He came back Saturday morning aglow with a new idea. He had met at
+the hotel the night before a friend who belongs to his hunting club in
+Canada, and who is cashier of our First (and only) National Bank.
+
+"He's a bully good sport," said Jimmie, "and exactly the man you want
+to camp out with those kids and lick 'em into shape. He'll be willing to
+come for his board and forty dollars a month, because he's engaged to a
+girl in Detroit and wants to save. I told him the food was rotten, but
+if he kicked enough, you'd probably get a new cook."
+
+"What's his name?" said I, with guarded interest.
+
+"He's got a peach of a name. It's Percy de Forest Witherspoon."
+
+I nearly had hysterics. Imagine a Percy de Forest Witherspoon in charge
+of those twenty-four wild little savages!
+
+But you know Jimmie when he has an idea. He had already invited Mr.
+Witherspoon to dine with me on Saturday evening, and had ordered oysters
+and squabs and ice-cream from the village caterer to help out my veal.
+It ended by my giving a very formal dinner party, with Miss Matthews and
+Betsy and the doctor included.
+
+I almost asked the Hon. Cy and Miss Snaith. Ever since I have known
+those two, I have felt that there ought to be a romance between them.
+Never have I known two people who matched so perfectly. He's a widower
+with five children. Don't you suppose it might be arranged? If he had
+a wife to take up his attention, it might deflect him a little from us.
+I'd be getting rid of them both at one stroke. It's to be considered
+among our future improvements.
+
+Anyway, we had our dinner. And during the course of the evening my
+anxiety grew, not as to whether Percy would do for us, but as to whether
+we should do for Percy. If I searched the world over, I never could
+find a young man more calculated to win the affection of those boys.
+You know, just by looking at him, that he does everything well, at least
+everything vigorous. His literary and artistic accomplishments I suspect
+a bit, but he rides and shoots and plays golf and football and sails a
+boat. He likes to sleep out of doors and he likes boys. He has always
+wanted to know some orphans; often read about 'em in books, he says, but
+never met any face to face. Percy does seem too good to be true.
+
+Before they left, Jimmie and the doctor hunted up a lantern, and in
+their evening clothes conducted Mr. Witherspoon across a plowed field to
+inspect his future dwelling.
+
+And such a Sunday as we passed! I had absolutely to forbid their
+carpentering. Those men would have put in a full day, quite irrespective
+of the damage done to one hundred and four little moral natures. As it
+is, they have just stood and looked at those shacks and handled their
+hammers, and thought about where they would drive the first nail
+tomorrow morning. The more I study men, the more I realize that they are
+nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.
+
+I am awfully worried as to how to feed Mr. Witherspoon. He looks as
+though he had a frightfully healthy appetite, and he looks as though he
+couldn't swallow his dinner unless he had on evening clothes. I've made
+Betsy send home for a trunkful of evening gowns in order to keep up our
+social standing. One thing is fortunate: he takes his luncheon at the
+hotel, and I hear their luncheons are very filling.
+
+Tell Jervis I am sorry he is not with us to drive a nail for the camp.
+Here comes the Hon. Cy up the path. Heaven save us!
+
+Ever your unfortunate,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+May 8.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Our camp is finished, our energetic brother has gone, and our
+twenty-four boys have passed two healthful nights in the open. The three
+bark-covered shacks add a pleasant rustic touch to the grounds. They are
+like those we used to have in the Adirondacks, closed on three sides
+and open in the front, and one larger than the rest to allow a private
+pavilion for Mr. Percy Witherspoon. An adjacent hut, less exposed to the
+weather, affords extremely adequate bathing facilities, consisting of a
+faucet in the wall and three watering-cans. Each camp has a bath master
+who stands on a stool and sprinkles each little shiverer as he trots
+under. Since our trustees WON'T give us enough bathtubs, we have to use
+our wits.
+
+The three camps have organized into three tribes of Indians, each with
+a chief of its own to answer for its conduct, Mr. Witherspoon high chief
+of all, and Dr. MacRae the medicine man. They dedicated their lodges
+Tuesday evening with appropriate tribal ceremonies. And though they
+politely invited me to attend, I decided that it was a purely masculine
+affair, so I declined to go, but sent refreshments, a very popular move.
+Betsy and I walked as far as the baseball field in the course of the
+evening, and caught a glimpse of the orgies. The braves were squatting
+in a circle about a big fire, each decorated with a blanket from his bed
+and a rakish band of feathers. (Our chickens seem very scant as to tail,
+but I have asked no unpleasant questions.) The doctor, with a Navajo
+blanket about his shoulders, was executing a war dance, while Jimmie
+and Mr. Witherspoon beat on war drums--two of our copper kettles, now
+permanently dented. Fancy Sandy! It's the first youthful glimmer I have
+ever caught in the man.
+
+After ten o'clock, when the braves were safely stowed for the night,
+the three men came in and limply dropped into comfortable chairs in my
+library, with the air of having made martyrs of themselves in the great
+cause of charity. But they did not deceive me. They originated all that
+tomfoolery for their own individual delectation.
+
+So far Mr. Percy Witherspoon appears fairly happy. He is presiding at
+one end of the officers' table under the special protection of Betsy,
+and I am told that he instills considerable life into that sedate
+assemblage. I have endeavored to run up their menu a trifle, and
+he accepts what is put before him with a perfectly good appetite,
+irrespective of the absence of such accustomed trifles as oysters and
+quail and soft-shell crabs.
+
+There was no sign of a private sitting room that I could put at this
+young man's disposal, but he himself has solved the difficulty by
+proposing to occupy our new laboratory. So he spends his evenings with a
+book and a pipe, comfortably stretched in the dentist's chair. There
+are not many society men who would be willing to spend their evenings so
+harmlessly. That girl in Detroit is a lucky young thing.
+
+Mercy! An automobile full of people has just arrived to look over the
+institution, and Betsy, who usually does the honors, not here. I fly.
+
+ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+My dear Gordon:
+
+This is not a letter,--I don't owe you one,--it's a receipt for
+sixty-five pairs of roller skates.
+
+Many thanks.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+I hear that I missed a call today, but Jane delivered your message,
+together with the "Genetic Philosophy of Education." She says that
+you will call in a few days for my opinion of the book. Is it to be a
+written or an oral examination?
+
+And doesn't it ever occur to you that this education business is rather
+one-sided? It often strikes me that Dr. Robin MacRae's mental attitude
+would also be the better for some slight refurbishing. I will promise to
+read your book, provided you read one of mine. I am sending herewith the
+"Dolly Dialogues," and shall ask for an opinion in a day or so.
+
+It's uphill work making a Scotch Presbyterian frivolous, but persistency
+accomplishes wonders.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+May 12. My dear, dear Judy:
+
+Talk about floods in Ohio! Right here in Dutchess County we are the
+consistency of a wet sponge. Rain for five days, and everything wrong
+with this institution.
+
+The babies have had croup, and we have been up o' nights with them. Cook
+has given notice, and there's a dead rat in the walls. Our three camps
+leaked, and in the early dawn, after the first cloudburst, twenty-four
+bedraggled little Indians, wrapped in damp bedding, came shivering to
+the door and begged for admission. Since then every clothesline, every
+stair-railing has been covered with wet and smelly blankets that steam,
+but won't dry. Mr. Percy de Forest Witherspoon has returned to the hotel
+to wait until the sun comes out.
+
+After being cooped up for four days with no exercise to speak of, the
+children's badness is breaking out in red spots, like the measles. Betsy
+and I have thought of every form of active and innocent occupation that
+could be carried on in such a congested quarter as this: blind man's
+buff and pillow fights and hide-and-go-seek, gymnastics in the dining
+room, and bean-bags in the school room. (We broke two windows.) The boys
+played leapfrog up and down the hall, and jarred all the plaster in the
+building. We have cleaned energetically and furiously. All the woodwork
+has been washed, and all of the floors polished. But despite everything,
+we have a great deal of energy left, and we are getting to that point of
+nerves where we want to punch one another.
+
+Sadie Kate has been acting like a little deil--do they have feminine
+deils? If not, Sadie Kate has originated the species. And this afternoon
+Loretta Higgins had--well, I don't know whether it was a sort of fit or
+just a temper. She lay down on the floor and howled for a solid hour,
+and when any one tried to approach her, she thrashed about like a little
+windmill and bit and kicked.
+
+By the time the doctor came she had pretty well worn herself out.
+He picked her up, limp and drooping, and carried her to a cot in the
+hospital room; and after she was asleep he came down to my library and
+asked to look at the archives.
+
+Loretta is thirteen; in the three years she has been here she has had
+five of these outbreaks, and has been punished good and hard for them.
+The child's ancestral record is simple: "Mother died of alcoholic
+dementia, Bloomingdale Asylum. Father unknown."
+
+He studied the page long and frowningly and shook his head.
+
+"With a heredity like that, is it right to punish the child for having a
+shattered nervous system?"
+
+"It is not," said I, firmly. "We will mend her shattered nervous
+system."
+
+"If we can."
+
+"We'll feed her up on cod-liver oil and sunshine, and find a nice kind
+foster mother who will take pity on the poor little--"
+
+But then my voice trailed off into nothing as I pictured Loretta's face,
+with her hollow eyes and big nose and open mouth and no chin and stringy
+hair and sticking-out ears. No foster mother in the world would love a
+child who looked like that.
+
+"Why, oh, why," I wailed, "doesn't the good Lord send orphan children
+with blue eyes and curly hair and loving dispositions? I could place a
+million of that sort in kind homes, but no one wants Loretta."
+
+"I'm afraid the good Lord doesn't have anything to do with bringing our
+Lorettas into the world. It is the devil who attends to them."
+
+Poor Sandy! He gets awfully pessimistic about the future of the
+universe; but I don't wonder, with such a cheerless life as he leads. He
+looked today as though his own nervous system was shattered. He had been
+splashing about in the rain since five this morning, when he was called
+to a sick baby case. I made him sit down and have some tea, and we had a
+nice, cheerful talk on drunkenness and idiocy and epilepsy and insanity.
+He dislikes alcoholic parents, but he ties himself into a knot over
+insane parents.
+
+Privately, I don't believe there's one thing in heredity, provided you
+snatch the babies away before their eyes are opened.
+
+We've got the sunniest youngster here you ever saw; his mother and
+Aunt Ruth and Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as placid and
+unexcitable as a cow.
+
+Good-by, my dear. I am sorry this is not a more cheerful letter, though
+at this moment nothing unpleasant seems to be happening. It's eleven
+o'clock, and I have just stuck my head into the corridor, and all is
+quiet except for two banging shutters and leaking eaves. I promised Jane
+I would go to bed at ten. Good night, and joy be wi' ye baith!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I have to
+be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a lingering attack
+of grippe. In a burst of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets.
+P.S. 2. We are having an epidemic of pinkeye.
+
+
+May 16. Good morning, my dear Judy!
+
+Three days of sunshine, and the J. G. H. is smiling.
+
+I am getting my immediate troubles nicely settled. Those beastly
+blankets have dried at last, and our camps have been made livable again.
+They are floored with wooden slats and roofed with tar paper. (Mr.
+Witherspoon calls them chicken coops.) We are digging a stone-lined
+ditch to convey any further cloudbursts from the plateau on which they
+stand to the cornfield below. The Indians have resumed savage life, and
+their chief is back at his post.
+
+The doctor and I have been giving Loretta Higgins's nerves our most
+careful consideration. We think that this barrack life, with its
+constant movement and stir, is too exciting, and we have decided that
+the best plan will be to board her out in a private family, where she
+will receive a great deal of individual attention.
+
+The doctor, with his usual resourcefulness, has produced the family.
+They live next door to him and are very nice people; I have just
+returned from calling. The husband is foreman of the casting room at the
+iron works, and the wife is a comfortable soul who shakes all over
+when she laughs. They live mostly in their kitchen in order to keep the
+parlor neat; but it is such a cheerful kitchen that I should like to
+live in it myself. She has potted begonias in the window and a nice
+purry tiger cat asleep on a braided rug in front of the stove. She bakes
+on Saturday--cookies and gingerbread and doughnuts. I am planning to pay
+my weekly call upon Loretta every Saturday morning at eleven o'clock.
+Apparently I made as favorable an impression on Mrs. Wilson as she made
+on me. After I had gone, she confided to the doctor that she liked me
+because I was just as common as she was.
+
+Loretta is to learn housework and have a little garden of her own, and
+particularly play out of doors in the sunshine. She is to go to bed
+early and be fed up on nice nourishing food, and they are to pet her and
+make her happy. All this for three dollars a week!
+
+Why not find a hundred such families, and board out all the children?
+Then this building could be turned into an idiot asylum, and I, not
+knowing anything about idiots, could conscientiously resign and go back
+home and live happily ever after.
+
+Really, Judy, I am growing frightened. This asylum will get me if I stay
+long enough. I am becoming so interested in it that I can't think or
+talk or dream of anything else. You and Jervis have blasted all my
+prospects in life.
+
+Suppose I should retire and marry and have a family. As families go
+nowadays, I couldn't hope for more than five or six children at the
+most, and all with the same heredity. But, mercy! such a family appears
+perfectly insignificant and monotonous. You have institutionalized me.
+
+Reproachfully yours,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. We have a child here whose father was lynched. Isn't that a piquant
+detail to have in one's history?
+
+
+Tuesday.
+
+Dearest Judy:
+
+What shall we do? Mamie Prout does not like prunes. This antipathy to a
+cheap and healthful foodstuff is nothing but imagination, and ought
+not to be countenanced among the inmates of a well-managed institution.
+Mamie must be made to like prunes. So says our grammar teacher, who
+spends the noonday hour with us and overlooks the morals of our charges.
+About one o'clock today she marched Mamie to my office charged with the
+offense of refusing, ABSOLUTELY refusing, to open her mouth and put in
+a prune. The child was plumped down on a stool to await punishment from
+me.
+
+Now, as you know, I do not like bananas, and I should hate awfully to be
+forced to swallow them; so, by the same token, why should I force Mamie
+Prout to swallow prunes?
+
+While I was pondering a course that would seem to uphold Miss Keller's
+authority, but would at the same time leave a loophole for Mamie, I was
+called to the telephone.
+
+"Sit there until I come back," I said, and went out and closed the door.
+
+The message was from a kind lady wishing to motor me to a committee
+meeting. I didn't tell you that I am organizing local interest in our
+behalf. The idle rich who possess estates in this neighborhood are
+beginning to drift out from town, and I am laying my plans to catch
+them before they are deflected by too many garden parties and tennis
+tournaments. They have never been of the slightest use to this asylum,
+and I think it's about time they woke up to a realization of our
+presence.
+
+Returning at teatime, I was waylaid in the hall by Dr. MacRae, who
+demanded some statistics from my office. I opened the door, and there
+sat Mamie Prout exactly where she had been left four hours before.
+
+"Mamie darling!" I cried in horror. "You haven't been here all this
+time?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Mamie; "you told me to wait until you came back."
+
+That poor patient little thing was fairly swaying with weariness, but
+she never uttered a whimper.
+
+I will say for Sandy that he was SWEET. He gathered her up in his arms
+and carried her to my library, and petted her and caressed her back to
+smiles. Jane brought the sewing table and spread it before the fire,
+and while the doctor and I had tea, Mamie had her supper. I suppose,
+according to the theory of some educators, now, when she was thoroughly
+worn out and hungry, would have been the psychological moment to ply her
+with prunes. But you will be pleased to hear that I did nothing of the
+sort, and that the doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles.
+Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, embellished with
+strawberry jam from my private jar and peppermints from Sandy's pocket.
+We returned her to her mates happy and comforted, but still possessing
+that regrettable distaste for prunes.
+
+Did you ever know anything more appalling than this soul-crushing
+unreasoning obedience which Mrs. Lippett so insistently fostered? It's
+the orphan asylum attitude toward life, and somehow I must crush it out.
+Initiative, responsibility, curiosity, inventiveness, fight--oh dear! I
+wish the doctor had a serum for injecting all these useful virtues into
+an orphan's circulation.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+I wish you'd come back to New York. I've appointed you press agent
+for this institution, and we need some of your floweriest writing
+immediately. There are seven tots here crying to be adopted, and it's
+your business to advertise them.
+
+Little Gertrude is cross-eyed, but dear and affectionate and generous.
+Can't you write her up so persuasively that some loving family will
+be willing to take her even if she isn't beautiful? Her eyes can be
+operated on when she's older; but if it were a cross disposition she
+had, no surgeon in the world could remove that. The child knows there is
+something missing, though she has never seen a live parent in her life.
+She holds up her arms persuasively to every person who passes. Put in
+all the pathos you are capable of, and see if you can't fetch her a
+mother and father.
+
+Maybe you can get one of the New York papers to run a Sunday feature
+article about a lot of different children. I'll send some photographs.
+You remember what a lot of responses that "Smiling Joe" picture brought
+for the Sea Breeze people? I can furnish equally taking portraits of
+Laughing Lou and Gurgling Gertrude and Kicking Karl if you will just add
+the literary touch.
+
+And do find me some sports who are not afraid of heredity. This wanting
+every child to come from one of the first families of Virginia is
+getting tiresome.
+
+Yours, as usual,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Friday. My dear, dear Judy:
+
+Such an upheaval! I've discharged the cook and the housekeeper, and in
+delicate language conveyed the impression to our grammar teacher that
+she needn't come back next year. But, oh, if I could only discharge the
+Honorable Cy!
+
+I must tell you what happened this morning. Our trustee, who has had a
+dangerous illness, is now dangerously well again, and dropped in to
+pay a neighborly call. Punch was occupying a rug on my library floor,
+virtuously engaged with building blocks. I am separating him from the
+other kindergarten children, and trying the Montessori method of a
+private rug and no nervous distraction. I was flattering myself that it
+was working well; his vocabulary of late has become almost prudish.
+
+After half an hour's desultory visit, the Hon. Cy rose to go. As the
+door closed behind him (I am at least thankful the child waited for
+that), Punch raised his appealing brown eyes to mine and murmured, with
+a confiding smile:
+
+"Gee! ain't he got de hell of a mug?"
+
+If you know a kind Christian family where I can place out a sweet little
+five-year boy, please communicate at once with
+
+S. McBRIDE,
+
+Sup't John Grier Home.
+
+
+
+
+Dear Pendletons:
+
+I've never known anything like you two snails. You've only just reached
+Washington, and I have had my suitcase packed for days, ready to spend
+a rejuvenating week end CHEZ VOUS. Please hurry! I've languished in this
+asylum atmosphere as long as humanely possible. I shall gasp and die if
+I don't get a change.
+
+Yours,
+
+on the point of suffocation,
+
+S. McB.
+
+P.S. Drop a card to Gordon Hallock, telling him you are there. He will
+be charmed to put himself and the Capitol at your disposal. I know
+that Jervis doesn't like him, but Jervis ought to get over his baseless
+prejudices against politicians. Who knows? I may be entering politics
+myself some day.
+
+
+My dear Judy:
+
+We do receive the most amazing presents from our friends and
+benefactors. Listen to this. Last week Mr. Wilton J. Leverett (I quote
+from his card) ran over a broken bottle outside our gate, and came in
+to visit the institution while his chauffeur was mending the tire. Betsy
+showed him about. He took an intelligent interest in everything he saw,
+particularly our new camps. That is an exhibit which appeals to men.
+He ended by removing his coat, and playing baseball with two tribes
+of Indians. After an hour and a half he suddenly looked at his watch,
+begged for a glass of water, and bowed himself off.
+
+We had entirely forgotten the episode until this afternoon, when the
+expressman drove up to the door with a present for the John Grier
+Home from the chemical laboratories of Wilton J. Leverett. It was a
+barrel--well, anyway, a good sized keg--full of liquid green soap!
+
+Did I tell you that the seeds for our garden came from Washington?
+A polite present from Gordon Hallock and the U. S. Government. As an
+example of what the past regime did not accomplish, Martin Schladerwitz,
+who has spent three years on this pseudo farm, knew no more than to dig
+a grave two feet deep and bury his lettuce seeds!
+
+Oh, you can't imagine the number of fields in which we need making over;
+but of course you, of all people, can imagine. Little by little I am
+getting my eyes wide open, and things that just looked funny to me at
+first, now--oh dear! It's very disillusionizing. Every funny thing that
+comes up seems to have a little tragedy wrapped inside it.
+
+Just at present we are paying anxious attention to our manners--not
+orphan asylum manners, but dancing school manners. There is to be
+nothing Uriah Heepish about our attitude toward the world. The little
+girls make curtseys when they shake hands, and the boys remove caps and
+rise when a lady stands, and push in chairs at the table. (Tommy Woolsey
+shot Sadie Kate into her soup yesterday, to the glee of all observers
+except Sadie, who is an independent young damsel and doesn't care for
+these useless masculine attentions.) At first the boys were inclined to
+jeer, but after observing the politeness of their hero, Percy de Forest
+Witherspoon, they have come up to the mark like little gentlemen.
+
+Punch is paying a call this morning. For the last half-hour, while I
+have been busily scratching away to you, he has been established in the
+window seat, quietly and undestructively engaged with colored pencils.
+Betsy, EN PASSANT, just dropped a kiss upon his nose.
+
+"Aw, gwan!" said Punch, blushing quite pink, and wiping off the caress
+with a fine show of masculine indifference. But I notice he has resumed
+work upon his red-and-green landscape with heightened ardor and an
+attempt at whistling. We'll succeed yet in conquering that young man's
+temper.
+
+
+Tuesday.
+
+
+The doctor is in a very grumbly mood today. He called just as the
+children were marching in to dinner, whereupon he marched, too, and
+sampled their food, and, oh, my dear! the potatoes were scorched! And
+such a clishmaclaver as that man made! It is the first time the potatoes
+ever have been scorched, and you know that scorching sometimes happens
+in the best of families. But you would think from Sandy's language that
+the cook had scorched them on purpose, in accordance with my orders.
+
+As I have told you before, I could do very nicely without Sandy.
+
+
+Wednesday.
+
+
+Yesterday being a wonderful sunny day, Betsy and I turned our backs upon
+duty and motored to the very fancy home of some friends of hers, where
+we had tea in an Italian garden. Punch and Sadie Kate had been SUCH good
+children all day that at the last moment we telephoned for permission to
+include them, too.
+
+"Yes, indeed, do bring the little dears," was the enthusiastic response.
+
+But the choice of Punch and Sadie Kate was a mistake. We ought to have
+taken Mamie Prout, who has demonstrated her ability to sit. I shall
+spare you the details of our visit; the climax was reached when Punch
+went goldfishing in the bottom of the swimming pool. Our host pulled him
+out by an agitated leg, and the child returned to the asylum swathed in
+that gentleman's rose-colored bathrobe.
+
+What do you think? Dr. Robin MacRae, in a contrite mood for having been
+so intensely disagreeable yesterday, has just invited Betsy and me
+to take supper in his olive-green house next Sunday evening at seven
+o'clock in order to look at some microscopic slides. The entertainment,
+I believe, is to consist of a scarlet-fever culture, some alcoholic
+tissue, and a tubercular gland. These social attentions bore him
+excessively; but he realizes that if he is to have free scope in
+applying his theories to the institution he must be a little polite to
+its superintendent.
+
+I have just read this letter over, and I must admit that it skips
+lightly from topic to topic. But though it may not contain news of any
+great moment, I trust you will realize that its writing has consumed
+every vacant minute during the last three days. I am,
+
+Most fully occupied,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. A blessed woman came this morning and said she would take a child
+for the summer--one of the sickest, weakest, neediest babies I could
+give her. She had just lost her husband, and wanted something HARD to
+do. Isn't that really very touching?
+
+
+Saturday afternoon.
+
+Dear Judy and Jervis:
+
+Brother Jimmie (we are very alliterative!), spurred on by sundry begging
+letters from me, has at last sent us a present; but he picked it out
+himself.
+
+WE HAVE A MONKEY! His name is Java. The children no longer hear the
+school bell ring. On the day the creature came, this entire institution
+formed in line and filed past and shook his paw. Poor Sing's nose is out
+of joint. I have to PAY to have him washed.
+
+Sadie Kate is developing into my private secretary. I have her answer
+the thank-you letters for the institution, and her literary style is
+making a hit among our benefactors. She invariably calls out a second
+gift. I had hitherto believed that the Kilcoyne family sprang from
+the wild west of Ireland, but I begin to suspect that their source was
+nearer Blarney Castle. You can see from the inclosed copy of the letter
+she sent to Jimmie what a persuasive pen the young person has. I
+trust that in this case at least, it will not bear the fruit that she
+suggests.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Jimie
+
+We thank you very much for the lovly monkey you give. We name him java
+because that's a warm iland across the ocian where he was born up in a
+nest like a bird only big the doctor told us.
+
+The first day he come every boy and girl shook his hand and said good
+morning java his hand feels funny he holds so tite. I was afraid to
+touch him but now I let him sit on my shoulder and put his arms around
+my kneck if he wants to. He makes a funny noise that sounds like swering
+and gets mad when his tale is puled.
+
+We love him dearly and we love you two.
+
+The next time you have to give a present, please send an elifant. Well I
+guess Ill stop.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+SADIE KATE KILCOYNE.
+
+
+
+Percy de Forest Witherspoon is still faithful to his little followers,
+though I am so afraid he will get tired that I urge him to take frequent
+vacations. He has not only been faithful himself, but has brought in
+recruits. He has large social connections in the neighborhood, and last
+Saturday evening he introduced two friends, nice men who sat around the
+campfire and swapped hunting stories.
+
+One of them was just back from around the world, and told hair-raising
+anecdotes of the head hunters of Sarawak, a narrow pink country on the
+top of Borneo. My little braves pant to grow up and get to Sarawak, and
+go out on the war-path after head hunters. Every encyclopedia in this
+institution has been consulted, and there isn't a boy here who cannot
+tell you the history, manners, climate, flora, and fungi of Borneo.
+I only wish Mr. Witherspoon would introduce friends who had been head
+hunting in England, France, and Germany, countries not quite so CHIC as
+Sarawak, but more useful for general culture.
+
+We have a new cook, the fourth since my reign began. I haven't bothered
+you with my cooking troubles, but institutions don't escape any
+more than families. The last is a negro woman, a big, fat, smiling,
+chocolate-colored creature from Souf Ca'lina. And ever since she came
+on honey dew we've fed! Her name is--what do you guess? SALLIE, if you
+please. I suggested that she change it.
+
+"Sho, Miss, I's had dat name Sallie longer'n you, an' I couldn't get
+used nohow to answerin' up pert-like when you sings out `Mollie!' Seems
+like Sallie jest b'longs to me."
+
+So "Sallie" she remains; but at least there is no danger of our getting
+our letters mixed, for her last name is nothing so plebeian as McBride.
+It's Johnston-Washington, with a hyphen.
+
+Sunday.
+
+
+Our favorite game of late is finding pet names for Sandy. His austere
+presence lends itself to caricature. We have just originated a new
+batch. The "Laird o' Cockpen" is Percy's choice.
+
+The Laird o' Cockpen he's proud and he's great; His mind is ta'en up wi'
+the things of the state.
+
+Miss Snaith disgustedly calls him "that man," and Betsy refers to him
+(in his absence) as "Dr. Cod-Liver." My present favorite is "Macphairson
+Clon Glocketty Angus McClan." But for real poetic feeling, Sadie Kate
+beats us all. She calls him "Mister Someday Soon." I don't believe that
+the doctor ever dropped into verse but once in his life, but every child
+in this institution knows that one poem by heart.
+
+Someday soon something nice is going to happen;
+
+Be a good little girl and take this hint: Swallow with a smile your
+cod-liver ile,
+
+And the first thing you know you will have a peppermint.
+
+
+It's this evening that Betsy and I attend his supper party, and I
+confess that we are looking forward to seeing the interior of his gloomy
+mansion with gleeful eagerness. He never talks about himself or his past
+or anybody connected with himself. He appears to be an isolated figure
+standing on a pedestal labeled S C I E N C E, without a glimmer of any
+ordinary affections or emotions or human frailties except temper. Betsy
+and I are simply eaten up with curiosity to know what sort of past he
+came out of; but just let us get inside his house, and to our detective
+senses it will tell its own story. So long as the portal was guarded
+by a fierce McGurk, we had despaired of ever effecting an entrance; but
+now, behold! The door has opened of its own accord.
+
+To be continued.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+Monday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+We attended the doctor's supper party last night, Betsy and Mr.
+Witherspoon and I. It turned out a passably cheerful occasion, though I
+will say that it began under heavy auspices.
+
+His house on the inside is all that the outside promises. Never in my
+life have I seen such an interior as that man's dining room. The walls
+and carpets and lambrequins are a heavy dark green. A black marble
+mantelpiece shelters a few smoking black coals. The furniture is
+as nearly black as furniture comes. The decorations are two steel
+engravings in shiny black frames--the "Monarch of the Glen," and the
+"Stag at Bay."
+
+We tried hard to be light and sparkling, but it was like eating supper
+in the family vault. Mrs. McGurk, in black alpaca with a black silk
+apron, clumped around the table, passing cold, heavy things to eat, with
+a step so firm that she rattled the silver in the sideboard drawers. Her
+nose was up, and her mouth was down. She clearly does not approve of the
+master's entertaining, and she wishes to discourage all guests from ever
+accepting again.
+
+Sandy sort of dimly knows that there is something the matter with his
+house, and in order to brighten it up a bit in honor of his guests,
+he had purchased flowers,--dozens of them,--the most exquisite pink
+Killarney roses and red and yellow tulips. The McGurk had wedged them
+all together as tight as they would fit into a peacock-blue jardiniere,
+and plumped it down in the center of the table. The thing was as big as
+a bushel-basket. Betsy and I nearly forgot our manners when we saw
+that centerpiece; but the doctor seemed so innocently pleased at
+having obtained a bright note in his dining room that we suppressed our
+amusement and complimented him warmly upon his happy color scheme.
+
+The moment supper was over, we hastened with relief to his own part of
+the house, where the McGurk's influence does not penetrate. No one in a
+cleaning capacity ever enters either his library or office or laboratory
+except Llewelyn, a short, wiry, bow-legged Welshman, who combines to a
+unique degree the qualities of chambermaid and chauffeur.
+
+The library, though not the most cheerful room I have ever seen,
+still, for a man's house, is not so bad--books all around from floor to
+ceiling, with the overflow in piles on floor and table and mantelpiece;
+half a dozen abysmal leather chairs and a rug or so, with another black
+marble mantelpiece, but this time containing a crackling wood fire. By
+way of bric-a-brac, he has a stuffed pelican and a crane with a frog in
+its mouth, also a raccoon sitting on a log, and a varnished tarpon. A
+faint suggestion of iodoform floats in the air.
+
+The doctor made the coffee himself in a French machine, and we dismissed
+his housekeeper from our spirits. He really did do his best to be a
+thoughtful host and I have to report that the word "insanity" was not
+once mentioned. It seems that Sandy, in his moments of relaxation, is a
+fisherman. He and Percy began swapping stories of salmon and trout, and
+he finally got out his case of fishing flies, and gallantly presented
+Betsy and me with a "silver doctor" and a "Jack Scott" out of which
+to make hatpins. Then the conversation wandered to sport on the Scotch
+moors, and he told about one time when he was lost, and spent the night
+out in the heather. There is no doubt about it, Sandy's heart is in the
+highlands.
+
+I am afraid that Betsy and I have wronged him. Though it is hard to
+relinquish the interesting idea, he may not, after all, have committed a
+crime. We are now leaning to the belief that he was crossed in love.
+
+It's really horrid of me to make fun of poor Sandy, for, despite his
+stern bleakness of disposition, he's a pathetic figure of a man. Think
+of coming home after an anxious day's round to eat a solitary dinner in
+that grim dining room!
+
+Do you suppose it would cheer him up a little if I should send my
+company of artists to paint a frieze of rabbits around the wall?
+
+With love, as usual,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Aren't you ever coming back to New York? Please hurry! I need a new hat,
+and am desirous of shopping for it on Fifth Avenue, not on Water Street.
+Mrs. Gruby, our best milliner, does not believe in slavishly following
+Paris Fashions; she originates her own styles. But three years ago, as
+a great concession to convention, she did make a tour of the New York
+shops, and is still creating models on the uplift of that visit.
+
+Also, besides my own hat, I must buy 113 hats for my children, to say
+nothing of shoes and knickerbockers and shirts and hair-ribbons and
+stockings and garters. It's quite a task to keep a little family like
+mine decently clothed.
+
+Did you get that big letter I wrote you last week? You never had the
+grace to mention it in yours of Thursday, and it was seventeen pages
+long, and took me DAYS to write.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. Why don't you tell me some news about Gordon? Have you seen him,
+and did he mention me? Is he running after any of those pretty Southern
+girls that Washington is so full of? You know that I want to hear. Why
+must you be so beastly uncommunicative?
+
+
+Tuesday, 4:27 P.M.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your telegram came two minutes ago by telephone.
+
+Yes, thank you, I shall be delighted to arrive at 5:49 on Thursday
+afternoon. And don't make any engagements for that evening, please, as
+I intend to sit up until midnight talking John Grier gossip with you and
+the president.
+
+Friday and Saturday and Monday I shall have to devote to shopping. Oh,
+yes, you're right; I already possess more clothes than any jailbird
+needs, but when spring comes, I must have new plumage. As it is, I wear
+an evening gown every night just to wear them out--no, not entirely
+that; to make myself believe that I'm still an ordinary girl despite
+this extraordinary life that you have pushed me into.
+
+The Hon. Cy found me yesterday arrayed in a Nile-green crepe (Jane's
+creation, though it looked Parisian). He was quite puzzled when he found
+I wasn't going to a ball. I invited him to stay and dine with me, and
+he accepted! We got on very affably. He expands over his dinner. Food
+appears to agree with him. If there's any Bernard Shaw in New York just
+now, I believe that I might spare a couple of hours Saturday afternoon
+for a matinee. G. B. S.'s dialogue would afford such a life-giving
+contrast to the Hon. Cy's.
+
+There's no use writing any more; I'll wait and talk.
+
+ADDIO.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. Oh dear! just as I had begun to catch glimmerings of niceness in
+Sandy, he broke out again and was ABOMINABLE. We unfortunately have five
+cases of measles in this institution, and the man's manner suggests that
+Miss Snaith and I gave the measles to the children on purpose to make
+him trouble. There are many days when I should be willing to accept our
+doctor's resignation.
+
+
+Wednesday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at hand. I have never
+known anybody whose literary style resembled so exactly his spoken word.
+
+And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my absurd fashion of
+calling you "Enemy"? I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you
+Enemy just as soon as you drop your absurd fashion of getting angry and
+abusive and insulting the moment any little thing goes wrong.
+
+I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend four days in New York.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+CHEZ THE PENDLETONS, New York. My dear Enemy:
+
+I trust that this note will find you in a more affable frame of mind
+than when I saw you last. I emphatically repeat that it was not due to
+the carelessness of the superintendent of our institution that those two
+new cases of measles crept in, but rather to the unfortunate anatomy
+of our old-fashioned building, which does not permit of the proper
+isolation of contagious cases.
+
+As you did not deign to visit us yesterday morning before I left, I
+could not offer any parting suggestions. I therefore write to ask that
+you cast your critical eye upon Mamie Prout. She is covered all over
+with little red spots which may be measles, though I am hoping not.
+Mamie spots very easily.
+
+I return to prison life next Monday at six o'clock.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. I trust you will pardon my mentioning it, but you are not the kind
+of doctor that I admire. I like them chubby and round and smiling.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+June 9.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+You are an awful family for an impressionable young girl to visit.
+How can you expect me to come back and settle down contentedly to
+institution life after witnessing such a happy picture of domestic
+concord as the Pendleton household presents?
+
+All the way back in the train, instead of occupying myself with two
+novels, four magazines, and one box of chocolates that your husband
+thoughtfully provided, I spent the time in a mental review of the young
+men of my acquaintance to see if I couldn't discover one as nice as
+Jervis. I did! (A little nicer, I think.) From this day on he is the
+marked-down victim, the destined prey.
+
+I shall hate to give up the asylum after getting so excited over it,
+but unless you are willing to move it to the capital, I don't see any
+alternative.
+
+The train was awfully late. We sat and smoked on a siding while two
+accommodations and a freight dashed past. I think we must have broken
+something, and had to tinker up our engine. The conductor was soothing,
+but uncommunicative.
+
+It was 7:30 when I descended, the only passenger, at our insignificant
+station in the pitch darkness and RAIN, without an umbrella, and wearing
+that precious new hat. No Turnfelt to meet me; not even a station hack.
+To be sure, I hadn't telegraphed the exact time of my arrival, but,
+still, I did feel rather neglected. I had sort of vaguely expected all
+ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN to be drawn up by the platform, scattering
+flowers and singing songs of welcome. Just as I was telling the station
+man that I would watch his telegraph instrument while he ran across
+to the corner saloon and telephoned for a vehicle, there came whirling
+around the corner two big searchlights aimed straight at me. They
+stopped nine inches before running me down, and I heard Sandy's voice
+saying:
+
+"Weel, weel, Miss Sallie McBride! I'm thinking it's ower time you came
+back to tak' the bit bairns off my hands."
+
+That man had come three times to meet me on the off chance of the
+train's getting in some time. He tucked me and my new hat and bags and
+books and chocolates all in under his waterproof flap, and we splashed
+off. Really, I felt as if I was getting back home again, and quite sad
+at the thought of ever having to leave. Mentally, you see, I had already
+resigned and packed and gone. The mere idea that you are not in a place
+for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's
+why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a
+thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put
+your whole mind into making it a success.
+
+It's astounding how much news can accrue in four days. Sandy just
+couldn't talk fast enough to tell me everything I wanted to hear.
+Among other items, I learned that Sadie Kate had spent two days in the
+infirmary, her malady being, according to the doctor's diagnosis, half a
+jar of gooseberry jam and Heaven knows how many doughnuts. Her work had
+been changed during my absence to dishwashing in the officers' pantry,
+and the juxtaposition of so many exotic luxuries was too much for her
+fragile virtue.
+
+Also, our colored cook Sallie and our colored useful man Noah have
+entered upon a war of extermination. The original trouble was over a
+little matter of kindling, augmented by a pail of hot water that Sallie
+threw out of the window with, for a woman, unusual accuracy of aim. You
+can see what a rare character the head of an orphan asylum must
+have. She has to combine the qualities of a baby nurse and a police
+magistrate.
+
+The doctor had told only the half when we reached the house, and as
+he had not yet dined, owing to meeting me three times, I begged him
+to accept the hospitality of the John Grier. I would get Betsy and Mr.
+Witherspoon, and we would hold an executive meeting, and settle all our
+neglected businesses.
+
+Sandy accepted with flattering promptness. He likes to dine outside of
+the family vault.
+
+But Betsy, I found, had dashed home to greet a visiting grandparent,
+and Percy was playing bridge in the village. It's seldom the young thing
+gets out of an evening, and I'm glad for him to have a little cheerful
+diversion.
+
+So it ended in the doctor's and my dining tete-a-tete on a hastily
+improvised dinner,--it was then close upon eight, and our normal dinner
+hour is 6:30,--but it was such an improvised dinner as I am sure
+Mrs. McGurk never served him. Sallie, wishing to impress me with her
+invaluableness, did her absolutely Southern best. And after dinner we
+had coffee before the fire in my comfortable blue library, while the
+wind howled outside and the shutters banged.
+
+We passed a most cordial and intimate evening. For the first time
+since our acquaintance I struck a new note in the man. There really is
+something attractive about him when you once come to know him. But the
+process of knowing him requires time and tact. He's no' very gleg at the
+uptak. I've never seen such a tantalizing inexplicable person. All the
+time I'm talking to him I feel as though behind his straight line of a
+mouth and his half-shut eyes there were banked fires smoldering inside.
+Are you sure he hasn't committed a crime? He does manage to convey the
+delicious feeling that he has.
+
+And I must add that Sandy's not so bad a talker when he lets himself go.
+He has the entire volume of Scotch literature at his tongue's end.
+
+"Little kens the auld wife as she sits by the fire what the wind is
+doing on Hurly-Burly-Swire," he observed as a specially fierce blast
+drove the rain against the window. That sounds pat, doesn't it? I
+haven't, though, the remotest idea what it means. And listen to this:
+between cups of coffee (he drinks far too much coffee for a sensible
+medical man) he casually let fall the news that his family knew the R.
+L. S. family personally, and used to take supper at 17 Heriot Row! I
+tended him assiduously for the rest of the evening in a Did you once see
+Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you? frame of mind.
+
+When I started this letter, I had no intention of filling it with a
+description of the recently excavated charms of Robin MacRae; it's just
+by way of remorseful apology. He was so nice and companionable last
+night that I have been going about today feeling conscience-smitten at
+the thought of how mercilessly I made fun of him to you and Jervis. I
+really didn't mean quite all of the impolite things that I said. About
+once a month the man is sweet and tractable and engaging.
+
+Punch has just been paying a social call, and during the course of it
+he lost three little toadlings an inch long. Sadie Kate recovered one of
+them from under the bookcase, but the other two hopped away; and I'm so
+afraid they've taken sanctuary in my bed! I do wish that mice and snakes
+and toads and angleworms were not so portable. You never know what is
+going on in a perfectly respectable-looking child's pocket.
+
+I had a beautiful visit in Casa Pendleton. Don't forget your promise to
+return it soon.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. I left a pair of pale-blue bedroom slippers under the bed. Will
+you please have Mary wrap them up and mail them to me? And hold her
+hand while she writes the address. She spelt my name on the place cards
+"Mackbird."
+
+
+Tuesday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+As I told you, I left an application for an accomplished nurse with the
+employment bureau of New York.
+
+
+Wanted! A nurse maid with an ample lap suitable for the accommodation of
+seventeen babies at once.
+
+
+She came this afternoon, and this is the fine figure of a woman that I
+drew!
+
+We couldn't keep a baby from sliding off her lap unless we fastened him
+firmly with safety pins.
+
+Please give Sadie Kate the magazine. I'll read it tonight and return it
+tomorrow.
+
+Was there ever a more docile and obedient pupil than
+
+S. McBRIDE?
+
+
+Thursday. My dear Judy:
+
+I've been spending the last three days busily getting under way all
+those latest innovations that we planned in New York. Your word is law.
+A public cooky jar has been established.
+
+Also, the eighty play boxes have been ordered. It is a wonderful
+idea, having a private box for each child, where he can store up his
+treasures. The ownership of a little personal property will help develop
+them into responsible citizens. I ought to have thought of it myself,
+but for some reason the idea didn't come. Poor Judy! You have inside
+knowledge of the longings of their little hearts that I shall never be
+able to achieve, not with all the sympathy I can muster.
+
+We are doing our best to run this institution with as few discommoding
+rules as possible, but in regard to those play boxes there is one point
+on which I shall have to be firm. The children may not keep in them mice
+or toads or angleworms.
+
+I can't tell you how pleased I am that Betsy's salary is to be raised,
+and that we are to keep her permanently. But the Hon. Cy Wykoff
+deprecates the step. He has been making inquiries, and he finds that her
+people are perfectly able to take care of her without any salary.
+
+"You don't furnish legal advice for nothing," say I to him. "Why should
+she furnish her trained services for nothing?"
+
+"This is charitable work."
+
+"Then work which is undertaken for your own good should be paid, but
+work which is undertaken for the public good should not be paid?"
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" says he. "She's a woman, and her family ought to support
+her."
+
+This opened up vistas of argument which I did not care to enter with the
+Hon. Cy, so I asked him whether he thought it would be nicer to have
+a real lawn or hay on the slope that leads to the gate. He likes to
+be consulted, and I pamper him as much as possible in all unessential
+details. You see, I am following Sandy's canny advice: "Trustees are
+like fiddle-strings; they maunna be screwed ower tight. Humor the mon,
+but gang your ain gait." Oh, the tact that this asylum is teaching me! I
+should make a wonderful politician's wife.
+
+Thursday night.
+
+
+You will be interested to hear that I have temporarily placed out Punch
+with two charming spinsters who have long been tottering on the brink
+of a child. They finally came last week, and said they would like to try
+one for a month to see what the sensation felt like.
+
+They wanted, of course, a pretty ornament, dressed in pink and white and
+descended from the Mayflower. I told them that any one could bring up
+a daughter of the Mayflower to be an ornament to society, but the real
+feat was to bring up a son of an Italian organ-grinder and an Irish
+washerwoman. And I offered Punch. That Neapolitan heredity of his,
+artistically speaking, may turn out a glorious mixture, if the right
+environment comes along to choke out all the weeds.
+
+I put it up to them as a sporting proposition, and they were game. They
+have agreed to take him for one month and concentrate upon his remaking
+all their years of conserved force, to the end that he may be fit for
+adoption in some moral family. They both have a sense of humor and
+ACCOMPLISHING characters, or I should never have dared to propose it.
+And really I believe it's going to be the one way of taming our young
+fire-eater. They will furnish the affection and caresses and attention
+that in his whole abused little life he has never had.
+
+They live in a fascinating old house with an Italian garden, and
+furnishings selected from the whole round world. It does seem like
+sacrilege to turn that destructive child loose in such a collection of
+treasures. But he hasn't broken anything here for more than a month, and
+I believe that the Italian in him will respond to all that beauty.
+
+I warned them that they must not shrink from any profanity that might
+issue from his pretty baby lips.
+
+He departed last night in a very fancy automobile, and maybe I wasn't
+glad to say good-by to our disreputable young man! He has absorbed just
+about half of my energy.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+
+The pendant arrived this morning. Many thanks! But you really ought not
+to have given me another; a hostess cannot be held accountable for all
+the things that careless guests lose in her house. It is far too
+pretty for my chain. I am thinking of having my nose pierced, Cingalese
+fashion, and wearing my new jewel where it will really show.
+
+I must tell you that our Percy is putting some good constructive work
+into this asylum. He has founded the John Grier Bank, and has worked
+out all the details in a very professional and businesslike fashion,
+entirely incomprehensible to my non-mathematical mind. All of the older
+children possess properly printed checkbooks, and they are each to be
+paid five dollars a week for their services, such as going to school and
+accomplishing housework. They are then to pay the institution (by check)
+for their board and clothes, which will consume their five dollars. It
+looks like a vicious circle, but it's really very educative; they will
+comprehend the value of money before we dump them into a mercenary
+world. Those who are particularly good in lessons or work will receive
+an extra recompense. My head aches at the thought of the bookkeeping,
+but Percy waves that aside as a mere bagatelle. It is to be accomplished
+by our prize arithmeticians, and will train them for positions of trust.
+If Jervis hears of any opening for bank officials, let me know; I shall
+have a well-trained president, cashier, and paying teller ready to be
+placed by this time next year.
+
+
+Saturday.
+
+
+Our doctor doesn't like to be called "Enemy." It hurts his feelings or
+his dignity or something of the sort. But since I will persist, despite
+his expostulations, he has finally retaliated with a nickname for me. He
+calls me "Miss Sally Lunn," and is in a glow of pride at having achieved
+such an imaginative flight.
+
+He and I have invented a new pastime: he talks Scotch, and I answer in
+Irish. Our conversations run like this:
+
+"Good afthernoon to ye, docther. An' how's yer health the day?"
+
+"Verra weel, verra weel. And how gas it wi' a' the bairns?"
+
+"Shure, they're all av thim doin' foin."
+
+"I'm gey glad to hear it. This saft weather is hard on folk. There's
+muckle sickness aboot the kintra."
+
+"Hiven be praised it has not lighted here! But sit down, docther, an'
+make yersilf at home. Will ye be afther havin' a cup o' tay?"
+
+"Hoot, woman! I would na hae you fash yoursel', but a wee drap tea winna
+coom amiss."
+
+"Whist! It's no thruble at all."
+
+You may not think this a very dizzying excursion into frivolity; but I
+assure you, for one of Sandy's dignity, it's positively riotous. The man
+has been in a heavenly temper ever since I came back; not a single cross
+word. I am beginning to think I may reform him as well as Punch.
+
+This letter must be about long enough even for you. I've been writing it
+bit by bit for three days, whenever I happened to pass my desk.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. I don't think much of your vaunted prescription for hair tonic.
+Either the druggist didn't mix it right, or Jane didn't apply it with
+discretion. I stuck to the pillow this morning.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Saturday.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Your letter of Thursday is at hand, and extremely silly I consider it.
+Of course I am not trying to let you down easy; that isn't my way. If I
+let you down at all, it will be suddenly and with an awful bump. But
+I honestly didn't realize that it had been three weeks since I wrote.
+Please excuse!
+
+Also, my dear sir, I have to bring you to account. You were in New York
+last week, and you never ran up to see us. You thought we wouldn't find
+it out, but we heard--and are insulted.
+
+Would you like an outline of my day's activities? Wrote monthly report
+for trustees' meeting. Audited accounts. Entertained agent of State
+Charities Aid Association for luncheon. Supervised children's menus for
+next ten days. Dictated five letters to families who have our children.
+Visited our little feeble-minded Loretta Higgins (pardon the reference;
+I know you don't like me to mention the feeble-minded), who is being
+boarded out in a nice comfortable family, where she is learning to work.
+Came back to tea and a conference with the doctor about sending a child
+with tubercular glands to a sanatorium. Read an article on cottage
+VERSUS congregate system for housing dependent children. (We do need
+cottages! I wish you'd send us a few for a Christmas present.) And now
+at nine o'clock I'm sleepily beginning a letter to you. Do you know many
+young society girls who can point to such a useful day as that?
+
+Oh, I forgot to say that I stole ten minutes from my accounts this
+morning to install a new cook. Our Sallie Washington-Johnston, who
+cooked fit for the angels had a dreadful, dreadful temper and terrorized
+poor Noah, our super-excellent furnace man, to the point of giving
+notice. We couldn't spare Noah. He's more useful to the institution than
+its superintendent, and so Sallie Washington-Johnston is no more.
+
+When I asked the new cook her name, she replied, "Ma name is Suzanne
+Estelle, but ma friends call me Pet." Pet cooked the dinner tonight,
+but I must say that she lacks Sallie's delicate touch. I am awfully
+disappointed that you didn't visit us while Sallie was still here. You
+would have taken away an exalted opinion of my housekeeping.
+
+
+Drowsiness overcame me at that point, and it's now two days later.
+
+Poor neglected Gordon! It has just occurred to me that you never got
+thanked for the modeling clay which came two weeks ago, and it was
+such an unusually intelligent present that I should have telegraphed my
+appreciation. When I opened the box and saw all that nice messy putty
+stuff, I sat down on the spot and created a statue of Singapore. The
+children love it; and it is very good to have the handicraft side of
+their training encouraged.
+
+After a careful study of American history, I have determined that
+nothing is so valuable to a future president as an early obligatory
+unescapable performance of CHORES.
+
+Therefore I have divided the daily work of this institution into a
+hundred parcels, and the children rotate weekly through a succession of
+unaccustomed tasks. Of course they do everything badly, for just as they
+learn how, they progress to something new. It would be infinitely easier
+for us to follow Mrs. Lippett's immoral custom of keeping each child
+sentenced for life to a well-learned routine; but when the temptation
+assails me, I recall the dreary picture of Florence Henty, who polished
+the brass doorknobs of this institution for seven years--and I sternly
+shove the children on.
+
+I get angry every time I think of Mrs Lippett. She had exactly the
+point of view of a Tammany politician--no slightest sense of service to
+society. Her only interest in the John Grier Home was to get a living
+out of it.
+
+
+Wednesday.
+
+
+What new branch of learning do you think I have introduced into my
+asylum? Table manners!
+
+I never had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble to teach children
+how to eat and drink. Their favorite method is to put their mouths down
+to their mugs and lap their milk like kittens. Good manners are not
+merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe.
+They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have
+got to learn them.
+
+That woman never allowed them to talk at their meals, and I am having
+the most dreadful time getting any conversation out of them above a
+frightened whisper. So I have instituted the custom of the entire staff,
+myself included, sitting with them at the table, and directing the talk
+along cheerful and improving lines.
+
+Also I have established a small, very strict training table, where
+the little dears, in relays, undergo a week of steady badgering. Our
+uplifting table conversations run like this:
+
+"Yes, Tom, Napoleon Bonaparte was a very great man--elbows off the
+table. He possessed a tremendous power of concentrating his mind on
+whatever he wanted to have; and that is the way to accomplish--don't
+snatch, Susan; ask politely for the bread, and Carrie will pass it to
+you.--But he was an example of the fact that selfish thought just for
+oneself, without considering the lives of others, will come to disaster
+in the--Tom! Keep your mouth shut when you chew--and after the battle
+of Waterloo--let Sadie's cooky alone--his fall was all the greater
+because--Sadie Kate, you may leave the table. It makes no difference
+what he did. Under no provocation does a lady slap a gentleman."
+
+
+Two more days have passed; this is the same kind of meandering letter I
+write to Judy. At least, my dear man, you can't complain that I haven't
+been thinking about you this week! I know you hate to be told all about
+the asylum, but I can't help it, for it's all I know. I don't have five
+minutes a day to read the papers. The big outside world has dropped
+away. My interests all lie on the inside of this little iron inclosure.
+
+I am at present,
+
+S. McBRIDE,
+
+Superintendent of the
+
+John Grier Home.
+
+
+Thursday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." Hasn't that a very
+philosophical, detached, Lord of the Universe sound? It comes from
+Thoreau, whom I am assiduously reading at present. As you see, I have
+revolted against your literature and taken to my own again. The last
+two evenings have been devoted to "Walden," a book as far removed as
+possible from the problems of the dependent child.
+
+Did you ever read old Henry David Thoreau? You really ought. I think
+you'd find him a congenial soul. Listen to this: "Society is commonly
+too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to
+acquire any new value for each other. It would be better if there were
+but one habitation to a square mile, as where I live." A pleasant,
+expansive, neebor-like man he must have been! He minds me in some ways
+o' Sandy.
+
+This is to tell you that we have a placing-out agent visiting us. She is
+about to dispose of four chicks, one of them Thomas Kehoe. What do you
+think? Ought we to risk it? The place she has in mind for him is a farm
+in a no-license portion of Connecticut, where he will work hard for
+his board, and live in the farmer's family. It sounds exactly the right
+thing, and we can't keep him here forever; he'll have to be turned out
+some day into a world full of whisky.
+
+I'm sorry to tear you away from that cheerful work on "Dementia Precox,"
+but I'd be most obliged if you'd drop in here toward eight o'clock for a
+conference with the agent.
+
+I am, as usual,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+June 17. My dear Judy:
+
+Betsy has perpetrated a most unconscionable trick upon a pair of
+adopting parents. They have traveled East from Ohio in their touring car
+for the dual purpose of seeing the country and picking up a daughter.
+They appear to be the leading citizens of their town, whose name at
+the moment escapes me; but it's a very important town. It has electric
+lights and gas, and Mr. Leading Citizen owns the controlling interest
+in both plants. With a wave of his hand he could plunge that entire town
+into darkness; but fortunately he's a kind man, and won't do anything so
+harsh, not even if they fail to reelect him mayor. He lives in a brick
+house with a slate roof and two towers, and has a deer and fountain and
+lots of nice shade trees in the yard. (He carries its photograph in his
+pocket.) They are good-natured, generous, kind-hearted, smiling people,
+and a little fat; you can see what desirable parents they would make.
+
+Well, we had exactly the daughter of their dreams, only, as they came
+without giving us notice, she was dressed in a flannellet nightgown, and
+her face was dirty. They looked Caroline over, and were not impressed;
+but they thanked us politely, and said they would bear her in mind. They
+wanted to visit the New York Orphanage before deciding. We knew well
+that, if they saw that superior assemblage of children, our poor little
+Caroline would never have a chance.
+
+Then Betsy rose to the emergency. She graciously invited them to motor
+over to her house for tea that afternoon and inspect one of our little
+wards who would be visiting her baby niece. Mr. and Mrs. Leading Citizen
+do not know many people in the East, and they haven't been receiving the
+invitations that they feel are their due; so they were quite innocently
+pleased at the prospect of a little social diversion. The moment they
+had retired to the hotel for luncheon, Betsy called up her car, and
+rushed baby Caroline over to her house. She stuffed her into baby
+niece's best pink-and-white embroidered frock, borrowed a hat of Irish
+lace, some pink socks and white slippers, and set her picturesquely
+upon the green lawn under a spreading beech tree. A white-aproned nurse
+(borrowed also from baby niece) plied her with bread and milk and gaily
+colored toys. By the time prospective parents arrived, our Caroline,
+full of food and contentment, greeted them with cooes of delight. From
+the moment their eyes fell upon her they were ravished with desire.
+Not a suspicion crossed their unobservant minds that this sweet little
+rosebud was the child of the morning. And so, a few formalities having
+been complied with, it really looks as though baby Caroline would live
+in the Towers and grow into a leading citizen.
+
+I must really get to work, without any further delay, upon the burning
+question of new clothes for our girls.
+
+With the highest esteem, I am, D'r Ma'am, Y'r most ob'd't and h'mble
+serv't,
+
+SAL. McBRIDE.
+
+
+June 19th. My dearest Judy:
+
+Listen to the grandest innovation of all, and one that will delight your
+heart.
+
+NO MORE BLUE GINGHAM!
+
+
+Feeling that this aristocratic neighborhood of country estates might
+contain valuable food for our asylum, I have of late been moving in
+the village social circles, and at a luncheon yesterday I dug out a
+beautiful and charming widow who wears delectable, flowing gowns that
+she designs herself. She confided to me that she would have loved to
+have been a dressmaker, if she had only been born with a needle in her
+mouth instead of a golden spoon. She says she never sees a pretty girl
+badly dressed but she longs to take her in hand and make her over. Did
+you ever hear anything so apropos? From the moment she opened her lips
+she was a marked man.
+
+"I can show you fifty-nine badly dressed girls," said I to her, "and you
+have got to come back with me and plan their new clothes and make them
+beautiful."
+
+She expostulated; but in vain. I led her out to her automobile, shoved
+her in, and murmured, "John Grier Home" to the chauffeur. The first
+inmate our eyes fell upon was Sadie Kate, just fresh, I judge, from
+hugging the molasses barrel; and a shocking spectacle she was for any
+esthetically minded person. In addition to the stickiness, one stocking
+was coming down, her pinafore was buttoned crookedly, and she had lost a
+hair-ribbon. But--as always--completely at ease, she welcomed us with a
+cheery grin, and offered the lady a sticky paw.
+
+"Now," said I, in triumph, "you see how much we need you. What can you
+do to make Sadie Kate beautiful?"
+
+"Wash her," said Mrs. Livermore.
+
+Sadie Kate was marched to my bathroom. When the scrubbing was finished
+and the hair strained back and the stocking restored to seemly heights,
+I returned her for a second inspection--a perfectly normal little
+orphan. Mrs. Livermore turned her from side to side, and studied her
+long and earnestly.
+
+Sadie Kate by nature is a beauty, a wild, dark, Gypsyish little colleen.
+She looks fresh from the wind-swept moors of Connemara. But, oh, we
+have managed to rob her of her birthright with this awful institution
+uniform!
+
+After five minutes' silent contemplation, Mrs. Livermore raised her eyes
+to mine.
+
+"Yes, my dear, you need me."
+
+And then and there we formed our plans. She is to head the committee
+on C L O T H E S. She is to choose three friends to help her. And they,
+with the two dozen best sewers among the girls and our sewing-teacher
+and five sewing machines, are going to make over the looks of this
+institution. And the charity is all on our side. We are supplying Mrs.
+Livermore with the profession that Providence robbed her of. Wasn't it
+clever of me to find her? I woke this morning at dawn and crowed!
+
+Lots more news,--I could run into a second volume,--but I am going to
+send this letter to town by Mr. Witherspoon, who, in a very high collar
+and the blackest of evening clothes, is on the point of departure for a
+barn dance at the country club. I told him to pick out the nicest girls
+he danced with to come and tell stories to my children.
+
+It is dreadful, the scheming person I am getting to be. All the time I
+am talking to any one, I am silently thinking, "What use can you be to
+my asylum?"
+
+There is grave danger that this present superintendent will become so
+interested in her job that she will never want to leave. I sometimes
+picture her a white-haired old lady, propelled about the building in
+a wheeled chair, but still tenaciously superintending her fourth
+generation of orphans.
+
+PLEASE discharge her before that day!
+
+Yours,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Yesterday morning, without the slightest warning, a station hack drove
+up to the door and disgorged upon the steps two men, two little boys, a
+baby girl, a rocking horse, and a Teddy bear, and then drove off!
+
+The men were artists, and the little ones were children of another
+artist, dead three weeks ago. They had brought the mites to us because
+they thought "John Grier" sounded solid and respectable, and not like a
+public institution. It had never entered their unbusinesslike heads that
+any formality is necessary about placing a child in an asylum.
+
+I explained that we were full, but they seemed so stranded and aghast,
+that I told them to sit down while I advised them what to do. So the
+chicks were sent to the nursery, with a recommendation of bread and
+milk, while I listened to their history. Those artists had a fatally
+literary touch, or maybe it was just the sound of the baby girl's laugh,
+but, anyway, before they had finished, the babes were ours.
+
+Never have I seen a sunnier creature than the little Allegra (we don't
+often get such fancy names or such fancy children). She is three years
+old, is lisping funny baby talk and bubbling with laughter. The tragedy
+she has just emerged from has never touched her. But Don and Clifford,
+sturdy little lads of five and seven, are already solemn-eyed and
+frightened at the hardness of life.
+
+Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who married an artist on a
+capital of enthusiasm and a few tubes of paint. His friends say that he
+had talent, but of course he had to throw it away to pay the milkman.
+They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety old studio, cooking
+behind screens, the babies sleeping on shelves.
+
+But there seems to have been a very happy side to it--a great deal of
+love and many friends, all more or less poor, but artistic and congenial
+and high-thinking. The little lads, in their gentleness and fineness,
+show that phase of their upbringing. They have an air which many of
+my children, despite all the good manners I can pour into them, will
+forever lack.
+
+The mother died in the hospital a few days after Allegra's birth, and
+the father struggled on for two years, caring for his brood and painting
+like mad--advertisements, anything--to keep a roof over their heads.
+
+He died in St. Vincent's three weeks ago,--overwork, worry, pneumonia.
+His friends rallied about the babies, sold such of the studio fittings
+as had escaped pawning, paid off the debts, and looked about for the
+best asylum they could find. And, Heaven save them! they hit upon us!
+
+Well, I kept the two artists for luncheon,--nice creatures in soft
+hats and Windsor ties, and looking pretty frayed themselves,--and then
+started them back to New York with the promise that I would give the
+little family my most parental attention.
+
+So here they are, one little mite in the nursery, two in the
+kindergarten room, four big packing cases full of canvases in the
+cellar, and a trunk in the store room with the letters of their
+father and mother. And a look in their faces, an intangible spiritual
+SOMETHING, that is their heritage.
+
+I can't get them out of my mind. All night long I was planning their
+future. The boys are easy. They have already been graduated from
+college, Mr. Pendleton assisting, and are pursuing honorable business
+careers. But Allegra I don't know about; I can't think what to wish for
+the child. Of course the normal thing to wish for any sweet little girl
+is that two kind foster parents will come along to take the place of the
+real parents that Fate has robbed her of. But in this case it would be
+cruel to steal her away from her brothers. Their love for the baby is
+pitiful. You see, they have brought her up. The only time I ever hear
+them laugh is when she has done something funny.
+
+The poor little fellows miss their father horribly. I found Don, the
+five-year-old one, sobbing in his crib last night because he couldn't
+say good night to "daddy."
+
+But Allegra is true to her name, the happiest young miss of three I have
+ever seen. The poor father managed well by her, and she, little ingrate,
+has already forgotten that she has lost him.
+
+Whatever can I do with these little ones? I think and think and think
+about them. I can't place them out, and it does seem too awful to bring
+them up here; for as good as we are going to be when we get ourselves
+made over, still, after all, we are an institution, and our inmates are
+just little incubator chicks. They don't get the individual, fussy care
+that only an old hen can give.
+
+There is a lot of interesting news that I might have been telling you,
+but my new little family has driven everything out of my mind.
+
+Bairns are certain joy, but nae sma' care.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+SALLIE. P.S. Don't forget that you are coming to visit me next week.
+
+P.S. II. The doctor, who is ordinarily so scientific and unsentimental,
+has fallen in love with Allegra. He didn't so much as glance at her
+tonsils; he simply picked her up in his arms and hugged her. Oh, she is
+a little witch! Whatever is to become of her?
+
+
+
+June 22. My dear Judy:
+
+I may report that you need no longer worry as to our inadequate fire
+protection. The doctor and Mr. Witherspoon have been giving the
+matter their gravest attention, and no game yet devised has proved so
+entertaining and destructive as our fire drill.
+
+The children all retire to their beds and plunge into alert slumber.
+Fire alarm sounds. They spring up and into their shoes, snatch the top
+blanket from their beds, wrap it around their imaginary nightclothes,
+fall into line, and trot to the hall and stairs.
+
+Our seventeen little tots in the nursery are each in charge of an
+Indian, and are bundled out, shrieking with delight. The remaining
+Indians, so long as there is no danger of the roof falling, devote
+themselves to salvage. On the occasion of our first drill, Percy in
+command, the contents of a dozen clothes lockers were dumped into sheets
+and hurled out of the windows. I usurped dictatorship just in time to
+keep the pillows and mattresses from following. We spent hours resorting
+those clothes, while Percy and the doctor, having lost all interest
+strolled up to the camp with their pipes.
+
+Our future drills are to be a touch less realistic. However, I am
+pleased to tell you that, under the able direction of Fire Chief
+Witherspoon, we emptied the building in six minutes and twenty-eight
+seconds.
+
+That baby Allegra has fairy blood in her veins. Never did this
+institution harbor such a child, barring one that Jervis and I know of.
+She has completely subjugated the doctor. Instead of going about his
+visits like a sober medical man, he comes down to my library hand in
+hand with Allegra, and for half an hour at a time crawls about on a rug,
+pretending he's a horse, while the bonnie wee lassie sits on his back
+and kicks. You know, I am thinking of putting a card in the paper:
+
+Characters neatly remodeled. S. McBride.
+
+
+Sandy dropped in two nights ago to have a bit of conversation with Betsy
+and me, and he was FRIVOLOUS. He made three jokes, and he sat down at
+the piano and sang some old Scotch, "My luve's like a red, red rose,"
+and "Come under my plaidie," and "Wha's at the window? Wha? Wha?" not in
+the least educational, and then danced a few steps of the strathspey!
+
+I sat and beamed upon my handiwork, for it's true, I've done it all
+through my frivolous example and the books I've given him and the
+introducing of such lightsome companions as Jimmie and Percy and Gordon
+Hallock. If I have a few more months in which to work, I shall get the
+man human. He has given up purple ties, and at my tactful suggestion has
+adopted a suit of gray. You have no idea how it sets him off. He will
+be quite distinguished looking as soon as I can make him stop carrying
+bulgy things in his pockets.
+
+Good-by; and remember that we're expecting you on Friday.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. Here is a picture of Allegra, taken by Mr. Witherspoon. Isn't she
+a love? Her present clothes do not enhance her beauty, but in the course
+of a few weeks she will move into a pink smocked frock.
+
+Wednesday, June 24, 10 A.M. MRS. JERVIS PENDLETON.
+
+Madam:
+
+Your letter is at hand, stating that you cannot visit me on Friday per
+promise, because your husband has business that keeps him in town. What
+clishmaclaver is this! Has it come to such a pass that you can't leave
+him for two days?
+
+I did not let 113 babies interfere with my visit to you, and I see no
+reason why you should let one husband interfere with your visit to me. I
+shall meet the Berkshire express on Friday as agreed. S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+June 30. My dear Judy:
+
+That was a very flying visit you paid us; but for all small favors we
+are grateful. I am awfully pleased that you were so delighted with the
+way things are going, and I can't wait for Jervis and the architect to
+get up here and really begin a fundamental ripping-up.
+
+You know, I had the queerest feeling all the time that you were here. I
+can't make it seem true that you, my dear, wonderful Judy, were actually
+brought up in this institution, and know from the bitter inside what
+these little tots need. Sometimes the tragedy of your childhood fills
+me with an anger that makes me want to roll up my sleeves and fight the
+whole world and force it into making itself over into a place more fit
+for children to live in. That Scotch-Irish ancestry of mine seems to
+have deposited a tremendous amount of FIGHT in my character.
+
+If you had started me with a modern asylum, equipped with nice, clean,
+hygienic cottages and everything in running order, I couldn't have stood
+the monotony of its perfect clockwork. It's the sight of so many things
+crying to be done that makes it possible for me to stay. Sometimes, I
+must confess, I wake up in the morning and listen to these institution
+noises, and sniff this institution air, and long for the happy, carefree
+life that by rights is mine.
+
+You my dear witch, cast a spell over me, and I came. But often in
+the night watches your spell wears thin, and I start the day with the
+burning decision to run away from the John Grier Home. But I postpone
+starting until after breakfast. And as I issue into the corridor, one
+of these pathetic tots runs to meet me, and shyly slips a warm, crumpled
+little fist into my hand, and looks up with wide baby eyes, mutely
+asking for a little petting, and I snatch him up and hug him. And then,
+as I look over his shoulder at the other forlorn little mites, I long
+to take all 113 into my arms and love them into happiness. There is
+something hypnotic about this working with children. Struggle as you
+may, it gets you in the end.
+
+Your visit seems to have left me in a broadly philosophical frame of
+mind; but I really have one or two bits of news that I might convey. The
+new frocks are marching along, and, oh, but they are going to be sweet!
+Mrs. Livermore was entranced with those parti-colored bales of cotton
+cloth you sent,--you should see our workroom, with it all scattered
+about,--and when I think of sixty little girls, attired in pink and blue
+and yellow and lavender, romping upon our lawn of a sunny day, I feel
+that we should have a supply of smoked eye glasses to offer visitors.
+Of course you know that some of those brilliant fabrics are going to be
+very fadeable and impractical. But Mrs. Livermore is as bad as you--she
+doesn't give a hang. She'll make a second and a third set if necessary.
+DOWN WITH CHECKED GINGHAM!
+
+I am glad you liked our doctor. Of course we reserve the right to say
+anything about him we choose, but our feelings would be awfully hurt if
+anybody else should make fun of him.
+
+He and I are still superintending each other's reading. Last week he
+appeared with Herbert Spencer's "System of Synthetic Philosophy" for
+me to glance at. I gratefully accepted it, and gave him in return the
+"Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff." Do you remember in college how we used to
+enrich our daily speech with quotations from Marie? Well, Sandy took her
+home and read her painstakingly and thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes," he acknowledged today when he came to report, "it is a truthful
+record of a certain kind of morbid, egotistical personality that
+unfortunately does exist. But I can't understand why you care to
+read it; for, thank God! Sally Lunn, you and Bash haven't anything in
+common."
+
+That's the nearest to a compliment he ever came, and I feel extremely
+flattered. As to poor Marie, he refers to her as "Bash" because he can't
+pronounce her name, and is too disdainful to try.
+
+We have a child here, the daughter of a chorus girl, and she is a
+conceited, selfish, vain, posing, morbid, lying little minx, but she has
+eyelashes! Sandy has taken the most violent dislike to that child.
+And since reading poor Marie's diary, he has found a new comprehensive
+adjective for summing up all of her distressing qualities. He calls her
+BASHY, and dismisses her.
+
+Good-by and come again.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. My children show a distressing tendency to draw out their entire
+bank accounts to buy candy.
+
+
+
+Tuesday night. My dear Judy:
+
+What do you think Sandy has done now? He has gone off on a pleasure trip
+to that psychopathic institution whose head alienist visited us a month
+or so ago. Did you ever know anything like the man? He is fascinated by
+insane people, and can't let them alone.
+
+When I asked for some parting medical instructions, he replied:
+
+"Feed a cowld and hunger a colic and put nae faith in doctors."
+
+With that advice, and a few bottles of cod-liver oil we are left to our
+own devices. I feel very free and adventurous. Perhaps you had better
+run up here again, as there's no telling what joyous upheaval I may
+accomplish when out from under Sandy's dampening influence.
+
+S.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Friday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Here I stay lashed to the mast, while you run about the country
+disporting yourself with insane people. And just as I was thinking that
+I had nicely cured you of this morbid predilection for psychopathic
+institutions! It's very disappointing. You had seemed almost human of
+late.
+
+May I ask how long you are intending to stay? You had permission to go
+for two days, and you've already been away four.
+
+Charlie Martin fell out of a cherry tree yesterday and cut his head
+open, and we were driven to calling in a foreign doctor. Five stitches.
+Patient doing well. But we don't like to depend on strangers. I wouldn't
+say a word if you were away on legitimate business, but you know very
+well that, after associating with melancholics for a week, you will come
+back home in a dreadful state of gloom, dead sure that humanity is going
+to the dogs; and upon me will fall the burden of getting you decently
+cheerful again.
+
+Do leave those insane people to their delusions, and come back to the
+John Grier Home, which needs you.
+
+I am most fervent' Your friend and servant, S. McB.
+
+P.S. Don't you admire that poetical ending? It was borrowed from Robert
+Burns, whose works I am reading assiduously as a compliment to a Scotch
+friend.
+
+
+July 6.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+That doctor man is still away. No word; just disappeared into space.
+I don't know whether he is ever coming back or not, but we seem to be
+running very happily without him.
+
+I lunched yesterday CHEZ the two kind ladies who have taken our Punch to
+their hearts. The young man seems to be very much at home. He took me
+by the hand, and did the honors of the garden, presenting me with the
+bluebell of my choice. At luncheon the English butler lifted him into
+his chair and tied on his bib with as much manner as though he were
+serving a prince of the blood. The butler has lately come from the
+household of the Earl of Durham, Punch from a cellar in Houston Street.
+It was a very uplifting spectacle.
+
+My hostesses entertained me afterward with excerpts from their table
+conversations of the last two weeks. (I wonder the butler hasn't given
+notice; he looked like a respectable man.) If nothing more comes of it,
+at least Punch has furnished them with funny stories for the rest of
+their lives. One of them is even thinking of writing a book. "At least,"
+says she, wiping hysterical tears from her eyes, "we have lived!"
+
+The Hon. Cy dropped in at 6:30 last night, and found me in an evening
+gown, starting for a dinner at Mrs. Livermore's house. He mildly
+observed that Mrs. Lippett did not aspire to be a society leader, but
+saved her energy for her work. You know I'm not vindictive, but I never
+look at that man without wishing he were at the bottom of the duck pond,
+securely anchored to a rock.
+
+Otherwise he'd pop up and float.
+
+Singapore respectfully salutes you, and is very glad that you can't see
+him as he now appears. A shocking calamity has befallen his good looks.
+Some bad child--and I don't think she's a boy--has clipped that poor
+beastie in spots, until he looks like a mangy, moth-eaten checkerboard.
+No one can imagine who did it. Sadie Kate is very handy with the
+scissors, but she is also handy with an alibi! During the time when the
+clipping presumably occurred, she was occupying a stool in the corner of
+the schoolroom with her face to the wall, as twenty-eight children can
+testify. However, it has become Sadie Kate's daily duty to treat those
+spots with your hair tonic.
+
+I am, as usual,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. This is a recent portrait of the Hon. Cy drawn from life. The man,
+in some respects, is a fascinating talker; he makes gestures with his
+nose.
+
+
+Thursday evening.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Sandy is back after a ten-days' absence,--no explanations,--and plunged
+deep into gloom. He resents our amiable efforts to cheer him up, and
+will have nothing to do with any of us except baby Allegra. He took
+her to his house for supper tonight and never brought her back until
+half-past seven, a scandalous hour for a young miss of three. I don't
+know what to make of our doctor; he grows more incomprehensible every
+day.
+
+But Percy, now, is an open-minded, confiding young man. He has just been
+making a dinner call (he is very punctilious in all social matters), and
+our entire conversation was devoted to the girl in Detroit. He is lonely
+and likes to talk about her; and the wonderful things he says! I hope
+that Miss Detroit is worthy of all this fine affection, but I'm afraid.
+He fetched out a leather case from the innermost recesses of his
+waistcoat and, reverently unwrapping two layers of tissue-paper, showed
+me the photograph of a silly little thing, all eyes and earrings and
+fuzzy hair. I did my best to appear congratulatory, but my heart shut up
+out of pity for the poor boy's future.
+
+Isn't it funny how the nicest men often choose the worst wives, and the
+nicest women the worst husbands? Their very niceness, I suppose, makes
+them blind and unsuspicious.
+
+You know, the most interesting pursuit in the world is studying
+character. I believe I was meant to be a novelist; people fascinate
+me--until I know them thoroughly. Percy and the doctor form a most
+engaging contrast. You always know at any moment what that nice young
+man is thinking about; he is written like a primer in big type and
+one-syllable words. But the doctor! He might as well be written in
+Chinese so far as legibility goes. You have heard of people with a dual
+nature; well, Sandy possesses a triple one. Usually he's scientific
+and as hard as granite, but occasionally I suspect him of being quite a
+sentimental person underneath his official casing. For days at a time
+he will be patient and kind and helpful, and I begin to like him; then
+without any warning an untamed wild man swells up from the innermost
+depths, and--oh, dear! the creature's impossible.
+
+I always suspect that sometime in the past he has suffered a terrible
+hurt, and that he is still brooding over the memory of it. All the time
+he is talking you have the uncomfortable feeling that in the far back
+corners of his mind he is thinking something else. But this may be
+merely my romantic interpretation of an uncommonly bad temper. In any
+case, he's baffling.
+
+We have been waiting for a week for a fine windy afternoon, and this is
+it. My children are enjoying "kite-day," a leaf taken from Japan. All
+of the big-enough boys and most of the girls are spread over "Knowltop"
+(that high, rocky sheep pasture which joins us on the east) flying kites
+made by themselves.
+
+I had a dreadful time coaxing the crusty old gentleman who owns the
+estate into granting permission. He doesn't like orphans, he says,
+and if he once lets them get a start in his grounds, the place will
+be infested with them forever. You would think, to hear him talk, that
+orphans were a pernicious kind of beetle.
+
+But after half an hour's persuasive talking on my part, he grudgingly
+made us free of his sheep pasture for two hours, provided we didn't step
+foot into the cow pasture over the lane, and came home promptly when our
+time was up. To insure the sanctity of his cow pasture, Mr. Knowltop has
+sent his gardener and chauffeur and two grooms to patrol its boundaries
+while the flying is on. The children are still at it, and are having a
+wonderful adventure racing over that windy height and getting tangled up
+in one another's strings. When they come panting back they are to have a
+surprise in the shape of ginger cookies and lemonade.
+
+These pitiful little youngsters with their old faces! It's a difficult
+task to make them young, but I believe I'm accomplishing it. And it
+really is fun to feel you're doing something positive for the good of
+the world. If I don't fight hard against it, you'll be accomplishing
+your purpose of turning me into a useful person. The social excitements
+of Worcester almost seem tame before the engrossing interest of 113
+live, warm, wriggling little orphans.
+
+Yours with love,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. I believe, to be accurate, that it's 107 children I possess this
+afternoon.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+This being Sunday and a beautiful blossoming day, with a warm wind
+blowing, I sat at my window with the "Hygiene of the Nervous System"
+(Sandy's latest contribution to my mental needs) open in my lap, and
+my eyes on the prospect without. "Thank Heaven!" thought I, "that this
+institution was so commandingly placed that at least we can look out
+over the cast-iron wall which shuts us in."
+
+I was feeling very cooped-up and imprisoned and like an orphan myself;
+so I decided that my own nervous system required fresh air and exercise
+and adventure. Straight before me ran that white ribbon of road that
+dips into the valley and up over the hills on the other side. Ever since
+I came I have longed to follow it to the top and find out what lies
+beyond those hills. Poor Judy! I dare say that very same longing
+enveloped your childhood. If any one of my little chicks ever stands by
+the window and looks across the valley to the hills and asks, "What's
+over there?" I shall telephone for a motor car.
+
+But today my chicks were all piously engaged with their little souls,
+I the only wanderer at heart. I changed my silken Sunday gown for
+homespun, planning meanwhile a means to get to the top of those hills.
+
+Then I went to the telephone and brazenly called up 505.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mrs. McGurk," said I, very sweet. "May I be speaking
+with Dr. MacRae?"
+
+"Howld the wire," said she, very short.
+
+"Afternoon, Doctor," said I to him. "Have ye, by chance, any dying
+patients who live on the top o' the hills beyant?"
+
+"I have not, thank the Lord!"
+
+"'Tis a pity," said I, disappointed. "And what are ye afther doin' with
+yerself the day?"
+
+"I am reading the `Origin of Species.'"
+
+"Shut it up; it's not fit for Sunday. And tell me now, is yer motor car
+iled and ready to go?"
+
+"It is at your disposal. Are you wanting me to take some orphans for a
+ride?"
+
+"Just one who's sufferin' from a nervous system. She's taken a fixed
+idea that she must get to the top o' the hills."
+
+"My car is a grand climber. In fifteen minutes--"
+
+"Wait!" said I. "Bring with ye a frying pan that's a decent size for
+two. There's nothing in my kitchen smaller than a cart wheel. And ask
+Mrs. McGurk can ye stay out for supper."
+
+So I packed in a basket a jar of bacon and some eggs and muffins and
+ginger cookies, with hot coffee in the thermos bottle, and was waiting
+on the steps when Sandy chugged up with his automobile and frying pan.
+
+We really had a beautiful adventure, and he enjoyed the sensation
+of running away exactly as much as I. Not once did I let him mention
+insanity. I made him look at the wide stretches of meadow and the lines
+of pollard willows backed by billowing hills, and sniff the air, and
+listen to the cawing crows and the tinkle of cowbells and the gurgling
+of the river. And we talked--oh, about a million things far removed from
+our asylum. I made him throw away the idea that he is a scientist, and
+pretend to be a boy. You will scarcely credit the assertion, but he
+succeeded--more or less. He did pull off one or two really boyish
+pranks. Sandy is not yet out of his thirties and, mercy! that is too
+early to be grown up.
+
+We camped on a bluff overlooking our view, gathered some driftwood,
+built a fire, and cooked the NICEST supper--a sprinkling of burnt stick
+in our fried eggs, but charcoal's healthy. Then, when Sandy had finished
+his pipe and "the sun was setting in its wonted west," we packed up and
+coasted back home.
+
+He says it was the nicest afternoon he has had in years, and, poor
+deluded man of science, I actually believe it's true. His olive green
+home is so uncomfortable and dreary and uninspiring that I don't wonder
+he drowns his troubles in books. Just as soon as I can find a nice
+comfortable house mother to put in charge, I am going to plot for the
+dismissal of Maggie McGurk, though I foresee that she will be even
+harder than Sterry to pry from her moorings.
+
+Please don't draw the conclusion that I am becoming unduly interested
+in our bad-tempered doctor, for I'm not. It's just that he leads such a
+comfortless life that I sometimes long to pat him on the head and tell
+him to cheer up; the world's full of sunshine, and some of it's for
+him--just as I long to comfort my hundred and seven orphans; so much and
+no more.
+
+I am sure that I had some real news to tell you, but it has completely
+gone out of my head. The rush of fresh air has made me sleepy. It's
+half-past nine, and I bid you good night.
+
+S.
+
+P.S. Gordon Hallock has evaporated into thin air. Not a word for three
+weeks; no candy or stuffed animals or tokimentoes of any description.
+What on earth do you suppose has become of that attentive young man?
+
+
+July 13.
+
+Dearest Judy:
+
+Hark to the glad tidings!
+
+This being the thirty-first day of Punch's month, I telephoned to his
+two patronesses, as nominated in the bond, to arrange for his return. I
+was met by an indignant refusal. Give up their sweet little volcano
+just as they are getting it trained not to belch forth fire? They are
+outraged that I can make such an ungrateful request. Punch has accepted
+their invitation to spend the summer.
+
+The dressmaking is still going on. You should hear the machines whir
+and the tongues clatter in the sewing room. Our most cowed, apathetic,
+spiritless little orphan cheers up and takes an interest in life when
+she hears that she is to possess three perfectly private dresses of her
+own, and each a different color, chosen by herself. And you should see
+how it encourages their sewing ability. Even the little ten-year-olds
+are bursting into seamstresses. I wish I could devise an equally
+effective way to make them take an interest in cooking. But our
+kitchen is extremely uneducative. You know how hampering it is to one's
+enthusiasm to have to prepare a bushel of potatoes at once.
+
+I think you've heard me mention the fact that I should like to divide up
+my kiddies into ten nice little families, with a nice comfortable house
+mother over each? If we just had ten picturesque cottages to put them
+in, with flowers in the front yard and rabbits and kittens and
+puppies and chickens in the back, we should be a perfectly presentable
+institution, and wouldn't be ashamed to have these charity experts come
+visiting us.
+
+
+Thursday.
+
+
+I started this letter three days ago, was interrupted to talk to a
+potential philanthropist (fifty tickets to the circus), and have not had
+time to pick up my pen since. Betsy has been in Philadelphia for three
+days, being a bridesmaid for a miserable cousin. I hope that no more of
+her family are thinking of getting married, for it's most upsetting to
+the J. G. H.
+
+While there, she investigated a family who had applied for a child. Of
+course we haven't a proper investigating plant, but once in a while,
+when a family drops right into our arms, we do like to put the business
+through. As a usual thing, we work with the State Charities' Aid
+Association. They have a lot of trained agents traveling about the
+State, keeping in touch with families who are willing to take children,
+and with asylums that have them to give. Since they are willing to
+work for us, there is no slightest use in our going to the expense
+of peddling our own babies. And I do want to place out as many as are
+available, for I firmly believe that a private home is the best thing
+for the child, provided, of course, that we are very fussy about the
+character of the homes we choose. I don't require rich foster parents,
+but I do require kind, loving, intelligent parents. This time I think
+Betsy has landed a gem of a family. The child is not yet delivered or
+the papers signed, and of course there is always danger that they may
+give a sudden flop, and splash back into the water.
+
+Ask Jervis if he ever heard of J. F. Bretland of Philadelphia. He seems
+to move in financial circles. The first I ever heard of him was a
+letter addressed to the "Supt. John Grier Home, Dear Sir,"--a curt,
+typewritten, businesslike letter, from an AWFULLY businesslike lawyer,
+saying that his wife had determined to adopt a baby girl of attractive
+appearance and good health between the ages of two and three years. The
+child must be an orphan of American stock, with unimpeachable heredity,
+and no relatives to interfere. Could I furnish one as required and
+oblige, yours truly, J. F. Bretland?
+
+By way of reference he mentioned "Bradstreets." Did you ever hear of
+anything so funny? You would think he was opening a charge account at a
+nursery, and inclosing an order from our seed catalogue.
+
+We began our usual investigation by mailing a reference blank to a
+clergyman in Germantown, where the J. F. B.'s reside.
+
+Does he own any property?
+
+Does he pay his bills?
+
+Is he kind to animals?
+
+Does he attend church?
+
+Does he quarrel with his wife? And a dozen other impertinent questions.
+
+We evidently picked a clergyman with a sense of humor. Instead of
+answering in laborious detail, he wrote up and down and across the
+sheet, "I wish they'd adopt me!"
+
+This looked promising, so B. Kindred obligingly dashed out to Germantown
+as soon as the wedding breakfast was over. She is developing the most
+phenomenal detective instinct. In the course of a social call she can
+absorb from the chairs and tables a family's entire moral history.
+
+She returned from Germantown bursting with enthusiastic details.
+
+Mr. J. F. Bretland is a wealthy and influential citizen, cordially loved
+by his friends and deeply hated by his enemies (discharged employees,
+who do not hesitate to say that he is a HAR-RD man). He is a little
+shaky in his attendance at church, but his wife seems regular, and he
+gives money.
+
+She is a charming, kindly, cultivated gentlewoman, just out of a
+sanatorium after a year of nervous prostration. The doctor says that
+what she needs is some strong interest in life, and advises adopting
+a child. She has always longed to do it, but her hard husband has
+stubbornly refused. But finally, as always, it is the gentle, persistent
+wife who has triumphed, and hard husband has been forced to give in.
+Waiving his own natural preference for a boy, he wrote, as above, the
+usual request for a blue-eyed girl.
+
+Mrs. Bretland, with the firm intention of taking a child, has been
+reading up for years, and there is no detail of infant dietetics
+that she does not know. She has a sunny nursery, with a southwestern
+exposure, all ready. And a closet full of surreptitiously gathered
+dolls! She has made the clothes for them herself,--she showed them to
+Betsy with the greatest pride,--so you can understand the necessity for
+a girl.
+
+She has just heard of an excellent English trained nurse that she can
+secure, but she isn't sure but that it would be better to start with a
+French nurse, so that the child can learn the language before her vocal
+cords are set. Also, she was extremely interested when she heard that
+Betsy was a college woman. She couldn't make up her mind whether to
+send the baby to college or not. What was Betsy's honest opinion? If the
+child were Betsy's own daughter, would Betsy send her to college?
+
+All this would be funny if it weren't so pathetic; but really I can't
+get away from the picture of that poor lonely woman sewing those doll
+clothes for the little unknown girl that she wasn't sure she could have.
+She lost her own two babies years ago, or, rather, she never had them;
+they were never alive.
+
+You can see what a good home it's going to be. There's lots of love
+waiting for the little mite, and that is better than all the wealth
+which, in this case, goes along.
+
+But the problem now is to find the child, and that isn't easy. The J. F.
+Bretlands are so abominably explicit in their requirements. I have
+just the baby boy to give them; but with that closetful of dolls, he is
+impossible. Little Florence won't do--one tenacious parent living. I've
+a wide variety of foreigners with liquid brown eyes--won't do at all.
+Mrs. Bretland is a blonde, and daughter must resemble her. I have
+several sweet little mites with unspeakable heredity, but the Bretlands
+want six generations of church-attending grandparents, with a colonial
+governor at the top. Also I have a darling little curly-headed girl (and
+curls are getting rarer and rarer), but illegitimate. And that seems to
+be an unsurmountable barrier in the eyes of adopting parents, though,
+as a matter of fact, it makes no slightest difference in the child.
+However, she won't do. The Bretlands hold out sternly for a marriage
+certificate.
+
+There remains just one child out of all these one hundred and seven that
+appears available. Our little Sophie's father and mother were killed in
+a railroad accident, and the only reason she wasn't killed was because
+they had just left her in a hospital to get an abscess cut out of her
+throat. She comes from good common American stock, irreproachable and
+uninteresting in every way. She's a washed-out, spiritless, whiney
+little thing. The doctor has been pouring her full of his favorite
+cod-liver oil and spinach, but he can't get any cheerfulness into her.
+
+However, individual love and care does accomplish wonders in institution
+children, and she may bloom into something rare and beautiful after a
+few months' transplanting. So I yesterday wrote a glowing account of her
+immaculate family history to J. F. Bretland, offering to deliver her in
+Germantown.
+
+This morning I received a telegram from J. F. B. Not at all! He does not
+purpose to buy any daughter sight unseen. He will come and inspect the
+child in person at three o'clock on Wednesday next.
+
+Oh dear, if he shouldn't like her! We are now bending all our energies
+toward enhancing that child's beauty--like a pup bound for the dog
+show. Do you think it would be awfully immoral if I rouged her cheeks a
+suspicion? She is too young to pick up the habit.
+
+Heavens! what a letter! A million pages written without a break. You can
+see where my heart is. I'm as excited over little Sophie's settling in
+life as though she were my own darling daughter.
+
+Respectful regards to the president.
+
+SAL. McB.
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+That was an obnoxious, beastly, low-down trick not to send me a cheering
+line for four weeks just because, in a period of abnormal stress I once
+let you go for three. I had really begun to be worried for fear you'd
+tumbled into the Potomac. My chicks would miss you dreadfully; they love
+their uncle Gordon. Please remember that you promised to send them a
+donkey.
+
+Please also remember that I'm a busier person than you. It's a lot
+harder to run the John Grier Home than the House of Representatives.
+Besides, you have more efficient people to help.
+
+This isn't a letter; it's an indignant remonstrance. I'll write
+tomorrow--or the next day.
+
+S.
+
+P.S. On reading your letter over again I am slightly mollified, but
+dinna think I believe a' your saft words. I ken weel ye only flatter
+when ye speak sae fair.
+
+
+July 17.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have a history to recount.
+
+This, please remember, is Wednesday next. So at half-past two o'clock
+our little Sophie was bathed and brushed and clothed in fine linen, and
+put in charge of a trusty orphan, with anxious instructions to keep her
+clean.
+
+At three-thirty to the minute--never have I known a human being so
+disconcertingly businesslike as J. F. Bretland--an automobile of
+expensive foreign design rolled up to the steps of this imposing
+chateau. A square-shouldered, square-jawed personage, with a chopped-off
+mustache and a manner that inclines one to hurry, presented himself
+three minutes later at my library door. He greeted me briskly as "Miss
+McKosh." I gently corrected him, and he changed to "Miss McKim." I
+indicated my most soothing armchair, and invited him to take some light
+refreshment after his journey. He accepted a glass of water (I admire a
+temperate parent), and evinced an impatient desire to be done with the
+business. So I rang the bell and ordered the little Sophie to be brought
+down.
+
+"Hold on, Miss McGee!" said he to me. "I'd rather see her in her own
+environment. I will go with you to the playroom or corral or wherever
+you keep your youngsters."
+
+So I led him to the nursery, where thirteen or fourteen mites in gingham
+rompers were tumbling about on mattresses on the floor. Sophie, alone
+in the glory of feminine petticoats, was ensconced in the blue-ginghamed
+arms of a very bored orphan. She was squirming and fighting to get down,
+and her feminine petticoats were tightly wound about her neck. I took
+her in my arms, smoothed her clothes, wiped her nose, and invited her to
+look at the gentleman.
+
+That child's whole future hung upon five minutes of sunniness, and
+instead of a single smile, she WHINED!
+
+Mr. Bretland shook her hand in a very gingerly fashion and chirruped to
+her as you might to a pup. Sophie took not the slightest notice of him,
+but turned her back, and buried her face in my neck. He shrugged his
+shoulders, supposed that they could take her on trial. She might suit
+his wife; he himself didn't want one, anyway. And we turned to go out.
+
+Then who should come toddling straight across his path but that little
+sunbeam Allegra! Exactly in front of him she staggered, threw her arms
+about like a windmill, and plumped down on all fours. He hopped aside
+with great agility to avoid stepping on her, and then picked her up and
+set her on her feet. She clasped her arms about his leg, and looked up
+at him with a gurgling laugh.
+
+"Daddy! Frow baby up!"
+
+He is the first man, barring the doctor, whom the child has seen for
+weeks, and evidently he resembles somewhat her almost forgotten father.
+
+J. F. Bretland picked her up and tossed her in the air as handily as
+though it were a daily occurrence, while she ecstatically shrieked her
+delight. Then when he showed signs of lowering her, she grasped him by
+an ear and a nose, and drummed a tattoo on his stomach with both feet.
+No one could ever accuse Allegra of lacking vitality!
+
+J. F. disentangled himself from her endearments, and emerged, rumpled as
+to hair, but with a firm-set jaw. He set her on her feet, but retained
+her little doubled-up fist.
+
+"This is the kid for me," he said. "I don't believe I need to look any
+further."
+
+I explained that we couldn't separate little Allegra from her brothers;
+but the more I objected, the stubborner his jaw became. We went back to
+the library, and argued about it for half an hour.
+
+He liked her heredity, he liked her looks, he liked her spirit, he liked
+HER. If he was going to have a daughter foisted on him, he wanted one
+with some ginger. He'd be hanged if he'd take that other whimpering
+little thing. It wasn't natural. But if I gave him Allegra, he would
+bring her up as his own child, and see that she was provided for for the
+rest of her life. Did I have any right to cut her out from all that just
+for a lot of sentimental nonsense? The family was already broken up; the
+best I could do for them now was to provide for them individually. "Take
+all three," said I, quite brazenly.
+
+But, no, he couldn't consider that; his wife was an invalid, and one
+child was all that she could manage.
+
+Well, I was in a dreadful quandary. It seemed such a chance for the
+child, and yet it did seem so cruel to separate her from those two
+adoring little brothers. I knew that if the Bretlands adopted her
+legally, they would do their best to break all ties with the past, and
+the child was still so tiny she would forget her brothers as quickly as
+she had her father.
+
+Then I thought about you, Judy, and of how bitter you have always been
+because, when that family wanted to adopt you, the asylum wouldn't let
+you go. You have always said that you might have had a home, too, like
+other children, but that Mrs. Lippett stole it away from you. Was I
+perhaps stealing little Allegra's home from her? With the two boys it
+would be different; they could be educated and turned out to shift for
+themselves. But to a girl a home like this would mean everything. Ever
+since baby Allegra came to us, she has seemed to me just such another
+child as baby Judy must have been. She has ability and spirit. We must
+somehow furnish her with opportunity. She, too, deserves her share
+of the world's beauty and good--as much as nature has fitted her to
+appreciate. And could any asylum ever give her that? I stood and thought
+and thought while Mr. Bretland impatiently paced the floor.
+
+"You have those boys down and let me talk to them," Mr. Bretland
+insisted. "If they have a spark of generosity, they'll be glad to let
+her go."
+
+I sent for them, but my heart was a solid lump of lead. They were still
+missing their father; it seemed merciless to snatch away that darling
+baby sister, too.
+
+They came hand in hand, sturdy, fine little chaps, and stood solemnly at
+attention, with big, wondering eyes fixed on the strange gentleman.
+
+"Come here, boys. I want to talk to you." He took each by a hand. "In
+the house I live in we haven't any little baby, so my wife and I
+decided to come here, where there are so many babies without fathers and
+mothers, and take one home to be ours. She will have a beautiful house
+to live in, and lots of toys to play with, and she will be happy all her
+life--much happier than she could ever be here. I know that you will be
+very glad to hear that I have chosen your little sister."
+
+"And won't we ever see her any more?" asked Clifford.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes."
+
+Clifford looked from me to Mr. Bretland, and two big tears began rolling
+down his cheeks. He jerked his hand away and came and hurled himself
+into my arms.
+
+"Don't let him have her! Please! Please! Send him away!"
+
+"Take them all!" I begged.
+
+But he's a hard man.
+
+"I didn't come for an entire asylum," said he, shortly.
+
+By this time Don was sobbing on the other side. And then who should
+inject himself into the hubbub but Dr. MacRae, with baby Allegra in his
+arms!
+
+I introduced them, and explained. Mr. Bretland reached for the baby, and
+Sandy held her tight.
+
+"Quite impossible," said Sandy, shortly. "Miss McBride will tell you
+that it's one of the rules of this institution never to separate a
+family."
+
+"Miss McBride has already decided," said J. F. B., stiffly. "We have
+fully discussed the question."
+
+"You must be mistaken," said Sandy, becoming his Scotchest, and turning
+to me. "You surely had no intention of performing any such cruelty as
+this?"
+
+Here was the decision of Solomon all over again, with two of the
+stubbornest men that the good Lord ever made wresting poor little
+Allegra limb from limb.
+
+I despatched the three chicks back to the nursery and returned to the
+fray. We argued loud and hotly, until finally J. F. B. echoed my own
+frequent query of the last five months: "Who is the head of this asylum,
+the superintendent or the visiting physician?"
+
+I was furious with the doctor for placing me in such a position before
+that man, but I couldn't quarrel with him in public; so I had ultimately
+to tell Mr. Bretland with finality and flatness, that Allegra was out of
+the question. Would he not reconsider Sophie?
+
+No, he'd be darned if he'd reconsider Sophie. Allegra or nobody. He
+hoped that I realized that I had weakly allowed the child's entire
+future to be ruined. And with that parting shot he backed to the door.
+"Miss MacRae, Dr. McBride, good afternoon." He achieved two formal bows
+and withdrew.
+
+And the moment the door closed Sandy and I fought it out. He said that
+any person who claimed to have any modern, humane views on the subject
+of child-care ought to be ashamed to have considered for even a moment
+the question of breaking up such a family. And I accused him of keeping
+her for the purely selfish reason that he was fond of the child and
+didn't wish to lose her.
+
+(And that, I believe, is the truth.) Oh, we had the battle of our
+career, and he finally took himself off with a stiffness and politeness
+that excelled J. F. B.'s.
+
+Between the two of them I feel as limp as though I'd been run through
+our new mangling machine. And then Betsy came home, and reviled me for
+throwing away the choicest family we have ever discovered!
+
+So this is the end of our week of feverish activity; and both Sophie and
+Allegra are, after all, to be institution children. Oh dear! oh dear!
+Please remove Sandy from the staff, and send me, instead, a German, a
+Frenchman, a Chinaman, if you choose--anything but a Scotchman.
+
+Yours wearily,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+P.S. I dare say that Sandy is also passing a busy evening in writing
+to have me removed. I won't object if you wish to do it. I am tired of
+institutions.
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You are a captious, caviling, carping, crabbed, contentious,
+cantankerous chap. Hoot mon! an' why shouldna I drap into Scotch gin I
+choose? An' I with a Mac in my name.
+
+Of course the John Grier will be delighted to welcome you on Thursday
+next, not only for the donkey, but for your sweet sunny presence as
+well. I was planning to write you a mile-long letter to make up for past
+deficiencies, but wha's the use? I'll be seeing you the morn's morn, an'
+unco gude will be the sight o' you for sair een.
+
+Dinna fash yoursel, Laddie, because o'my language. My forebears were
+from the Hielands.
+
+McBRIDE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+All's well with the John Grier--except for a broken tooth, a sprained
+wrist, a badly scratched knee, and one case of pinkeye. Betsy and I are
+being polite, but cool, toward the doctor. The annoying thing is that
+he is rather cool, too. And he seems to be under the impression that the
+drop in temperature is all on his side. He goes about his business in a
+scientific, impersonal way, entirely courteous, but somewhat detached.
+
+However, the doctor is not disturbing us very extensively at present.
+We are about to receive a visit from a far more fascinating person than
+Sandy. The House of Representatives again rests from its labors, and
+Gordon enjoys a vacation, two days of which he is planning to spend at
+the Brantwood Inn.
+
+I am delighted to hear that you have had enough seaside, and are
+considering our neighborhood for the rest of the summer. There are
+several spacious estates to be had within a few miles of the John Grier,
+and it will be a nice change for Jervis to come home only at week ends.
+After a pleasantly occupied absence, you will each have some new ideas
+to add to the common stock.
+
+I can't add any further philosophy just now on the subject of married
+life, having to refresh my memory on the Monroe Doctrine and one or two
+other political topics.
+
+I am looking eagerly forward to August and three months with you.
+
+As ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+It's very forgiving of me to invite you to dinner after that volcanic
+explosion of last week. However, please come. You remember our
+philanthropic friend, Mr. Hallock, who sent us the peanuts and goldfish
+and other indigestible trifles? He will be with us tonight, so this is
+your chance to turn the stream of his benevolence into more hygienic
+channels.
+
+We dine at seven.
+
+As ever,
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You should have lived in the days when each man inhabited a separate
+cave on a separate mountain.
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Friday, 6:30.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Gordon is here, and a reformed man so far as his attitude toward my
+asylum goes. He has discovered the world-old truth that the way to a
+mother's heart is through praise of her children, and he had nothing but
+praise for all 107 of mine. Even in the case of Loretta Higgins he found
+something pleasant to say. He thinks it nice that she isn't cross-eyed.
+
+He went shopping with me in the village this afternoon, and was very
+helpful about picking out hair-ribbons for a couple of dozen little
+girls. He begged to choose Sadie Kate's himself, and after many
+hesitations he hit upon orange satin for one braid and emerald green for
+the other.
+
+While we were immersed in this business I became aware of a neighboring
+customer, ostensibly engaged with hooks and eyes, but straining every
+ear to listen to our nonsense.
+
+She was so dressed up in a picture hat, a spotted veil, a feather boa,
+and a NOUVEAU ART parasol that I never dreamed she was any acquaintance
+of mine till I happened to catch her eye with a familiar malicious gleam
+in it. She bowed stiffly, and disapprovingly; and I nodded back. Mrs.
+Maggie McGurk in her company clothes!
+
+That is a pleasanter expression than she really has. Her smile is due to
+a slip of the pen.
+
+Poor Mrs. McGurk can't understand any possible intellectual interest in
+a man. She suspects me of wanting to marry every single one that I meet.
+At first she thought I wanted to snatch away her doctor; but now, after
+seeing me with Gordon, she considers me a bigamous monster who wants
+them both.
+
+Good-by; some guests approach.
+
+
+11:30 P.M.
+
+
+I have just been giving a dinner for Gordon, with Betsy and Mrs.
+Livermore and Mr. Witherspoon as guests. I graciously included the
+doctor, but he curtly declined on the ground that he wasn't in a social
+mood. Our Sandy does not let politeness interfere with truth!
+
+There is no doubt about it, Gordon is the most presentable man that ever
+breathed. He is so good looking and easy and gracious and witty, and his
+manners are so impeccable--Oh, he would make a wonderfully decorative
+husband! But after all, I suppose you do live with a husband. You don't
+just show him off at dinners and teas.
+
+He was exceptionally nice tonight. Betsy and Mrs. Livermore both fell in
+love with him--and I just a trifle. He entertained us with a speech in
+his best public manner, apropos of Java's welfare. We have been having
+a dreadful time finding a sleeping place for that monkey, and Gordon
+proved with incontestable logic that, since he was presented to us by
+Jimmie, and Jimmie is Percy's friend, he should sleep with Percy. Gordon
+is a natural talker, and an audience affects him like champagne. He can
+argue with as much emotional earnestness on the subject of a monkey as
+on the greatest hero that ever bled for his country.
+
+I felt tears coming to my eyes when he described Java's loneliness as he
+watched out the night in our furnace cellar, and pictured his brothers
+at play in the far-off tropical jungle.
+
+A man who can talk like that has a future before him. I haven't a doubt
+but that I shall be voting for him for President in another twenty
+years.
+
+We all had a beautiful time, and entirely forgot--for a space of three
+hours--that 107 orphans slumbered about us. Much as I love the little
+dears, it is pleasant to get away from them once in a while.
+
+My guests left at ten, and it must be midnight by now. (This is the
+eighth day, and my clock has stopped again; Jane forgets to wind it as
+regularly as Friday comes around.) However, I know it's late; and as a
+woman, it's my duty to try for beauty sleep, especially with an eligible
+young suitor at hand.
+
+I'll finish tomorrow. Good night.
+
+
+Saturday.
+
+
+Gordon spent this morning playing with my asylum and planning some
+intelligent presents to be sent later. He thinks that three neatly
+painted totem poles would add to the attractiveness of our Indian camps.
+He is also going to make us a present of three dozen pink rompers for
+the babies. Pink is a color that is very popular with the superintendent
+of this asylum, who is deadly tired of blue! Our generous friend is
+likewise amusing himself with the idea of a couple of donkeys and
+saddles and a little red cart. Isn't it nice that Gordon's father
+provided for him so amply, and that he is such a charitably inclined
+young man? He is at present lunching with Percy at the hotel, and, I
+trust, imbibing fresh ideas in the field of philanthropy.
+
+Perhaps you think I haven't enjoyed this interruption to the monotony
+of institution life! You can say all you please, my dear Mrs. Pendleton,
+about how well I am managing your asylum, but, just the same, it isn't
+natural for me to be so stationary. I very frequently need a change.
+That is why Gordon, with his bubbling optimism and boyish spirits, is so
+exhilarating especially as a contrast to too much doctor.
+
+
+Sunday morning.
+
+
+I must tell you the end of Gordon's visit. His intention had been to
+leave at four, but in an evil moment I begged him to stay over till
+9:30, and yesterday afternoon he and Singapore and I took a long
+'cross-country walk, far out of sight of the towers of this asylum,
+and stopped at a pretty little roadside inn, where we had a satisfying
+supper of ham and eggs and cabbage. Sing stuffed so disgracefully that
+he has been languid ever since.
+
+The walk and all was fun, and a very grateful change from this
+monotonous life I lead. It would have kept me pleasant and contented
+for weeks if something most unpleasant hadn't happened later. We had
+a beautiful, sunny, carefree afternoon, and I'm sorry to have had
+it spoiled. We came back very unromantically in the trolley car, and
+reached the J. G. H. before nine, just in good time for him to run on
+to the station and catch his train. So I didn't ask him to come in, but
+politely wished him a pleasant journey at the porte-cochere.
+
+A car was standing at the side of the drive, in the shadow of the house.
+I recognized it, and thought the doctor was inside with Mr. Witherspoon.
+(They frequently spend their evenings together in the laboratory.) Well,
+Gordon, at the moment of parting, was seized with an unfortunate impulse
+to ask me to abandon the management of this asylum, and take over the
+management of a private house instead.
+
+Did you ever know anything like the man? He had the whole afternoon and
+miles of empty meadow in which to discuss the question, but instead he
+must choose our door mat!
+
+I don't know just what I did say. I tried to turn it off lightly and
+hurry him to his train. But he refused to be turned off lightly. He
+braced himself against a post and insisted upon arguing it out. I knew
+that he was missing his train, and that every window in this institution
+was open. A man never has the slightest thought of possible overhearers.
+It is always the woman who thinks of convention.
+
+Being in a nervous twitter to get rid of him, I suppose I was pretty
+abrupt and tactless. He began to get angry, and then by some unlucky
+chance his eye fell on that car. He recognized it, too, and, being in
+a savage mood, he began making fun of the doctor. "Old Goggle-eyes"
+he called him, and "Scatchy," and oh, the awfullest lot of unmannerly,
+silly things!
+
+I was assuring him with convincing earnestness that I didn't care a rap
+about the doctor, that I thought he was just as funny and impossible as
+he could be, when suddenly the doctor rose out of his car and walked up
+to us.
+
+I could have evaporated from the earth very comfortably at that moment!
+
+Sandy was quite clearly angry, as well he might be, after the things
+he'd heard, but he was entirely cold and collected. Gordon was hot, and
+bursting with imaginary wrongs. I was aghast at this perfectly foolish
+and unnecessary muddle that had suddenly arisen out of nothing. Sandy
+apologized to me with unimpeachable politeness for inadvertently
+overhearing, and then turned to Gordon and stiffly invited him to get
+into his car and ride to the station.
+
+I begged him not to go. I didn't wish to be the cause of any silly
+quarrel between them. But without paying the slightest attention to
+me, they climbed into the car, and whirled away, leaving me placidly
+standing on the door mat.
+
+I came in and went to bed, and lay awake for hours, expecting to hear--I
+don't know what kind of explosion. It is now eleven o'clock, and the
+doctor hasn't appeared. I don't know how on earth I shall meet him when
+he does. I fancy I shall hide in the clothes closet.
+
+Did you ever know anything as unnecessary and stupid as this whole
+situation? I suppose now I've quarreled with Gordon,--and I positively
+don't know over what,--and of course my relations with the doctor are
+going to be terribly awkward. I said horrid things about him,--you know
+the silly way I talk,--things I didn't mean in the least.
+
+I wish it were yesterday at this time. I would make Gordon go at four.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+Sunday afternoon.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+That was a horrid, stupid, silly business last night. But by this time
+you must know me well enough to realize that I never mean the foolish
+things I say. My tongue has no slightest connection with my brain; it
+just runs along by itself. I must seem to you very ungrateful for
+all the help you have given me in this unaccustomed work and for the
+patience you have (occasionally) shown.
+
+I do appreciate the fact that I could never have run this asylum by
+myself without your responsible presence in the background. And though
+once in a while, as you yourself must acknowledge, you have been pretty
+impatient and bad tempered and difficult, still I have never held it up
+against you, and I really didn't mean any of the ill-mannered things I
+said last night. Please forgive me for being rude. I should hate very
+much to lose your friendship. And we are friends, are we not? I like to
+think so.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I am sure I haven't an idea whether or not the doctor and I have made up
+our differences. I sent him a polite note of apology, which he received
+in abysmal silence. He didn't come near us until this afternoon, and
+he hasn't by the blink of an eyelash referred to our unfortunate
+contretemps. We talked exclusively about an ichthyol salve that will
+remove eczema from a baby's scalp; then, Sadie Kate being present, the
+conversation turned to cats. It seems that the doctor's Maltese cat has
+four kittens, and Sadie Kate will not be silenced until she has
+seen them. Before I knew what was happening I found myself making an
+engagement to take her to see those miserable kittens at four o'clock
+tomorrow afternoon.
+
+Whereupon the doctor, with an indifferently polite bow, took himself
+off. And that apparently is the end.
+
+Your Sunday note arrives, and I am delighted to hear that you have taken
+the house. It will be beautiful having you for a neighbor for so long.
+Our improvements ought to march along, with you and the president at
+our elbow. But it does seem as though, you ought to get out here before
+August 7. Are you sure that city air is good for you just now? I have
+never known so devoted a wife.
+
+My respects to the president.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+July 22.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Please listen to this!
+
+At four o'clock I took Sadie Kate to the doctor's house to look at
+those cats. But Freddy Howland just twenty minutes before had fallen
+downstairs, so the doctor was at the Howland house occupying himself
+with Freddy's collarbone. He had left word for us to sit down and wait,
+that he would be back shortly.
+
+Mrs. McGurk ushered us into the library; and then, not to leave us
+alone, came in herself on a pretense of polishing the brass. I don't
+know what she thought we'd do! Run off with the pelican perhaps.
+
+I settled down to an article about the Chinese situation in the Century,
+and Sadie Kate roamed about at large examining everything she found,
+like a curious little mongoose.
+
+She commenced with his stuffed flamingo and wanted to know what made
+it so tall and what made it so red. Did it always eat frogs, and had it
+hurt its other foot? She ticks off questions with the steady persistency
+of an eight-day clock.
+
+I buried myself in my article and left Mrs. McGurk to deal with Sadie.
+Finally, after she had worked half-way around the room, she came to a
+portrait of a little girl occupying a leather frame in the center of the
+doctor's writing desk--a child with a queer elf-like beauty, resembling
+very strangely our little Allegra. This photograph might have been a
+portrait of Allegra grown five years older. I had noticed the picture
+the night we took supper with the doctor, and had meant to ask which of
+his little patients she was. Happily I didn't!
+
+"Who's that?" said Sadie Kate, pouncing upon it.
+
+"It's the docthor's little gurrl."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Shure, she's far away wit' her gran'ma."
+
+"Where'd he get her?"
+
+"His wife give her to him."
+
+I emerged from my book with electric suddenness.
+
+"His wife!" I cried.
+
+The next instant I was furious with myself for having spoken, but I was
+so completely taken off my guard. Mrs. McGurk straightened up and became
+volubly conversational at once.
+
+"And didn't he never tell you about his wife? She went insane six years
+ago. It got so it weren't safe to keep her in the house, and he had to
+put her away. It near killed him. I never seen a lady more beautiful
+than her. I guess he didn't so much as smile for a year. It's funny he
+never told you nothing, and you such a friend!"
+
+"Naturally it's not a subject he cares to talk about," said I dryly, and
+I asked her what kind of brass polish she used.
+
+Sadie Kate and I went out to the garage and hunted up the kittens
+ourselves; and we mercifully got away before the doctor came back.
+
+But will you tell me what this means? Didn't Jervis know he was
+married? It's the queerest thing I ever heard. I do think, as the McGurk
+suggests, that Sandy might casually have dropped the information that he
+had a wife in an insane asylum.
+
+But of course it must be a terrible tragedy and I suppose he can't bring
+himself to talk about it. I see now why he's so morbid over the question
+of heredity--I dare say he fears for the little girl. When I think of
+all the jokes I've made on the subject, I'm aghast at how I must have
+hurt him, and angry with myself and angry with him.
+
+I feel as though I never wanted to see the man again. Mercy! did you
+ever know such a muddle as we are getting ourselves into?
+
+Yours, SALLIE.
+
+P.S. Tom McCoomb has pushed Mamie Prout into the box of mortar that the
+masons use. She's parboiled. I've sent for the doctor.
+
+
+July 24. My dear Madam:
+
+I have a shocking scandal to report about the superintendent of the John
+Grier Home. Don't let it get into the newspapers, please. I can picture
+the spicy details of the investigation prior to her removal by the
+"Cruelty."
+
+I was sitting in the sunshine by my open window this morning reading
+a sweet book on the Froebel theory of child culture--never lose your
+temper, always speak kindly to the little ones. Though they may appear
+bad, they are not so in reality. It is either that they are not feeling
+well or have nothing interesting to do. Never punish; simply deflect
+their attention. I was entertaining a very loving, uplifted attitude
+toward all this young life about me when my attention was attracted by a
+group of little boys beneath the window.
+
+"Aw--John--don't hurt it!"
+
+"Let it go!"
+
+"Kill it quick!"
+
+And above their remonstrances rose the agonized squealing of some animal
+in pain. I dropped Froebel and, running downstairs, burst upon them
+from the side door. They saw me coming, and scattered right and left,
+revealing Johnnie Cobden engaged in torturing a mouse. I will spare you
+the grisly details. I called to one of the boys to come and drown the
+creature quick! John I seized by the collar; and dragged him squirming
+and kicking in at the kitchen door. He is a big, hulking boy of
+thirteen, and he fought like a little tiger, holding on to posts and
+doorjambs as we passed. Ordinarily I doubt if I could have handled him,
+but that one sixteenth Irish that I possess was all on top, and I was
+fighting mad. We burst into the kitchen, and I hastily looked about for
+a means of chastisement. The pancake turner was the first utensil that
+met my eyes. I seized it and beat that child with all my strength, until
+I had reduced him to a cowering, whimpering mendicant for mercy, instead
+of the fighting little bully he had been four minutes before.
+
+And then who should suddenly burst into the midst of this explosion but
+Dr. MacRae! His face was blank with astonishment. He strode over and
+took the pancake turner out of my hand and set the boy on his feet.
+Johnnie got behind him and clung! I was so angry that I really couldn't
+talk. It was all I could do not to cry.
+
+"Come, we will take him up to the office," was all the doctor said. And
+we marched out, Johnnie keeping as far from me as possible and limping
+conspicuously. We left him in the outer office, and went into my library
+and shut the door.
+
+"What in the world has the child done?" he asked.
+
+At that I simply laid my head down on the table and began to cry! I was
+utterly exhausted both emotionally and physically. It had taken all the
+strength I possessed to make the pancake turner effective.
+
+I sobbed out all the bloody details, and he told me not to think about
+it; the mouse was dead now. Then he got me some water to drink, and told
+me to keep on crying till I was tired; it would do me good. I am
+not sure that he didn't pat me on the head! Anyway, it was his best
+professional manner. I have watched him administer the same treatment a
+dozen times to hysterical orphans. And this was the first time in a week
+that we had spoken beyond the formality of "good morning"!
+
+Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up and laugh,
+intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of handkerchief, we began
+a review of Johnnie's case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be
+slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the fact as we would
+with any other disease. Even normal boys are often cruel. A child's
+moral sense is undeveloped at thirteen.
+
+Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot water and resume
+my dignity. Which I did. And we had Johnnie in. He stood--by
+preference--through the entire interview. The doctor talked to him, oh,
+so sensibly and kindly and humanely! John put up the plea that the mouse
+was a pest and ought to be killed. The doctor replied that the welfare
+of the human race demanded the sacrifice of many animals for its own
+good, not for revenge, but that the sacrifice must be carried out with
+the least possible hurt to the animal. He explained about the mouse's
+nervous system, and how the poor little creature had no means of defense.
+It was a cowardly thing to hurt it wantonly. He told John to try to
+develop imagination enough to look at things from the other person's
+point of view, even if the other person was only a mouse. Then he went
+to the bookcase and took down my copy of Burns, and told the boy what a
+great poet he was, and how all Scotchmen loved his memory.
+
+"And this is what he wrote about a mouse," said Sandy, turning to the
+"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, timorous beastie," which he read and explained
+to the lad as only a Scotchman could.
+
+Johnnie departed penitent, and Sandy redirected his professional
+attention to me. He said I was tired and in need of a change. Why not
+go to the Adirondacks for a week? He and Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon would
+make themselves into a committee to run the asylum.
+
+You know, that's exactly what I was longing to do! I need a shifting of
+ideas and some pine-scented air. My family opened the camp last week,
+and think I'm awful not to join them. They won't understand that
+when you accept a position like this you can't casually toss it aside
+whenever you feel like it. But for a few days I can easily manage. My
+asylum is wound up like an eight-day clock, and will run until a week
+from next Monday at 4 P.M., when my train will return me. Then I shall
+be comfortably settled again before you arrive, and with no errant
+fancies in my brain.
+
+Meanwhile Master John is in a happily chastened frame of mind and body.
+And I rather suspect that Sandy's moralizing had the more force because
+it was preceded by my pancake turner! But one thing I know--Suzanne
+Estelle is terrified whenever I step into her kitchen. I casually picked
+up the potato-masher this morning while I was commenting upon last
+night's over-salty soup, and she ran to cover behind the woodshed door.
+
+Tomorrow at nine I set out on my travels, after preparing the way with
+five telegrams. And, oh! you can't imagine how I'm looking forward to
+being a gay, carefree young thing again--to canoeing on the lake and
+tramping in the woods and dancing at the clubhouse. I was in a state of
+delirium all night long at the prospect. Really, I hadn't realized how
+mortally tired I had become of all this asylum scenery.
+
+"What you need," said Sandy to me, "is to get away for a little and sow
+some wild oats."
+
+That diagnosis was positively clairvoyant. I can't think of anything in
+the world I'd rather do than sow a few wild oats. I'll come back with
+fresh energy, ready to welcome you and a busy summer.
+
+As ever,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. Jimmie and Gordon are both going to be up there. How I wish you
+could join us! A husband is very discommoding.
+
+
+CAMP McBRIDE,
+
+July 29.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+This is to tell you that the mountains are higher than usual, the woods
+greener, and the lake bluer.
+
+People seem late about coming up this year. The Harrimans' camp is the
+only other one at our end of the lake that is open. The clubhouse is
+very scantily supplied with dancing men, but we have as house guest an
+obliging young politician who likes to dance, so I am not discommoded by
+the general scarcity.
+
+The affairs of the nation and the rearing of orphans are alike delegated
+to the background while we paddle about among the lily pads of this
+delectable lake. I look forward with reluctance to 7:56 next Monday
+morning, when I turn my back on the mountains. The awful thing about a
+vacation is that the moment it begins your happiness is already clouded
+by its approaching end.
+
+I hear a voice on the veranda asking if Sallie is to be found within or
+without.
+
+
+ADDIO!
+
+S.
+
+
+August 3.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Back at the John Grier, reshouldering the burdens of the coming
+generation. What should meet my eyes upon entering these grounds but
+John Cobden, of pancake turner memory, wearing a badge upon his sleeve.
+I turned it to me and read "S. P. C. A." in letters of gold! The doctor,
+during my absence, has formed a local branch of the Cruelty to Animals,
+and made Johnnie its president.
+
+I hear that yesterday he stopped the workmen on the foundation for the
+new farm cottage and scolded them severely for whipping their horses up
+the incline! None of all this strikes any one but me as funny.
+
+There's a lot of news, but with you due in four days, why bother to
+write? Just one delicious bit I am saving for the end.
+
+So hold your breath. You are going to receive a thrill on page 4. You
+should hear Sadie Kate squeal! Jane is cutting her hair.
+
+Instead of wearing it in two tight braids like this--our little colleen
+will in the future look like this--
+
+
+"Them pigtails got on my nerves," says Jane.
+
+You can see how much more stylish and becoming the present coiffure is.
+I think somebody will be wanting to adopt her. Only Sadie Kate is such
+an independent, manly little creature; she is eminently fitted by nature
+to shift for herself. I must save adopting parents for the helpless
+ones.
+
+You should see our new clothes! I can't wait for this assemblage
+of rosebuds to burst upon you. And you should have seen those blue
+ginghamed eyes brighten when the new frocks were actually given
+out--three for each girl, all different colors, and all perfectly
+private personal property, with the owner's indelible name inside the
+collar. Mrs. Lippett's lazy system of having each child draw from the
+wash a promiscuous dress each week, was an insult to feminine nature.
+
+Sadie Kate is squealing like a baby pig. I must go to see if Jane has by
+mistake clipped off an ear.
+
+
+Jane hasn't. Sadie's excellent ears are still intact. She is just
+squealing on principle; the way one does in a dentist's chair, under the
+belief that it is going to hurt the next instant.
+
+I really can't think of anything else to write except my news,--so here
+it is,--and I hope you'll like it.
+
+I am engaged to be married.
+
+My love to you both.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+November 15.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+
+Betsy and I are just back from a GIRO in our new motor car. It
+undoubtedly does add to the pleasure of institution life. The car of its
+own accord turned up Long Ridge Road, and stopped before the gates of
+Shadywell. The chains were up, and the shutters battened down, and the
+place looked closed and gloomy and rain-soaked. It wore a sort of fall
+of the House of Usher air, and didn't in the least resemble the cheerful
+house that used to greet me hospitably of an afternoon.
+
+I hate to have our nice summer ended. It seems as though a section of
+my life was shut away behind me, and the unknown future was pressing
+awfully close. Positively, I'd like to postpone that wedding another six
+months, but I'm afraid poor Gordon would make too dreadful a fuss. Don't
+think I'm getting wobbly, for I'm not. It's just that somehow I need
+more time to think about it, and March is getting nearer every day. I
+know absolutely that I'm doing the most sensible thing. Everybody,
+man or woman, is the better for being nicely and appropriately and
+cheerfully married. But oh dear! oh dear! I do hate upheavals, and this
+is going to be such a world-without-end upheaval! Sometimes when the
+day's work is over, and I'm tired, I haven't the spirit to rise and meet
+it.
+
+And now especially since you've bought Shadywell, and are going to be
+here every summer, I resent having to leave. Next year, when I'm far
+away, I'll be consumed with homesickness, thinking of all the busy,
+happy times at the John Grier, with you and Betsy and Percy and our
+grumbly Scotchman working away cheerfully without me. How can anything
+ever make up to a mother for the loss of 107 children?
+
+I trust that Judy, junior, stood the journey into town without upsetting
+her usual poise. I am sending her a bit giftie, made partly by myself
+and chiefly by Jane. But two rows, I must inform you, were done by the
+doctor. One only gradually plumbs the depths of Sandy's nature. After a
+ten-months' acquaintance with the man, I discover that he knows how to
+knit, an accomplishment he picked up in his boyhood from an old shepherd
+on the Scotch moors.
+
+He dropped in three days ago and stayed for tea, really in almost his
+old friendly mood. But he has since stiffened up again to the same man
+of granite we knew all summer. I've given up trying to make him out. I
+suppose, however, that any one might be expected to be a bit down with
+a wife in an insane asylum. I wish he'd talk about it once. It's awful
+having such a shadow hovering in the background of your thoughts and
+never coming out into plain sight.
+
+I know that this letter doesn't contain a word of the kind of news that
+you like to hear. But it's that beastly twilight hour of a damp November
+day, and I'm in a beastly uncheerful mood. I'm awfully afraid that I
+am developing into a temperamental person, and Heaven knows Gordon can
+supply all the temperament that one family needs! I don't know where
+we'll land if I don't preserve my sensibly stolid, cheerful nature.
+
+Have you really decided to go South with Jervis? I appreciate your
+feeling (to a slight extent) about not wanting to be separated from a
+husband; but it does seem sort of hazardous to me to move so young a
+daughter to the tropics.
+
+The children are playing blind man's buff in the lower corridor. I think
+I'll have a romp with them, and try to be in a more affable mood before
+resuming my pen.
+
+A BIENTOT!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+P.S. These November nights are pretty cold, and we are getting ready to
+move the camps indoors. Our Indians are very pampered young savages at
+present, with a double supply of blankets and hot-water bottles. I shall
+hate to see the camps go; they have done a lot for us. Our lads will be
+as tough as Canadian trappers when they come in.
+
+
+November 20.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your motherly solicitude is sweet, but I didn't mean what I said.
+
+Of course it's perfectly safe to convey Judy, junior, to the temperately
+tropical lands that are washed by the Caribbean. She'll thrive as
+long as you don't set her absolutely on top of the equator. And your
+bungalow, shaded by palms and fanned by sea breezes, with an ice machine
+in the back yard and an English doctor across the bay, sounds made for
+the rearing of babies.
+
+My objections were all due to the selfish fact that I and the John Grier
+are going to be lonely without you this winter. I really think it's
+entrancing to have a husband who engages in such picturesque pursuits
+as financing tropical railroads and developing asphalt lakes and rubber
+groves and mahogany forests. I wish that Gordon would take to life
+in those picturesque countries; I'd be more thrilled by the romantic
+possibilities of the future. Washington seems awfully commonplace
+compared with Honduras and Nicaragua and the islands of the Caribbean.
+
+I'll be down to wave good-by.
+
+ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+November 24.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Judy has gone back to town, and is sailing next week for Jamaica, where
+she is to make her headquarters while Jervis cruises about adjacent
+waters on these entertaining new ventures of his. Couldn't you engage in
+traffic in the South Seas? I think I'd feel pleasanter about leaving my
+asylum if you had something romantic and adventurous to offer instead.
+And think how beautiful you'd be in those white linen clothes! I really
+believe I might be able to stay in love with a man quite permanently if
+he always dressed in white.
+
+You can't imagine how I miss Judy. Her absence leaves a dreadful hole in
+my afternoons. Can't you run up for a week end soon? I think the sight
+of you would be very cheering, and I'm feeling awfully down of late.
+You know, my dear Gordon, I like you much better when you're right here
+before my eyes than when I merely think about you from a distance. I
+believe you must have a sort of hypnotic influence. Occasionally, after
+you've been away a long time, your spell wears a little thin. But when I
+see you, it all comes back. You've been away now a long, long time; so,
+please come fast and bewitch me over again!
+
+S.
+
+
+December 2.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Do you remember in college, when you and I used to plan our favorite
+futures, how we were forever turning our faces southward? And now to
+think it has really come true, and you are there, coasting around those
+tropical isles! Did you ever have such a thrill in the whole of your
+life, barring one or two connected with Jervis, as when you came up on
+deck in the early dawn and found yourself riding at anchor in the harbor
+of Kingston, with the water so blue and the palms so green and the beach
+so white?
+
+I remember when I first woke in that harbor. I felt like a heroine of
+grand opera surrounded by untruly beautiful painted scenery. Nothing
+in my four trips to Europe ever thrilled me like the queer sights and
+tastes and smells of those three warm weeks seven years ago. And ever
+since, I've panted to get back. When I stop to think about it, I can
+hardly bring myself to swallow our unexciting meals; I wish to be dining
+on curries and tamales and mangos. Isn't it funny? You'd think I must
+have a dash of Creole or Spanish or some warm blood in me somewhere,
+but I'm nothing on earth but a chilly mixture of English and Irish and
+Scotch. Perhaps that is why I hear the South calling. "The palm dreams
+of the pine, and the pine of the palm."
+
+After seeing you off, I turned back to New York with an awful
+wander-thirst gnawing at my vitals. I, too, wanted to be starting off
+on my travels in a new blue hat and a new blue suit with a big bunch
+of violets in my hand. For five minutes I would cheerfully have said
+good-by forever to poor dear Gordon in return for the wide world
+to wander in. I suppose you are thinking they are not entirely
+incompatible--Gordon and the wide world--but I don't seem able to get
+your point of view about husbands. I see marriage as a man must, a good,
+sensible workaday institution; but awfully curbing to one's liberty.
+Somehow, after you're married forever, life has lost its feeling of
+adventure. There aren't any romantic possibilities waiting to surprise
+you around each corner.
+
+The disgraceful truth is that one man doesn't seem quite enough for me.
+I like the variety of sensation that you get only from a variety of men.
+I'm afraid I've spent too flirtatious a youth, and it isn't easy for me
+to settle.
+
+I seem to have a very wandering pen. To return: I saw you off, and took
+the ferry back to New York with a horribly empty feeling. After our
+intimate, gossipy three months together, it seems a terrible task to
+tell you my troubles in tones that will reach to the bottom of the
+continent. My ferry slid right under the nose of your steamer, and
+I could see you and Jervis plainly leaning on the rail. I waved
+frantically, but you never blinked an eyelash. Your gaze was fixed in
+homesick contemplation upon the top of the Woolworth Building.
+
+Back in New York, I took myself to a department store to accomplish
+a few trifles in the way of shopping. As I was entering through their
+revolving doors, who should be revolving in the other direction but
+Helen Brooks! We had a terrible time meeting, as I tried to go back out,
+and she tried to come back in; I thought we should revolve eternally.
+But we finally got together and shook hands, and she obligingly helped
+me choose fifteen dozen pairs of stockings and fifty caps and sweaters
+and two hundred union suits, and then we gossiped all the way up to
+Fifty-second Street, where we had luncheon at the Women's University
+Club.
+
+I always liked Helen. She's not spectacular, but steady and dependable.
+Will you ever forget the way she took hold of that senior pageant
+committee and whipped it into shape after Mildred had made such a mess
+of it? How would she do here as a successor to me? I am filled with
+jealousy at the thought of a successor, but I suppose I must face it.
+
+"When did you last see Judy Abbott?" was Helen's first question.
+
+"Fifteen minutes ago," said I. "She has just set sail for the Spanish
+main with a husband and daughter and nurse and maid and valet and dog."
+
+"Has she a nice husband?"
+
+"None better."
+
+"And does she still like him?"
+
+"Never saw a happier marriage."
+
+It struck me that Helen looked a trifle bleak, and I suddenly remembered
+all that gossip that Marty Keene told us last summer; so I hastily
+changed the conversation to a perfectly safe subject like orphans.
+
+But later she told me the whole story herself in as detached and
+impersonal a way as though she were discussing the characters in a book.
+She has been living alone in the city, hardly seeing any one, and she
+seemed low in spirits and glad to talk. Poor Helen appears to have made
+an awful mess of her life. I don't know any one who has covered so much
+ground in such a short space of time. Since her graduation she has been
+married, has had a baby and lost him, divorced her husband, quarreled
+with her family, and come to the city to earn her own living. She is
+reading manuscript for a publishing house.
+
+There seems to have been no reason for her divorce from the ordinary
+point of view; the marriage just simply didn't work. They weren't
+friends. If he had been a woman, she wouldn't have wasted half an hour
+talking with him. If she had been a man, he would have said: "Glad
+to see you. How are you?" and gone on. And yet they MARRIED. Isn't it
+dreadful how blind this sex business can make people?
+
+She was brought up on the theory that a woman's only legitimate
+profession is homemaking. When she finished college, she was naturally
+eager to start on her career, and Henry presented himself. Her family
+scanned him closely, and found him perfect in every respect--good
+family, good morals, good financial position, good looking. Helen was in
+love with him. She had a big wedding and lots of new clothes and dozens
+of embroidered towels. Everything looked propitious.
+
+But as they began to get acquainted, they didn't like the same books
+or jokes or people or amusements. He was expansive and social and
+hilarious, and she wasn't. First they bored, and then they irritated,
+each other. Her orderliness made him impatient, and his disorderliness
+drove her wild. She would spend a day getting closets and bureau drawers
+in order, and in five minutes he would stir them into chaos. He would
+leave his clothes about for her to pick up, and his towels in a messy
+heap on the bathroom floor, and he never scrubbed out the tub. And she,
+on her side, was awfully unresponsive and irritating,--she realized it
+fully,--she got to the point where she wouldn't laugh at his jokes.
+
+I suppose most old-fashioned, orthodox people would think it awful to
+break up a marriage on such innocent grounds. It seemed so to me at
+first; but as she went on piling up detail on detail each trivial in
+itself, but making a mountainous total, I agreed with Helen that it was
+awful to keep it going. It wasn't really a marriage; it was a mistake.
+
+So one morning at breakfast, when the subject of what they should do for
+the summer came up, she said quite casually that she thought she would
+go West and get a residence in some State where you could get a divorce
+for a respectable cause; and for the first time in months he agreed with
+her.
+
+You can imagine the outraged feelings of her Victorian family. In all
+the seven generations of their sojourn in America they have never had
+anything like this to record in the family Bible. It all comes from
+sending her to college and letting her read such dreadful modern people
+as Ellen Key and Bernard Shaw.
+
+"If he had only got drunk and dragged me about by the hair," Helen
+wailed, "it would have been legitimate; but because we didn't actually
+throw things at each other, no one could see any reason for a divorce."
+
+The pathetic part of the whole business is that both she and Henry were
+admirably fitted to make some one else happy. They just simply didn't
+match each other; and when two people don't match, all the ceremonies in
+the world can't marry them.
+
+Saturday morning.
+
+
+I meant to get this letter off two days ago; and here I am with volumes
+written, but nothing mailed.
+
+We've just had one of those miserable deceiving nights--cold and frosty
+when you go to bed, and warm and lifeless when you wake in the dark,
+smothered under a mountain of blankets. By the time I had removed my own
+extra covers and plumped up my pillow and settled comfortably, I thought
+of those fourteen bundled-up babies in the fresh-air nursery. Their
+so-called night nurse sleeps like a top the whole night through. (Her
+name is next on the list to be expunged.) So I roused myself again, and
+made a little blanket removing tour, and by the time I had finished I
+was forever awake. It is not often that I pass a NUIT BLANCHE; but when
+I do, I settle world problems. Isn't it funny how much keener your mind
+is when you are lying awake in the dark?
+
+I began thinking about Helen Brooks, and I planned her whole life over
+again. I don't know why her miserable story has taken such a hold over
+me. It's a disheartening subject for an engaged girl to contemplate.
+I keep saying to myself, what if Gordon and I, when we really get
+acquainted, should change our minds about liking each other? The fear
+grips my heart and wrings it dry. But I am marrying him for no reason in
+the world except affection. I'm not particularly ambitious. Neither his
+position nor his money ever tempted me in the least. And certainly I am
+not doing it to find my life work, for in order to marry I am having
+to give up the work that I love. I really do love this work. I go about
+planning and planning their baby futures, feeling that I'm constructing
+the nation. Whatever becomes of me in after life, I am sure I'll be
+the more capable for having had this tremendous experience. And it IS a
+tremendous experience, the nearness to humanity that an asylum brings.
+I am learning so many new things every day that when each Saturday night
+comes I look back on the Sallie of last Saturday night, amazed at her
+ignorance.
+
+You know I am developing a funny old characteristic; I am getting to
+hate change. I don't like the prospect of having my life disrupted. I
+used to love the excitement of volcanoes, but now a high level plateau
+is my choice in landscape. I am very comfortable where I am. My desk
+and closet and bureau drawers are organized to suit me; and, oh, I dread
+unspeakably the thought of the upheaval that is going to happen to me
+next year! Please don't imagine that I don't care for Gordon quite as
+much as any man has a right to be cared for. It isn't that I like him
+any the less, but I am getting to like orphans the more.
+
+I just met our medical adviser a few minutes ago as he was emerging
+from the nursery--Allegra is the only person in the institution who is
+favored by his austere social attentions. He paused in passing to make a
+polite comment upon the sudden change in the weather, and to express the
+hope that I would remember him to Mrs. Pendleton when I wrote.
+
+This is a miserable letter to send off on its travels, with scarcely
+a word of the kind of news that you like to hear. But our bare little
+orphan asylum up in the hills must seem awfully far away from the palms
+and orange groves and lizards and tarantulas that you are enjoying.
+
+Have a good time, and don't forget the John Grier Home
+
+and
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+December 11.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your Jamaica letter is here, and I'm glad to learn that Judy, Junior,
+enjoys traveling. Write me every detail about your house, and send some
+photographs, so I can see you in it. What fun it must be to have a boat
+of your own that chugs about those entertaining seas! Have you worn all
+of your eighteen white dresses yet? And aren't you glad now that I made
+you wait about buying a Panama hat till you reached Kingston?
+
+We are running along here very much as usual without anything exciting
+to chronicle. You remember little Maybelle Fuller, don't you--the chorus
+girl's daughter whom our doctor doesn't like? We have placed her out.
+I tried to make the woman take Hattie Heaphy instead,--the quiet little
+one who stole the communion cup,--but no, indeed! Maybelle's eyelashes
+won the day. After all, as poor Marie says, the chief thing is to be
+pretty. All else in life depends on that.
+
+When I got home last week, after my dash to New York, I made a brief
+speech to the children. I told them that I had just been seeing Aunt
+Judy off on a big ship, and I am embarrassed to have to report that the
+interest--at least on the part of the boys--immediately abandoned Aunt
+Judy and centered upon the ship. How many tons of coal did she burn a
+day? Was she long enough to reach from the carriage house to the Indian
+camp? Were there any guns aboard, and if a privateer should attack her,
+could she hold her own? In case of a mutiny, could the captain shoot
+down anybody he chose, and wouldn't he be hanged when he got to shore?
+
+I had ignominiously to call upon Sandy to finish my speech. I realize
+that the best-equipped feminine mind in the world can't cope with the
+peculiar class of questions that originate in a thirteen-year boy's
+brain.
+
+As a result of their seafaring interest, the doctor conceived the idea
+of inviting seven of the oldest and most alert lads to spend the day
+with him in New York and see with their own eyes an oceanliner. They
+rose at five yesterday morning, caught the 7:30 train, and had the most
+wonderful adventure that has happened in all their seven lives. They
+visited one of the big liners (Sandy knows the Scotch engineer),
+and were conducted from the bottom of the hold to the top of the
+crow's-nest, and then had luncheon on board. And after luncheon they
+visited the aquarium and the top of the Singer Building, and took
+the subway uptown to spend an hour with the birds of America in their
+habitats. Sandy with great difficulty pried them away from the
+Natural History Museum in time to catch the 6:15 train. Dinner in the
+dining-car. They inquired with great particularity how much it was
+costing, and when they heard that it was the same, no matter how much
+you ate, they drew deep breaths and settled quietly and steadily to the
+task of not allowing their host to be cheated. The railroad made nothing
+on that party, and all the tables around stopped eating to stare. One
+traveler asked the doctor if it was a boarding school he had in charge;
+so you can see how the manners and bearing of our lads have picked up.
+I don't wish to boast, but no one would ever have asked such a question
+concerning seven of Mrs. Lippett's youngsters. "Are they bound for a
+reformatory?" would have been the natural question after observing the
+table manners of her offspring.
+
+My little band tumbled in toward ten o'clock, excitedly babbling a
+mess of statistics about reciprocating compound engines and watertight
+bulkheads, devil-fish and sky-scrapers and birds of paradise. I thought
+I should never get them to bed. And, oh, but they had had a glorious
+day! I do wish I could manage breaks in the routine oftener. It gives
+them a new outlook on life and makes them more like normal children.
+Wasn't it really nice of Sandy? But you should have seen that man's
+behavior when I tried to thank him. He waved me aside in the middle of
+a sentence, and growlingly asked Miss Snaith if she couldn't economize a
+little on carbolic acid. The house smelt like a hospital.
+
+I must tell you that Punch is back with us again, entirely renovated as
+to manners. I am looking for a family to adopt him.
+
+I had hoped those two intelligent spinsters would see their way to
+keeping him forever, but they want to travel, and they feel he's too
+consuming of their liberty. I inclose a sketch in colored chalk of your
+steamer, which he has just completed. There is some doubt as to the
+direction in which it is going; it looks as though it might progress
+backward and end in Brooklyn. Owing to the loss of my blue pencil, our
+flag has had to adopt the Italian colors.
+
+The three figures on the bridge are you and Jervis and the baby. I am
+pained to note that you carry your daughter by the back of her neck, as
+if she were a kitten. That is not the way we handle babies in the J. G.
+H. nursery. Please also note that the artist has given Jervis his full
+due in the matter of legs. When I asked Punch what had become of the
+captain, he said that the captain was inside, putting coal on the fire.
+Punch was terribly impressed, as well he might be, when he heard that
+your steamer burned three hundred wagonloads a day, and he naturally
+supposed that all hands had been piped to the stokehole.
+
+BOW! WOW!
+
+That's a bark from Sing. I told him I was writing to you, and he
+responded instantly.
+
+We both send love.
+
+Yours,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Saturday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You were so terribly gruff last night when I tried to thank you for
+giving my boys such a wonderful day that I didn't have a chance to
+express half of the appreciation I felt.
+
+What on earth is the matter with you, Sandy? You used to be a tolerably
+nice man--in spots, but these last three or four months you have only
+been nice to other people, never to me. We have had from the first a
+long series of misunderstandings and foolish contretemps, but after each
+one we seemed to reach a solider basis of understanding, until I had
+thought our friendship was on a pretty firm foundation, capable of
+withstanding any reasonable shock.
+
+And then came that unfortunate evening last June when you overheard some
+foolish impolitenesses, which I did not in the slightest degree mean;
+and from then on you faded into the distance. Really, I have felt
+terribly bad about it, and have wanted to apologize, but your manner
+has not been inviting of confidence. It isn't that I have any excuse or
+explanation to offer; I haven't. You know how foolish and silly I am on
+occasions, but you will just have to realize that though I'm flippant
+and foolish and trivial on top, I am pretty solid inside; and you've got
+to forgive the silly part. The Pendletons knew that long ago, or they
+wouldn't have sent me up here. I have tried hard to pull off an honest
+job, partly because I wanted to justify their judgment, partly because
+I was really interested in giving the poor little kiddies their share of
+happiness, but mostly, I actually believe, because I wanted to show
+you that your first derogatory opinion of me was ill founded. Won't you
+please expunge that unfortunate fifteen minutes at the porte-cochere
+last June, and remember instead the fifteen hours I spent reading the
+Kallikak Family?
+
+I would like to feel that we're friends again.
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Sunday.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am in receipt of your calling card with an eleven-word answer to my
+letter on the back. I didn't mean to annoy you by my attentions. What
+you think and how you behave are really matters of extreme indifference
+to me. Be just as impolite as you choose.
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+December 14.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+PLEASE pepper your letters with stamps, inside and out. I have thirty
+collectors in the family. Since you have taken to travel, every day
+about post time an eager group gathers at the gate, waiting to snatch
+any letters of foreign design, and by the time the letters reach me
+they are almost in shreds through the tenacity of rival snatchers. Tell
+Jervis to send us some more of those purple pine trees from Honduras;
+likewise some green parrots from Guatemala. I could use a pint of them!
+
+Isn't it wonderful to have got these apathetic little things so
+enthusiastic? My children are getting to be almost like real children.
+B dormitory started a pillow fight last night of its own accord; and
+though it was very wearing to our scant supply of linen, I stood by and
+beamed, and even tossed a pillow myself.
+
+Last Saturday those two desirable friends of Percy's spent the whole
+afternoon playing with my boys. They brought up three rifles, and each
+man took the lead of a camp of Indians, and passed the afternoon in a
+bottle shooting contest, with a prize for the winning camp. They brought
+the prize with them--an atrocious head of an Indian painted on leather.
+Dreadful taste; but the men thought it lovely, so I admired it with all
+the ardor I could assume.
+
+When they had finished, I warmed them up with cookies and hot chocolate,
+and I really think the men enjoyed it as much as the boys; they
+undoubtedly enjoyed it more than I did. I couldn't help being in a
+feminine twitter all the time the firing was going on for fear somebody
+would shoot somebody else. But I know that I can't keep twenty-four
+Indians tied to my apron strings, and I never could find in the whole
+wide world three nicer men to take an interest in them.
+
+Just think of all that healthy, exuberant volunteer service going to
+waste under the asylum's nose! I suppose the neighborhood is full of
+plenty more of it, and I am going to make it my business to dig it out.
+
+What I want most are about eight nice, pretty, sensible young women to
+come up here one night a week, and sit before the fire and tell stories
+while the chicks pop corn. I do so want to contrive a little individual
+petting for my babies. You see, Judy, I am remembering your own
+childhood, and am trying hard to fill in the gaps.
+
+The trustees' meeting last week went beautifully. The new women are most
+helpful, and only the nice men came. I am happy to announce that the
+Hon. Cy Wykoff is visiting his married daughter in Scranton. I wish she
+would invite father to live with her permanently.
+
+
+Wednesday.
+
+
+I am in the most childish temper with the doctor, and for no very
+definite reason. He keeps along his even, unemotional way without paying
+the slightest attention to anything or anybody. I have swallowed more
+slights during these last few months than in the whole of my life
+before, and I'm developing the most shockingly revengeful nature. I
+spend all my spare time planning situations in which he will be
+terribly hurt and in need of my help, and in which 1, with the utmost
+callousness, will shrug my shoulders and turn away. I am growing into
+a person entirely foreign to the sweet, sunny young thing you used to
+know.
+
+
+Evening.
+
+
+Do you realize that I am an authority on the care of dependent children?
+Tomorrow I and other authorities visit officially the Hebrew Sheltering
+Guardian Society's Orphan Asylum at Pleasantville. (All that's its
+name!) It's a terribly difficult and roundabout journey from this point,
+involving a daybreak start and two trains and an automobile. But if I'm
+to be an authority, I must live up to the title. I'm keen about looking
+over other institutions and gleaning as many ideas as possible against
+our own alterations next year. And this Pleasantville asylum is an
+architectural model.
+
+I acknowledge now, upon sober reflection, that we were wise to postpone
+extensive building operations until next summer. Of course I was
+disappointed, because it meant that I won't be the center of the
+ripping-up, and I do so love to be the center of ripping-ups! But,
+anyway, you'll take my advice, even though I'm no longer an official
+head? The two building details we did accomplish are very promising. Our
+new laundry grows better and better; it has removed from us that steamy
+smell so dear to asylums. The farmer's cottage will finally be ready
+for occupancy next week. All it now lacks is a coat of paint and some
+doorknobs.
+
+But, oh dear! oh dear! another bubble has burst! Mrs Turnfelt, for all
+her comfortable figure and sunny smile, hates to have children messing
+about. They make her nervous. And as for Turnfelt himself, though
+industrious and methodical and an excellent gardener, still, his mental
+processes are not quite what I had hoped for. When he first came, I made
+him free of the library. He began at the case nearest the door, which
+contains thirty-seven volumes of Pansy's works. Finally, after he had
+spent four months on Pansy, I suggested a change, and sent him home with
+"Huckleberry Finn." But he brought it back in a few days, and shook his
+head. He says that after reading Pansy, anything else seems tame. I
+am afraid I shall have to look about for some one a little more
+up-and-coming. But at least, compared with Sterry, Turnfelt is a
+scholar!
+
+And speaking of Sterry, he paid us a social call a few days ago, in
+quite a chastened frame of mind. It seems that the "rich city feller"
+whose estate he has been managing no longer needs his services; and
+Sterry has graciously consented to return to us and let the children
+have gardens if they wish. I kindly, but convincingly, declined his
+offer.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+
+I came back from Pleasantville last night with a heart full of envy.
+Please, Mr. President, I want some gray stucco cottages, with Luca
+della Robbia figures baked into the front. They have nearly 700 children
+there, and all sizable youngsters. Of course that makes a very different
+problem from my hundred and seven, ranging from babyhood up. But
+I borrowed from their superintendent several very fancy ideas. I'm
+dividing my chicks into big and little sisters and brothers, each big
+one to have a little one to love and help and fight for. Big sister
+Sadie Kate has to see that little sister Gladiola always has her hair
+neatly combed and her stockings pulled up and knows her lessons and gets
+a touch of petting and her share of candy--very pleasant for Gladiola,
+but especially developing for Sadie Kate.
+
+Also I am going to start among our older children a limited form of
+self-government such as we had in college. That will help fit them to
+go out into the world and govern themselves when they get there. This
+shoving children into the world at the age of sixteen seems terribly
+merciless. Five of my children are ready to be shoved, but I can't bring
+myself to do it. I keep remembering my own irresponsible silly young
+self, and wondering what would have happened to me had I been turned out
+to work at the age of sixteen!
+
+I must leave you now to write an interesting letter to my politician in
+Washington, and it's hard work. What have I to say that will interest a
+politician? I can't do anything any more but babble about babies, and
+he wouldn't care if every baby was swept from the face of the earth. Oh,
+yes, he would, too! I'm afraid I'm slandering him. Babies--at least boy
+babies--grow into voters.
+
+Good-by,
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Dearest Judy:
+
+If you expect a cheerful letter from me the day, don't read this.
+
+The life of man is a wintry road. Fog, snow, rain, slush, drizzle,
+cold--such weather! such weather! And you in dear Jamaica with the
+sunshine and the orange blossoms!
+
+We've got whooping cough, and you can hear us whoop when you get off
+the train two miles away. We don't know how we got it--just one of the
+pleasures of institution life. Cook has left,--in the night,--what the
+Scotch call a "moonlight flitting." I don't know how she got her trunk
+away, but it's gone. The kitchen fire went with her. The pipes are
+frozen. The plumbers are here, and the kitchen floor is all ripped
+up. One of our horses has the spavin. And, to crown all, our cheery,
+resourceful Percy is down, down, down in the depths of despair. We have
+not been quite certain for three days past whether we could keep him
+from suicide. The girl in Detroit,--I knew she was a heartless little
+minx,--without so much as going through the formality of sending
+back his ring, has gone and married herself to a man and a couple of
+automobiles and a yacht. It is the best thing that could ever have
+happened to Percy, but it will be a long, long time before he realizes
+it.
+
+We have our twenty-four Indians back in the house with us. I was sorry
+to have to bring them in, but the shacks were scarcely planned for
+winter quarters. I have stowed them away very comfortably, however,
+thanks to the spacious iron verandas surrounding our new fire-escape.
+It was a happy idea of Jervis's having them glassed in for sleeping
+porches. The babies' sun parlor is a wonderful addition to our nursery.
+We can fairly see the little tots bloom under the influence of that
+extra air and sunshine.
+
+With the return of the Indians to civilized life, Percy's occupation was
+ended, and he was supposed to remove himself to the hotel. But he didn't
+want to remove himself. He has got used to orphans, he says, and he
+would miss not seeing them about. I think the truth is that he is
+feeling so miserable over his wrecked engagement that he is afraid to be
+alone. He needs something to occupy every waking moment out of banking
+hours. And goodness knows we're glad enough to keep him! He has been
+wonderful with those youngsters, and they need a man's influence.
+
+But what on earth to do with the man? As you discovered last summer,
+this spacious chateau does not contain a superabundance of guest rooms.
+He has finally fitted himself into the doctor's laboratory, and the
+medicines have moved themselves to a closet down the hall. He and the
+doctor fixed it up between them, and if they are willing to be mutually
+inconvenienced, I have no fault to find.
+
+Mercy! I've just looked at the calendar, and it's the eighteenth, with
+Christmas only a week away. However shall we finish all our plans in a
+week? The chicks are making presents for one another, and something like
+a thousand secrets have been whispered in my ear.
+
+Snow last night. The boys have spent the morning in the woods, gathering
+evergreens and drawing them home on sleds; and twenty girls are spending
+the afternoon in the laundry, winding wreaths for the windows. I don't
+know how we are going to do our washing this week. We were planning to
+keep the Christmas tree a secret, but fully fifty children have been
+boosted up to the carriage house window to take a peep at it, and I am
+afraid the news has spread among the remaining fifty.
+
+At your insistence, we have sedulously fostered the Santa Claus myth,
+but it doesn't meet with much credence. "Why didn't he ever come
+before?" was Sadie Kate's skeptical question. But Santa Claus is
+undoubtedly coming this time. I asked the doctor, out of politeness, to
+play the chief role at our Christmas tree; and being certain ahead of
+time that he was going to refuse, I had already engaged Percy as an
+understudy. But there is no counting on a Scotchman. Sandy accepted with
+unprecedented graciousness, and I had privately to unengage Percy!
+
+
+Tuesday.
+
+
+Isn't it funny, the way some inconsequential people have of pouring out
+whatever happens to be churning about in their minds at the moment? They
+seem to have no residue of small talk, and are never able to dismiss a
+crisis in order to discuss the weather.
+
+This is apropos of a call I received today. A woman had come to deliver
+her sister's child--sister in a sanatorium for tuberculosis; we to keep
+the child until the mother is cured, though I fear, from what I hear,
+that will never be. But, anyway, all the arrangements had been made, and
+the woman had merely to hand in the little girl and retire. But having a
+couple of hours between trains, she intimated a desire to look about, so
+I showed her the kindergarten rooms and the little crib that Lily will
+occupy, and our yellow dining room, with its frieze of bunnies, in order
+that she might report as many cheerful details as possible to the poor
+mother. After this, as she seemed tired, I socially asked her to walk
+into my parlor and have a cup of tea. Doctor MacRae, being at hand and
+in a hungry mood (a rare state for him; he now condescends to a cup of
+tea with the officers of this institution about twice a month), came,
+too, and we had a little party.
+
+The woman seemed to feel that the burden of entertainment rested upon
+her, and by way of making conversation, she told us that her husband had
+fallen in love with the girl who sold tickets at a moving picture show
+(a painted, yellow-haired thing who chewed gum like a cow, was her
+description of the enchantress), and he spent all of his money on the
+girl, and never came home except when he was drunk. Then he smashed the
+furniture something awful. An easel, with her mother's picture on it,
+that she had had since before she was married, he had thrown down just
+for the pleasure of hearing it crash. And finally she had just got too
+tired to live, so she drank a bottle of swamp root because somebody had
+told her it was poison if you took it all at once. But it didn't kill
+her; it only made her sick. And he came back, and said he would choke
+her if she ever tried that on him again; so she guessed he must still
+care something for her. All this quite casually while she stirred her
+tea.
+
+I tried to think of something to say, but it was a social exigency that
+left me dumb. But Sandy rose to the occasion like a gentleman. He talked
+to her beautifully and sanely, and sent her away actually uplifted. Our
+Sandy, when he tries, can be exceptionally nice, particularly to people
+who have no claim upon him. I suppose it is a matter of professional
+etiquette--part of a doctor's business to heal the spirit as well as the
+body. Most spirits appear to need it in this world. My caller has left
+me needing it. I have been wondering ever since what I should do if I
+married a man who deserted me for a chewing gum girl, and who came home
+and smashed the bric-a-brac. I suppose, judging from the theaters this
+winter, that it is a thing that might happen to any one, particularly in
+the best society.
+
+You ought to be thankful you've got Jervis. There is something awfully
+certain about a man like him. The longer I live, the surer I am that
+character is the only thing that counts. But how on earth can you ever
+tell? Men are so good at talking! Good-by, and a merry Christmas to
+Jervis and both Judies.
+
+S. McB.
+
+P.S. It would be a pleasant attention if you would answer my letters a
+little more promptly.
+
+
+JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+December 29.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Sadie Kate has spent the week composing a Christmas letter to you,
+and it leaves nothing for me to tell. Oh, we've had a wonderful time!
+Besides all the presents and games and fancy things to eat, we have had
+hayrides and skating parties and candy pulls. I don't know whether
+these pampered little orphans will ever settle down again into normal
+children.
+
+Many thanks for my six gifts. I like them all, particularly the picture
+of Judy, junior; the tooth adds a pleasant touch to her smile.
+
+You'll be glad to hear that I've placed out Hattie Heaphy in a
+minister's family, and a dear family they are. They never blinked an
+eyelash when I told them about the communion cup. They've given her
+to themselves for a Christmas present, and she went off so happily,
+clinging to her new father's hand!
+
+I won't write more now, because fifty children are writing thank-you
+letters, and poor Aunt Judy will be buried beneath her mail when this
+week's steamer gets in.
+
+My love to the Pendletons.
+
+S. McB.
+
+P.S. Singapore sends his love to Togo, and is sorry he bit him on the
+ear.
+
+
+JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+December 30.
+
+O DEAR, Gordon, I have been reading the most upsetting book!
+
+I tried to talk some French the other day, and not making out very well,
+decided that I had better take my French in hand if I didn't want to
+lose it entirely. That Scotch doctor of ours has mercifully abandoned
+my scientific education, so I have a little time at my own disposal. By
+some unlucky chance I began with "Numa Roumestan," by Daudet. It is
+a terribly disturbing book for a girl to read who is engaged to a
+politician. Read it, Gordon dear, and assiduously train your character
+away from Numa's. It's the story of a politician who is disquietingly
+fascinating (like you). Who is adored by all who know him (like you).
+Who has a most persuasive way of talking and makes wonderful speeches
+(again like you). He is worshiped by everybody, and they all say to
+his wife, "What a happy life you must lead, knowing so intimately that
+wonderful man!"
+
+But he wasn't very wonderful when he came home to her--only when he had
+an audience and applause. He would drink with every casual acquaintance,
+and be gay and bubbling and expansive; and then return morose and sullen
+and down. "Joie de rue, douleur de maison," is the burden of the book.
+
+I read it till twelve last night, and honestly I didn't sleep for being
+scared. I know you'll be angry, but really and truly, Gordon dear,
+there's just a touch too much truth in it for my entire amusement. I
+didn't mean ever to refer again to that unhappy matter of August 20,--we
+talked it all out at the time,--but you know perfectly that you need a
+bit of watching. And I don't like the idea. I want to have a feeling of
+absolute confidence and stability about the man I marry. I never could
+live in a state of anxious waiting for him to come home.
+
+Read "Numa" for yourself, and you'll see the woman's point of view.
+I'm not patient or meek or long-suffering in any way, and I'm a little
+afraid of what I'm capable of doing if I have the provocation. My heart
+has to be in a thing in order to make it work, and, oh, I do so want our
+marriage to work!
+
+Please forgive me for writing all this. I don't mean that I really think
+you'll be a "joy of the street, and sorrow of the home." It's just that
+I didn't sleep last night, and I feel sort of hollow behind the eyes.
+
+May the year that's coming bring good counsel and happiness and
+tranquillity to both of us!
+
+As ever,
+
+S.
+
+January 1.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Something terribly sort of queer has happened, and positively I don't
+know whether it did happen or whether I dreamed it. I'll tell you
+from the beginning, and I think it might be as well if you burned this
+letter; it's not quite proper for Jervis's eyes.
+
+You remember my telling you the case of Thomas Kehoe, whom we placed
+out last June? He had an alcoholic heredity on both sides, and as a baby
+seems to have been fattened on beer instead of milk. He entered the
+John Grier at the age of nine, and twice, according to his record in
+the Doomsday Book, he managed to get himself intoxicated, once on beer
+stolen from some workmen, and once (and thoroughly) on cooking brandy.
+You can see with what misgivings we placed him out. But we warned the
+family (hard-working temperate farming people) and hoped for the best.
+
+Yesterday the family telegraphed that they could keep him no longer.
+Would I please meet him on the six o'clock train? Turnfelt met the six
+o'clock train. No boy. I sent a night message telling of his non-arrival
+and asking for particulars.
+
+I stayed up later than usual last night putting my desk in order
+and--sort of making up my mind to face the New Year. Toward twelve I
+suddenly realized that the hour was late and that I was very tired. I
+had begun getting ready for bed when I was startled by a banging on
+the front door. I stuck my head out of the window and demanded who was
+there.
+
+"Tommy Kehoe," said a very shaky voice.
+
+I went down and opened the door, and that lad, sixteen years old,
+tumbled in, dead drunk. Thank Heaven! Percy Witherspoon was within call,
+and not away off in the Indian camp.
+
+I roused him, and together we conveyed Thomas to our guest room, the
+only decently isolated spot in the building. Then I telephoned for the
+doctor, who, I am afraid, had already had a long day. He came, and we
+put in a pretty terrible night. It developed afterward that the boy had
+brought along with his luggage a bottle of liniment belonging to his
+employer. It was made half of alcohol and half of witch hazel; and
+Thomas had refreshed his journey with this!
+
+He was in such shape that positively I didn't think we'd pull him
+through--and I hoped we wouldn't. If I were a physician, I'd let such
+cases gently slip away for the good of society; but you should have seen
+Sandy work! That terrible lifesaving instinct of his was aroused, and he
+fought with every inch of energy he possessed.
+
+I made black coffee, and helped all I could, but the details were pretty
+messy, and I left the two men to deal with him alone and went back to
+my room. But I didn't attempt to go to bed; I was afraid they might be
+wanting me again. Toward four o'clock Sandy came to my library with
+word that the boy was asleep and that Percy had moved up a cot and would
+sleep in his room the rest of the night. Poor Sandy looked sort of ashen
+and haggard and done with life. As I looked at him, I thought about how
+desperately he worked to save others, and never saved himself, and about
+that dismal home of his, with never a touch of cheer, and the horrible
+tragedy in the background of his life. All the rancor I've been saving
+up seemed to vanish, and a wave of sympathy swept over me. I stretched
+my hand out to him; he stretched his out to me. And suddenly--I don't
+know--something electric happened. In another moment we were in each
+other's arms. He loosened my hands, and put me down in the big armchair.
+
+"My God! Sallie, do you think I'm made of iron?" he said and walked out.
+I went to sleep in the chair, and when I woke the sun was shining in my
+eyes and Jane was standing over me in amazed consternation.
+
+This morning at eleven he came back, looked me coldly in the eye without
+so much as the flicker of an eyelash, and told me that Thomas was to
+have hot milk every two hours and that the spots in Maggie Peters's
+throat must be watched.
+
+Here we are back on our old standing, and positively I don't know but
+what I dreamed that one minute in the night!
+
+But it would be a piquant situation, wouldn't it, if Sandy and I
+should discover that we were falling in love with each other, he with a
+perfectly good wife in the insane asylum and I with an outraged fiance
+in Washington? I don't know but what the wisest thing for me to do is to
+resign at once and take myself home, where I can placidly settle down
+to a few months of embroidering "S McB" on table-cloths, like any other
+respectable engaged girl.
+
+I repeat very firmly that this letter isn't for Jervis's consumption.
+Tear it into little pieces and scatter them in the Caribbean.
+
+S.
+
+
+
+January 3.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You are right to be annoyed. I know I'm not a satisfactory love letter
+writer. I have only to glance at the published correspondence of
+Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning to realize that the warmth of my
+style is not up to standard. But you know already--you have known a long
+time--that I am not a very emotional person. I suppose I might write a
+lot of such things as: "Every waking moment you are in my thoughts." "My
+dear boy, I only live when you are near." But it wouldn't be absolutely
+true. You don't fill all my thoughts; 107 orphans do that. And I really
+am quite comfortably alive whether you are here or not. I have to be
+natural. You surely don't want me to pretend more desolation than I
+feel. But I do love to see you,--you know that perfectly,--and I am
+disappointed when you can't come. I fully appreciate all your charming
+qualities, but, my dear boy, I CAN'T be sentimental on paper. I am
+always thinking about the hotel chambermaid who reads the letters you
+casually leave on your bureau. You needn't expostulate that you carry
+them next your heart, for I know perfectly well that you don't.
+
+Forgive me for that last letter if it hurt your feelings. Since I came
+to this asylum I am extremely touchy on the subject of drink. You would
+be, too, if you had seen what I have seen. Several of my chicks are the
+sad result of alcoholic parents, and they are never going to have a fair
+chance all their lives. You can't look about a place like this without
+"aye keeping up a terrible thinking."
+
+You are right, I am afraid, about its being a woman's trick to make a
+great show of forgiving a man, and then never letting him hear the end
+of it. Well, Gordon, I positively don't know what the word "forgiving"
+means. It can't include "forgetting," for that is a physiological
+process, and does not result from an act of the will. We all have a
+collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are
+just the ones that insist upon sticking. If "forgiving" means promising
+never to speak of a thing again, I can doubtless manage that. But it
+isn't always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory inside you. It
+grows and grows, and runs all through you like a poison.
+
+Oh dear! I really didn't mean to be saying all this. I try to be the
+cheerful, carefree (and somewhat light-headed) Sallie you like best; but
+I've come in touch with a great deal of REALNESS during this last year,
+and I'm afraid I've grown into a very different person from the girl you
+fell in love with. I'm no longer a gay young thing playing with life.
+I know it pretty thoroughly now, and that means that I can't be always
+laughing.
+
+I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,--as bad as the last,
+and maybe worse,--but if you knew what we've just been through! A
+boy--sixteen--of unspeakable heredity has nearly poisoned himself with
+a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch hazel. We have been working
+three days over him, and are just sure now that he is going to
+recuperate sufficiently to do it again! "It's a gude warld, but they're
+ill that's in 't."
+
+Please excuse that Scotch--it slipped out. Please excuse everything.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+January 11.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I hope my two cablegrams didn't give you too terrible a shock. I would
+have waited to let the first news come by letter, with a chance for
+details, but I was so afraid you might hear it in some indirect way.
+The whole thing is dreadful enough, but no lives were lost, and only one
+serious accident. We can't help shuddering at the thought of how much
+worse it might have been, with over a hundred sleeping children in this
+firetrap of a building. That new fire escape was absolutely useless. The
+wind was blowing toward it, and the flames simply enveloped it. We saved
+them all by the center stairs--but I'll begin at the beginning, and tell
+the whole story.
+
+It had rained all day Friday, thanks to a merciful Providence, and the
+roofs were thoroughly soaked. Toward night it began to freeze, and the
+rain turned to sleet. By ten o'clock, when I went to bed the wind was
+blowing a terrible gale from the northwest, and everything loose about
+the building was banging and rattling. About two o'clock I suddenly
+started wide awake, with a bright light in my eyes. I jumped out of bed
+and ran to the window. The carriage house was a mass of flames, and
+a shower of sparks was sweeping over our eastern wing. I ran to the
+bathroom and leaned out of the window. I could see that the roof over
+the nursery was already blazing in half a dozen places.
+
+Well, my dear, my heart just simply didn't beat for as much as a minute.
+I thought of those seventeen babies up under that roof, and I couldn't
+swallow. I finally managed to get my shaking knees to work again, and I
+dashed back to the hall, grabbing my automobile coat as I ran.
+
+I drummed on Betsy's and Miss Matthews' and Miss Snaith's doors, just as
+Mr. Witherspoon, who had also been wakened by the light, came tumbling
+upstairs three steps at a time, struggling into an overcoat as he ran.
+
+"Get all the children down to the dining room, babies first," I gasped.
+"I'll turn in the alarm."
+
+He dashed on up to the third floor while I ran to the telephone--and oh,
+I thought I'd never get Central! She was sound asleep.
+
+"The John Grier Home is burning! Turn in the fire alarm and rouse the
+village. Give me 505," I said.
+
+In one second I had the doctor. Maybe I wasn't glad to hear his cool,
+unexcited voice!
+
+"We're on fire!" I cried. "Come quick, and bring all the men you can!"
+
+"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Fill the bathtubs with water and put
+in blankets." And he hung up.
+
+I dashed back to the hall. Betsy was ringing our fire bell, and Percy
+had already routed out his Indian tribes in dormitories B and C.
+
+Our first thought was not to stop the fire, but to get the children to a
+place of safety. We began in G, and went from crib to crib, snatching a
+baby and a blanket, and rushing them to the door, and handing them out
+to the Indians, who lugged them downstairs. Both G and F were full of
+smoke, and the children so dead asleep that we couldn't rouse them to a
+walking state.
+
+Many times during the next hour did I thank Providence--and Percy
+Witherspoon--for those vociferous fire drills we have suffered weekly.
+The twenty-four oldest boys, under his direction, never lost their heads
+for a second. They divided into four tribes, and sprang to their posts
+like little soldiers.
+
+Two tribes helped in the work of clearing the dormitories and keeping
+the terrified children in order. One tribe worked the hose from the
+cupola tank until the firemen came, and the rest devoted themselves to
+salvage. They spread sheets on the floor, dumped the contents of lockers
+and bureau drawers into them, and bundled them down the stairs. All of
+the extra clothes were saved except those the children had actually been
+wearing the day before, and most of the staff's things. But clothes,
+bedding--everything belonging to G and F went. The rooms were too full
+of smoke to make it safe to enter after we had got out the last child.
+
+By the time the doctor arrived with Luellen and two neighbors he had
+picked up, we were marching the last dormitory down to the kitchen, the
+most remote corner from the fire. The poor chicks were mainly barefooted
+and wrapped in blankets. We told them to bring their clothes when we
+wakened them, but in their fright they thought only of getting out.
+
+By this time the halls were so full of smoke we could scarcely breathe.
+It looked as though the whole building would go, though the wind was
+blowing away from my west wing.
+
+Another automobile full of retainers from Knowltop came up almost
+immediately, and they all fell to fighting the fire. The regular fire
+department didn't come for ten minutes after that. You see, they have
+only horses, and we are three miles out, and the roads pretty bad. It
+was a dreadful night, cold and sleety, and such a wind blowing that you
+could scarcely stand up. The men climbed out on the roof, and worked in
+their stocking feet to keep from slipping off. They beat out the sparks
+with wet blankets, and chopped, and squirted that tankful of water, and
+behaved like heroes.
+
+The doctor meanwhile took charge of the children. Our first thought was
+to get them away to a place of safety, for if the whole building should
+go, we couldn't march them out of doors into that awful wind, with only
+their night clothes and blankets for protection. By this time several
+more automobiles full of men had come, and we requisitioned the cars.
+
+Knowltop had providentially been opened for the week end in order to
+entertain a house party in honor of the old gentleman's sixty-seventh
+birthday. He was one of the first to arrive, and he put his entire
+place at our disposal. It was the nearest refuge, and we accepted it
+instantaneously. We bundled our twenty littlest tots into cars, and ran
+them down to the house. The guests, who were excitedly dressing in order
+to come to the fire, received the chicks and tucked them away into their
+own beds. This pretty well filled up all the available house room, but
+Mr. Reimer (Mr. Knowltop's family name) has just built a big new stucco
+barn, with a garage hitched to it, all nicely heated, and ready for us.
+
+After the babies were disposed of in the house, those helpful guests
+got to work and fixed the barn to receive the next older kiddies. They
+covered the floor with hay, and spread blankets and carriage robes over
+it, and bedded down thirty of the children in rows like little calves.
+Miss Matthews and a nurse went with them, administered hot milk all
+around, and within half an hour the tots were sleeping as peacefully as
+in their little cribs.
+
+But meanwhile we at the house were having sensations. The doctor's first
+question upon arrival had been:
+
+"You've counted the children? You know they're all here?"
+
+"We've made certain that every dormitory was empty before we left it," I
+replied.
+
+You see, they couldn't be counted in that confusion. Twenty or so of the
+boys were still in the dormitories, working under Percy Witherspoon
+to save clothing and furniture, and the older girls were sorting over
+bushels of shoes and trying to fit them to the little ones, who were
+running about underfoot and wailing dismally.
+
+Well, after we had loaded and despatched about seven car loads of
+children, the doctor suddenly called out:
+
+"Where's Allegra?"
+
+There was a horrified silence. No one had seen her. And then Miss Snaith
+stood up and SHRIEKED. Betsy took her by the shoulders, and shook her
+into coherence.
+
+It seems that she had thought Allegra was coming down with a cough, and
+in order to get her out of the cold, had moved her crib from the fresh
+air nursery into the store room--and then forgotten it.
+
+Well, my dear, you know where the store room is! We simply stared at one
+another with white faces. By this time the whole east wing was gutted
+and the third-floor stairs in flames. There didn't seem a chance that
+the child was still alive. The doctor was the first to move. He snatched
+up a wet blanket that was lying in a soppy pile on the floor of the
+hall and sprang for the stairs. We yelled to him to come back. It simply
+looked like suicide; but he kept on, and disappeared into the smoke. I
+dashed outside and shouted to the firemen on the roof. The store room
+window was too little for a man to go through, and they hadn't opened it
+for fear of creating a draft.
+
+I can't describe what happened in the next agonizing ten minutes. The
+third-floor stairs fell in with a crash and a burst of flame about five
+seconds after the doctor passed over them. We had given him up for lost
+when a shout went up from the crowd on the lawn, and he appeared for an
+instant at one of those dormer windows in the attic, and called for the
+firemen to put up a ladder. Then he disappeared, and it seemed to us
+that they'd never get that ladder in place; but they finally did, and
+two men went up. The opening of the window had created a draft, and they
+were almost overpowered by the volume of smoke that burst out at the
+top. After an eternity the doctor appeared again with a white bundle in
+his arms. He passed it out to the men, and then he staggered back and
+dropped out of sight!
+
+I don't know what happened for the next few minutes; I turned away and
+shut my eyes. Somehow or other they got him out and halfway down the
+ladder, and then they let him slip. You see, he was unconscious from
+all the smoke he'd swallowed, and the ladder was slippery with ice and
+terribly wobbly. Anyway, when I looked again he was lying in a heap on
+the ground, with the crowd all running, and somebody yelling to give him
+air. They thought at first he was dead. But Dr. Metcalf from the village
+examined him, and said his leg was broken, and two ribs, and that aside
+from that he seemed whole. He was still unconscious when they put him on
+two of the baby mattresses that had been thrown out of the windows and
+laid him in the wagon that brought the ladders and started him home.
+
+And the rest of us, left behind, kept right on with the work as though
+nothing had happened. The queer thing about a calamity like this is that
+there is so much to be done on every side that you don't have a moment
+to think, and you don't get any of your values straightened out until
+afterward. The doctor, without a moment's hesitation, had risked his
+life to save Allegra. It was the bravest thing I ever saw, and yet the
+whole business occupied only fifteen minutes out of that dreadful night.
+At the time, it was just an incident.
+
+And he saved Allegra. She came out of that blanket with rumpled hair
+and a look of pleased surprise at the new game of peek-a-boo. She was
+smiling! The child's escape was little short of a miracle. The fire had
+started within three feet of her wall, but owing to the direction of the
+wind, it had worked away from her. If Miss Snaith had believed a little
+more in fresh air and had left the window open, the fire would have
+eaten back. But fortunately Miss Snaith does not believe in fresh air,
+and no such thing happened. If Allegra had gone, I never should have
+forgiven myself for not letting the Bretlands take her, and I know that
+Sandy wouldn't.
+
+Despite all the loss, I can't be anything but happy when I think of the
+two horrible tragedies that have been averted. For seven minutes, while
+the doctor was penned in that blazing third floor, I lived through
+the agony of believing them both gone, and I start awake in the night
+trembling with horror.
+
+But I'll try to tell you the rest. The firemen and the
+volunteers--particularly the chauffeur and stablemen from
+Knowltop--worked all night in an absolute frenzy. Our newest negro cook,
+who is a heroine in her own right, went out and started the laundry
+fire and made up a boilerful of coffee. It was her own idea. The
+non-combatants served it to the firemen when they relieved one another
+for a few minutes' rest, and it helped.
+
+We got the remainder of the children off to various hospitable houses,
+except the older boys, who worked all night as well as any one. It was
+absolutely inspiring to see the way this entire township turned out and
+helped. People who haven't appeared to know that the asylum existed came
+in the middle of the night and put their whole houses at our disposal.
+They took the children in, gave them hot baths and hot soup, and tucked
+them into bed. And so far as I can make out, not one of my one hundred
+and seven chicks is any the worse for hopping about on drenched floors
+in their bare feet, not even the whooping cough cases.
+
+It was broad daylight before the fire was sufficiently under control
+to let us know just what we had saved. I will report that my wing is
+entirely intact, though a little smoky, and the main corridor is pretty
+nearly all right up to the center staircase; after that everything is
+charred and drenched. The east wing is a blackened, roofless shell.
+Your hated Ward F, dear Judy, is gone forever. I wish that you could
+obliterate it from your mind as absolutely as it is obliterated from the
+earth. Both in substance and in spirit the old John Grier is done for.
+
+I must tell you something funny. I never saw so many funny things in my
+life as happened through that night. When everybody there was in extreme
+negligee, most of the men in pajamas and ulsters, and all of them
+without collars, the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff put in a tardy appearance,
+arrayed as for an afternoon tea. He wore a pearl scarf pin and white
+spats! But he really was extremely helpful. He put his entire house
+at our disposal, and I turned over to him Miss Snaith in a state of
+hysterics; and her nerves so fully occupied him that he didn't get in
+our way the whole night through.
+
+I can't write any more details now; I've never been so rushed in the
+whole of my life. I'll just assure you that there's no slightest reason
+for you to cut your trip short. Five trustees were on the spot early
+Saturday morning, and we are all working like mad to get affairs into
+some semblance of order. Our asylum at the present moment is scattered
+over the entire township; but don't be unduly anxious. We know where
+all the children are. None of them is permanently mislaid. I didn't know
+that perfect strangers could be so kind. My opinion of the human race
+has gone up.
+
+I haven't seen the doctor. They telegraphed to New York for a surgeon,
+who set his leg. The break was pretty bad, and will take time. They
+don't think there are any internal injuries, though he is awfully
+battered up. As soon as we are allowed to see him I will send more
+detailed particulars. I really must stop if I am to catch tomorrow's
+steamer.
+
+Good-by. Don't worry. There are a dozen silver linings to this cloud
+that I'll write about tomorrow.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+Good heavens! here comes an automobile with J. F. Bretland in it!
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+January 14.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Listen to this! J. F. Bretland read about our fire in a New York paper
+(I will say that the metropolitan press made the most of details), and
+he posted up here in a twitter of anxiety. His first question as he
+tumbled across our blackened threshold was,
+
+"Is Allegra safe?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"Thank God!" he cried, and dropped into a chair. "This is no place for
+children," he said severely, "and I have come to take her home. I want
+the boys, too," he added hastily before I had a chance to speak. "My
+wife and I have talked it over, and we have decided that since we are
+going to the trouble of starting a nursery, we might as well run it for
+three as for one."
+
+I led him up to my library, where our little family has been domiciled
+since the fire, and ten minutes later, when I was called down to confer
+with the trustees, I left J. F. Bretland with his new daughter on his
+knee and a son leaning against each arm, the proudest father in the
+United States.
+
+So, you see, our fire has accomplished one thing: those three children
+are settled for life. It is almost worth the loss.
+
+But I don't believe I told you how the fire started. There are so many
+things I haven't told you that my arm aches at the thought of writing
+them all. Sterry, we have since discovered, was spending the week end
+as our guest. After a bibulous evening passed at "Jack's Place," he
+returned to our carriage house, climbed in through a window, lighted
+a candle, made himself comfortable, and dropped asleep. He must have
+forgotten to put out the candle; anyway, the fire happened, and Sterry
+just escaped with his life. He is now in the town hospital, bathed in
+sweet oil, and painfully regretting his share in our troubles.
+
+I am pleased to learn that our insurance was pretty adequate, so the
+money loss won't be so tremendous, after all. As for other kinds of
+loss, there aren't any! Actually, nothing but gain so far as I can make
+out, barring, of course, our poor smashed-up doctor. Everybody has been
+wonderful; I didn't know that so much charity and kindness existed in
+the human race. Did I ever say anything against trustees? I take it
+back. Four of them posted up from New York the morning after the fire,
+and all of the local people have been wonderful. Even the Hon. Cy has
+been so occupied in remaking the morals of the five orphans quartered
+upon him that he hasn't caused any trouble at all.
+
+The fire occurred early Saturday morning, and Sunday the ministers in
+all the churches called for volunteers to accept in their houses one or
+two children as guests for three weeks, until the asylum could get its
+plant into working order again.
+
+It was inspiring to see the response. Every child was disposed of within
+half an hour. And consider what that means for the future: every one of
+those families is going to take a personal interest in this asylum from
+now on. Also, consider what it means for the children. They are finding
+out how a real family lives, and this is the first time that dozens of
+them have ever crossed the threshold of a private house.
+
+As for more permanent plans to take us through the winter, listen to all
+this. The country club has a caddies' clubhouse which they don't use in
+winter and which they have politely put at our disposal. It joins our
+land on the back, and we are fitting it up for fourteen children, with
+Miss Matthews in charge. Our dining room and kitchen still being intact,
+they will come here for meals and school, returning home at night all
+the better for half a mile walk. "The Pavilion on the Links" we are
+calling it.
+
+Then that nice motherly Mrs. Wilson, next door to the doctor's,--she who
+has been so efficient with our little Loretta,--has agreed to take in
+five more at four dollars a week each. I am leaving with her some of the
+most promising older girls who have shown housekeeping instincts, and
+would like to learn cooking on a decently small scale. Mrs. Wilson and
+her husband are such a wonderful couple, thrifty and industrious and
+simple and loving, I think it would do the girls good to observe them. A
+training class in wifehood!
+
+I told you about the Knowltop people on the east of us, who took in
+forty-seven youngsters the night of the fire, and how their entire house
+party turned themselves into emergency nursemaids? We relieved them of
+thirty-six the next day, but they still have eleven. Did I ever call Mr.
+Knowltop a crusty old curmudgeon? I take it back. I beg his pardon.
+He's a sweet lamb. Now, in the time of our need, what do you think that
+blessed man has done? He has fitted up an empty tenant house on the
+estate for our babies, has himself engaged an English trained baby nurse
+to take charge, and furnishes them with the superior milk from his own
+model dairy. He says he has been wondering for years what to do with
+that milk. He can't afford to sell it, because he loses four cents on
+every quart!
+
+The twelve older girls from dormitory A I am putting into the farmer's
+new cottage. The poor Turnfelts, who had occupied it just two days,
+are being shoved on into the village. But they wouldn't be any good
+in looking after the children, and I need their room. Three or four of
+these girls have been returned from foster homes as intractable, and
+they require pretty efficient supervision. So what do you think I've
+done? Telegraphed to Helen Brooks to chuck the publishers and take
+charge of my girls instead. You know she will be wonderful with
+them. She accepted provisionally. Poor Helen has had enough of this
+irrevocable contract business; she wants everything in life to be on
+trial!
+
+For the older boys something particularly nice has happened; we have
+received a gift of gratitude from J. F. Bretland. He went down to thank
+the doctor for Allegra. They had a long talk about the needs of the
+institution, and J. F. B. came back and gave me a check for $3000 to
+build the Indian camps on a substantial scale. He and Percy and the
+village architect have drawn up plans, and in two weeks, we hope, the
+tribes will move into winter quarters.
+
+What does it matter if my one hundred and seven children have been
+burned out, since they live in such a kind-hearted world as this?
+
+Friday.
+
+
+I suppose you are wondering why I don't vouchsafe some details about the
+doctor's condition. I can't give any first-hand information, since he
+won't see me. However, he has seen everybody except me--Betsy, Allegra,
+Mrs. Livermore, Mr. Bretland, Percy, various trustees. They all report
+that he is progressing as comfortably as could be expected with two
+broken ribs and a fractured fibula. That, I believe, is the professional
+name of the particular leg bone he broke. He doesn't like to have a
+fuss made over him, and he won't pose gracefully as a hero. I myself, as
+grateful head of this institution, called on several different occasions
+to present my official thanks, but I was invariably met at the door with
+word that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed. The first
+two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that--well, I know our doctor!
+So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle her unconscious
+good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I despatched her in charge
+of Betsy.
+
+I haven't an idea what is the matter with the man. He was friendly
+enough last week, but now, if I want an opinion from him, I have to
+send Percy to extract it. I do think that he might see me as the
+superintendent of the asylum, even if he doesn't wish our acquaintance
+to be on a personal basis. There is no doubt about it, our Sandy is
+Scotch!
+
+
+LATER.
+
+
+It is going to require a fortune in stamps to get this letter to
+Jamaica, but I do want you to know all the news, and we have never had
+so many exhilarating things happen since 1876, when we were founded.
+This fire has given us such a shock that we are going to be more alive
+for years to come. I believe that every institution ought to be
+burned to the ground every twenty-five years in order to get rid of
+old-fashioned equipment and obsolete ideas. I am superlatively glad
+now that we didn't spend Jervis's money last summer; it would have been
+intensively tragic to have had that burn. I don't mind so much about
+John Grier's, since he made it in a patent medicine which, I hear,
+contained opium.
+
+As to the remnant of us that the fire left behind, it is already boarded
+up and covered with tar-paper, and we are living along quite comfortably
+in our portion of a house. It affords sufficient room for the staff and
+the children's dining room and kitchen, and more permanent plans can be
+made later.
+
+Do you perceive what has happened to us? The good Lord has heard my
+prayer, and the John Grier Home is a cottage institution!
+
+
+I am,
+
+The busiest person north of the equator,
+
+S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+January 16.
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Please, please behave yourself, and don't make things harder than they
+are. It's absolutely out of the question for me to give up the asylum
+this instant. You ought to realize that I can't abandon my chicks just
+when they are so terribly in need of me. Neither am I ready to drop
+this blasted philanthropy. (You can see how your language looks in my
+handwriting!)
+
+You have no cause to worry. I am not overworking. I am enjoying it;
+never was so busy and happy in my life. The papers made the fire out
+much more lurid than it really was. That picture of me leaping from
+the roof with a baby under each arm was overdrawn. One or two of the
+children have sore throats, and our poor doctor is in a plaster cast.
+But we're all alive, thank Heaven! and are going to pull through without
+permanent scars.
+
+I can't write details now; I'm simply rushed to death. And don't
+come--please! Later, when things have settled just a little, you and
+I must have a talk about you and me, but I want time to think about it
+first.
+
+S.
+
+
+January 21.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Helen Brooks is taking hold of those fourteen fractious girls in a most
+masterly fashion. The job is quite the toughest I had to offer, and she
+likes it. I think she is going to be a valuable addition to our staff.
+
+And I forgot to tell you about Punch. When the fire occurred, those two
+nice women who kept him all summer were on the point of catching a train
+for California--and they simply tucked him under their arms, along
+with their luggage, and carried him off. So Punch spends the winter in
+Pasadena and I rather fancy he is theirs for good. Do you wonder that I
+am in an exalted mood over all these happenings?
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Poor bereaved Percy has just been spending the evening with me, because
+I am supposed to understand his troubles. Why must I be supposed to
+understand everybody's troubles? It's awfully wearing to be pouring out
+sympathy from an empty heart. The poor boy at present is pretty low,
+but I rather suspect--with Betsy's aid--that he will pull through. He is
+just on the edge of falling in love with Betsy, but he doesn't know it.
+He's in the stage now where he's sort of enjoying his troubles. He feels
+himself a tragic hero, a man who has suffered deeply. But I notice that
+when Betsy is about, he offers cheerful assistance in whatever work is
+toward.
+
+Gordon telegraphed today that he is coming tomorrow. I am dreading the
+interview, for I know we are going to have an altercation. He wrote the
+day after the fire and begged me to "chuck the asylum" and get married
+immediately, and now he's coming to argue it out. I can't make him
+understand that a job involving the happiness of one hundred or so
+children can't be chucked with such charming insouciance. I tried my
+best to keep him away, but, like the rest of his sex, he's stubborn. Oh
+dear, I don't know what's ahead of us! I wish I could glance into next
+year for a moment.
+
+The doctor is still in his plaster cast, but I hear is doing well,
+after a grumbly fashion. He is able to sit up a little every day and to
+receive a carefully selected list of visitors. Mrs. McGurk sorts them
+out at the door, and repudiates the ones she doesn't like.
+
+Good-by. I'd write some more, but I'm so sleepy that my eyes are
+shutting on me. (The idiom is Sadie Kate's.) I must go to bed and get
+some sleep against the one hundred and seven troubles of tomorrow.
+
+With love to the Pendletons,
+
+S. McB.
+
+
+January 22.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+This letter has nothing to do with the John Grier Home. It's merely from
+Sallie McBride.
+
+Do you remember when we read Huxley's letters our senior year? That book
+contained a phrase which has stuck in my memory ever since: "There is
+always a Cape Horn in one's life that one either weathers or wrecks
+oneself on." It's terribly true; and the trouble is that you can't
+always recognize your Cape Horn when you see it. The sailing is
+sometimes pretty foggy, and you're wrecked before you know it.
+
+I've been realizing of late that I have reached the Cape Horn of my own
+life. I entered upon my engagement to Gordon honestly and hopefully, but
+little by little I've grown doubtful of the outcome. The girl he loves
+is not the ME I want to be. It's the ME I've been trying to grow away
+from all this last year. I'm not sure she ever really existed. Gordon
+just imagined she did. Anyway, she doesn't exist any more, and the only
+fair course both to him and to myself was to end it.
+
+We no longer have any interests in common; we are not friends. He
+doesn't comprehend it; he thinks that I am making it up, that all I have
+to do is to take an interest in his life, and everything will turn out
+happily. Of course I do take an interest when he's with me. I talk about
+the things he wants to talk about, and he doesn't know that there's a
+whole part of me--the biggest part of me--that simply doesn't meet him
+at any point. I pretend when I am with him. I am not myself, and if we
+were to live together in constant daily intercourse, I'd have to keep on
+pretending all my life. He wants me to watch his face and smile when he
+smiles and frown when he frowns. He can't realize that I'm an individual
+just as much as he is.
+
+I have social accomplishments. I dress well, I'm spectacular, I would
+be an ideal hostess in a politician's household--and that's why he likes
+me.
+
+Anyway, I suddenly saw with awful distinctness that if I kept on I'd
+be in a few years where Helen Brooks is. She's a far better model of
+married life for me to contemplate just this moment than you, dear Judy.
+I think that such a spectacle as you and Jervis is a menace to society.
+You look so happy and peaceful and companionable that you induce
+a defenseless onlooker to rush off and snap up the first man she
+meets--and he's always the wrong man.
+
+Anyway, Gordon and I have quarreled definitely and finally. I
+should rather have ended without a quarrel, but considering his
+temperament,--and mine, too, I must confess,--we had to go off in a big
+smoky explosion. He came yesterday afternoon, after I'd written him not
+to come, and we went walking over Knowltop. For three and a half hours
+we paced back and forth over that windy moor and discussed ourselves
+to the bottommost recesses of our beings. No one can ever say the break
+came through misunderstanding each other!
+
+It ended by Gordon's going, never to return. As I stood there at the
+end and watched him drop out of sight over the brow of the hill, and
+realized that I was free and alone and my own master well, Judy, such a
+sense of joyous relief, of freedom, swept over me! I can't tell you;
+I don't believe any happily married person could ever realize how
+wonderfully, beautifully ALONE I felt. I wanted to throw my arms out and
+embrace the whole waiting world that belonged suddenly to me. Oh, it
+is such a relief to have it settled! I faced the truth the night of
+the fire when I saw the old John Grier go, and realized that a new John
+Grier would be built in its place and that I wouldn't be here to do it.
+A horrible jealousy clutched at my heart. I couldn't give it up, and
+during those agonizing moments while I thought we had lost our doctor,
+I realized what his life meant, and how much more significant than
+Gordon's. And I knew then that I couldn't desert him. I had to go on and
+carry out all of the plans we made together.
+
+I don't seem to be telling you anything but a mess of words, I am so
+full of such a mess of crowding emotions. I want to talk and talk and
+talk myself into coherence. But, anyway, I stood alone in the winter
+twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear cold air, and I felt
+beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free.
+
+And then I ran and leaped and skipped down the hill and across the
+pastures toward our iron confines, and I sang to myself. Oh, it was a
+scandalous proceeding, when, according to all precedent, I should have
+gone trailing home with a broken wing. I never gave one thought to
+poor Gordon, who was carrying a broken, bruised, betrayed heart to the
+railroad station.
+
+As I entered the house I was greeted by the joyous clatter of the
+children trooping to their supper. They were suddenly MINE, and lately,
+as my doom became more and more imminent, they had seemed fading away
+into little strangers. I seized the three nearest and hugged them hard.
+I have suddenly found such new life and exuberance, I feel as though I
+had been released from prison and were free. I feel,--oh, I'll stop,--I
+just want you to know the truth. Don't show Jervis this letter, but tell
+him what's in it in a decently subdued and mournful fashion.
+
+It's midnight now, and I'm going to try to go to sleep. It's wonderful
+not to be going to marry some one you don't want to marry. I'm glad of
+all these children's needs, I'm glad of Helen Brooks, and, yes, of the
+fire, and everything that has made me see clearly. There's never been a
+divorce in my family, and they would have hated it.
+
+I know I'm horribly egotistical and selfish; I ought to be thinking
+of poor Gordon's broken heart. But really it would just be a pose if I
+pretended to be very sorrowful. He'll find some one else with just as
+conspicuous hair as mine, who will make just as effective a hostess, and
+who won't be bothered by any of these damned modern ideas about public
+service and woman's mission and all the rest of the tomfoolery the
+modern generation of women is addicted to. (I paraphrase, and soften our
+young man's heartbroken utterances.)
+
+Good-by, dear people. How I wish I could stand with you on your beach
+and look across the blue, blue sea! I salute the Spanish main.
+
+ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+January 27.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I wonder if this note will be so fortunate as to find you awake? Perhaps
+you are not aware that I have called four times to offer thanks and
+consolation in my best bed-side manner? I am touched by the news that
+Mrs. McGurk's time is entirely occupied in taking in flowers and jelly
+and chicken broth, donated by the adoring ladies of the parish to
+the ungracious hero in a plaster cast. I know that you find a cap of
+homespun more comfortable than a halo, but I really do think that you
+might have regarded me in a different light from the hysterical ladies
+in question. You and I used to be friends (intermittently), and though
+there are one or two details in our past intercourse that might better
+be expunged, still I don't see why we should let them upset our entire
+relationship. Can't we be sensible and expunge them?
+
+The fire has brought out such a lot of unexpected kindliness and
+charity, I wish it might bring out a little from you. You see, Sandy,
+I know you well. You may pose to the world as being gruff and curt and
+ungracious and scientific and inhuman and S C O T C H, but you can't
+fool me. My newly trained psychological eye has been upon you for ten
+months, and I have applied the Binet test. You are really kind and
+sympathetic and wise and forgiving and big, so please be at home the
+next time I come to see you, and we will perform a surgical operation
+upon Time and amputate five months.
+
+Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran away, and what a nice time
+we had? It is now the day after that.
+
+SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. If I condescend to call upon you again, please condescend to see
+me, for I assure you I won't try more than once! Also, I assure you that
+I won't drip tears on your counterpane or try to kiss your hand, as I
+hear one admiring lady did.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Thursday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You see, I'm feeling very friendly toward you this moment. When I call
+you "MacRae" I don't like you, and when I call you "Enemy" I do.
+
+Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an afterthought). And it's a very
+creditable production for a left-handed man; I thought at first glance
+it was from Punch.
+
+You may expect me tomorrow at four, and mind you're awake! I'm glad that
+you think we're friends. Really, I feel that I've got back something
+quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid.
+
+S. McB.
+
+P.S. Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has the toothache. He
+sits and holds his cheek like a poor little kiddie.
+
+
+Thursday, January 29.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages I dashed off to you
+last week. Did you respect my command to destroy that letter? I should
+not care to have it appear in my collected correspondence. I know that
+my state of mind is disgraceful, shocking, scandalous, but one really
+can't help the way one feels. It is usually considered a pleasant
+sensation to be engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the
+wonderful untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged! I have
+had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at last
+I am settled. No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood more thankfully
+than I.
+
+Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. It was sent from
+heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier. We are already deep in
+plans for cottages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy leans to brick, and
+Percy, half-timber. I don't know what our poor doctor would prefer;
+olive green with a mansard roof appears to be his taste.
+
+With ten different kitchens to practice in, won't our children learn how
+to cook! I am already looking about for ten loving house mothers to put
+in charge. I think, in fact, I'll search for eleven, in order to have
+one for Sandy. He's as pathetically in need of a little mothering as
+any of the chicks.
+
+It must be pretty dispiriting to come home every night to the
+ministrations of Mrs. McGur-rk.
+
+How I do not like that woman! She has with complacent firmness told me
+four different times that the dochther was ashleep and not wantin' to be
+disturbed. I haven't set eyes on him yet, and I have just about finished
+being polite. However, I waive judgment until tomorrow at four, when
+I am to pay a short, unexciting call of half an hour. He made the
+appointment himself, and if she tells me again that he is ashleep,
+I shall give her a gentle push and tip her over (she's very fat and
+unstable) and, planting a foot firmly on her stomach, pursue my way
+tranquilly in and up. Luellen, formerly chauffeur, chambermaid, and
+gardener, is now also trained nurse. I am eager to see how he looks in a
+white cap and apron.
+
+The mail has just come, with a letter from Mrs. Bretland, telling
+how happy they are to have the children. She inclosed their first
+photograph--all packed in a governess cart, with Clifford proudly
+holding the reins, and a groom at the pony's head. How is that for three
+late inmates of the John Grier Home?
+
+It's all very inspiring when I think of their futures, but a trifle sad
+when I remember their poor father, and how he worked himself to death
+for those three chicks who are going to forget him. The Bretlands
+will do their best to accomplish that. They are jealous of any outside
+influence and want to make the babies wholly theirs. After all, I think
+the natural way is best--for each family to produce its own children,
+and keep them.
+
+Friday.
+
+
+I saw the doctor today. He's a pathetic sight, consisting mostly of
+bandages. Somehow or other we got our misunderstandings all made up.
+Isn't it dreadful the way two human beings, both endowed with fair
+powers of speech, can manage to convey nothing of their psychological
+processes to each other?
+
+I haven't understood his mental attitude from the first, and he even
+yet doesn't understand mine. This grim reticence that we Northern
+people struggle so hard to maintain! I don't know after all but that the
+excitable Southern safety valve method is the best.
+
+But, Judy, such a dreadful thing--do you remember last year when he
+visited that psychopathic institution, and stayed ten days, and I made
+such a silly fuss about it? Oh, my dear, the impossible things I do! He
+went to attend his wife's funeral. She died there in the institution.
+Mrs. McGurk knew it all the time, and might have added it to the rest of
+her news, but she didn't.
+
+He told me all about her, very sweetly. The poor man for years and years
+has undergone a terrible strain, and I fancy her death is a blessed
+relief. He confesses that he knew at the time of his marriage that he
+ought not to marry her, he knew all about her nervous instability;
+but he thought, being a doctor, that he could overcome it, and she was
+beautiful! He gave up his city practice and came to the country on her
+account. And then after the little girl's birth she went all to pieces,
+and he had to "put her away," to use Mrs. McGurk's phrase. The child is
+six now, a sweet, lovely little thing to look at, but, I judge from what
+he said, quite abnormal. He has a trained nurse with her always. Just
+think of all that tragedy looming over our poor patient good doctor, for
+he is patient, despite being the most impatient man that ever lived!
+
+Thank Jervis for his letter. He's a dear man, and I'm glad to see him
+getting his deserts. What fun we are going to have when you get back to
+Shadywell, and we lay our plans for a new John Grier! I feel as though I
+had spent this past year learning, and am now just ready to begin. We'll
+turn this into the nicest orphan asylum that ever lived. I'm so absurdly
+happy at the prospect that I start in the morning with a spring, and go
+about my various businesses singing inside.
+
+The John Grier Home sends its blessing to the two best friends it ever
+had!
+
+ADDIO!
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+Saturday at half-past six in the morning!
+
+My dearest Enemy:
+
+"Some day soon something nice is going to happen."
+
+Weren't you surprised when you woke up this morning and remembered the
+truth? I was! I couldn't think for about two minutes what made me so
+happy.
+
+It's not light yet, but I'm wide awake and excited and having to write
+to you. I shall despatch this note by the first to-be-trusted little
+orphan who appears, and it will go up on your breakfast tray along with
+your oatmeal.
+
+I shall follow VERY PROMPTLY at four o'clock this afternoon. Do you
+think Mrs. McGurk will ever countenance the scandal if I stay two hours,
+and no orphan for a chaperon?
+
+It was in all good faith, Sandy, that I promised not to kiss your hand
+or drip tears on the counterpane, but I'm afraid I did both--or worse!
+Positively, I didn't suspect how much I cared for you till I crossed the
+threshold and saw you propped up against the pillows, all covered with
+bandages, and your hair singed off. You are a sight! If I love you now,
+when fully one third of you is plaster of Paris and surgical dressing,
+you can imagine how I'm going to love you when it's all you!
+
+But my dear, dear Robin, what a foolish man you are! How should I ever
+have dreamed all those months that you were caring for me when you acted
+so abominably S C O T C H? With most men, behavior like yours would
+not be considered a mark of affection. I wish you had just given me a
+glimmering of an idea of the truth, and maybe you would have saved us
+both a few heartaches.
+
+But we mustn't be looking back; we must look forward and be grateful.
+The two happiest things in life are going to be ours, a FRIENDLY
+marriage and work that we love.
+
+Yesterday, after leaving you, I walked back to the asylum sort of dazed.
+I wanted to get by myself and THINK, but instead of being by myself,
+I had to have Betsy and Percy and Mrs. Livermore for dinner (already
+invited) and then go down and talk to the children. Friday night-social
+evening. They had a lot of new records for the victrola, given by
+Mrs. Livermore, and I had to sit politely and listen to them. And, my
+dear--you'll think this funny--the last thing they played was "John
+Anderson, my jo John," and suddenly I found myself crying! I had to
+snatch up the earnest orphan and hug her hard, with my head buried in
+her shoulder, to keep them all from seeing.
+
+     John Anderson, my jo John,
+     We clamb the hill thegither,
+     And monie a canty day, John,
+     We've had wi' ane anither;
+     Now we maun totter down, John,
+     But hand in hand we'll go,
+     And sleep thegither at the foot,
+     John Anderson, my jo.
+
+I wonder, when we are old and bent and tottery, can you and I look back,
+with no regrets, on monie a canty day we've had wi' ane anither? It's
+nice to look forward to, isn't it--a life of work and play and little
+daily adventures side by side with somebody you love? I'm not afraid of
+the future any more. I don't mind growing old with you, Sandy. "Time is
+but the stream I go a-fishing in."
+
+The reason I've grown to love these orphans is because they need me so,
+and that's the reason--at least one of the reasons--I've grown to love
+you. You're a pathetic figure of a man, my dear, and since you won't
+make yourself comfortable, you must be MADE comfortable.
+
+We'll build a house on the hillside just beyond the asylum--how does a
+yellow Italian villa strike you, or preferably a pink one? Anyway, it
+won't be green. And it won't have a mansard roof. And we'll have a big
+cheerful living room, all fireplace and windows and view, and no McGURK.
+Poor old thing! won't she be in a temper and cook you a dreadful dinner
+when she hears the news! But we won't tell her for a long, long time--or
+anybody else. It's too scandalous a proceeding right on top of my own
+broken engagement. I wrote to Judy last night, and with unprecedented
+self-control I never let fall so much as a hint. I'm growing Scotch
+mysel'!
+
+Perhaps I didn't tell you the exact truth, Sandy, when I said I hadn't
+known how much I cared. I think it came to me the night the John Grier
+burned. When you were up under that blazing roof, and for the half hour
+that followed, when we didn't know whether or not you would live, I
+can't tell you what agonies I went through. It seemed to me, if you did
+go, that I would never get over it all my life; that somehow to have
+let the best friend I ever had pass away with a dreadful chasm of
+misunderstanding between us--well--I couldn't wait for the moment when I
+should be allowed to see you and talk out all that I have been shutting
+inside me for five months. And then--you know that you gave strict
+orders to keep me out; and it hurt me dreadfully. How should I suspect
+that you really wanted to see me more than any of the others, and that
+it was just that terrible Scotch moral sense that was holding you back?
+You are a very good actor, Sandy. But, my dear, if ever in our lives
+again we have the tiniest little cloud of a misunderstanding, let's
+promise not to shut it up inside ourselves, but to TALK.
+
+Last night, after they all got off,--early, I am pleased to say, since
+the chicks no longer live at home,--I came upstairs and finished my
+letter to Judy, and then I looked at the telephone and struggled with
+temptation. I wanted to call up 505 and say good night to you. But I
+didn't dare. I'm still quite respectably bashful! So, as the next best
+thing to talking with you, I got out Burns and read him for an hour. I
+dropped asleep with all those Scotch love songs running in my head, and
+here I am at daybreak writing them to you.
+
+Good-by, Robin lad, I lo'e you weel.
+
+SALLIE.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster
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+
+
+DEAR ENEMY
+
+ 
+
+
+
+                           STONE GATE, WORCESTER,
+
+                                   MASSACHUSETTS,
+
+                                       December 27.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your letter is here.  I have read it twice, and with amazement. 
+Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas
+present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model
+institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money? 
+Me--I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan asylum!  My poor
+people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to
+the use of opium, and is this the raving of two fevered
+imaginations?  I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one
+hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo.
+
+And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor?  My dear
+Judy,--likewise my dear Jervis,--I see through you!  I know
+exactly the kind of family conference that has been held about
+the Pendleton fireside.
+
+"Isn't it a pity that Sallie hasn't amounted to more since
+she left college?  She ought to be doing something useful instead
+of frittering her time away in the petty social life of
+Worcester.  Also [Jervis speaks] she is getting interested in
+that confounded young Hallock, too good-looking and fascinating
+and erratic; I never did like politicians.  We must deflect her
+mind with some uplifting and absorbing occupation until the
+danger is past.  Ha!  I have it!  We will put her in charge of
+the John Grier Home."  Oh, I can hear him as clearly as if I were
+there!  On the occasion of my last visit in your delectable
+household Jervis and I had a very solemn conversation in regard
+to (1) marriage, (2) the low ideals of politicians, (3) the
+frivolous, useless lives that society women lead.
+
+Please tell your moral husband that I took his words deeply
+to heart, and that ever since my return to Worcester I have been
+spending one afternoon a week reading poetry with the inmates of
+the Female Inebriate Asylum.  My life is not so purposeless as it
+appears.
+
+Also let me assure you that the politician is not dangerously
+imminent; and that, anyway, he is a very desirable politician,
+even though his views on tariff and single tax and trade-unionism
+do not exactly coincide with Jervis's.
+
+Your desire to dedicate my life to the public good is very
+sweet, but you should look at it from the asylum's point of view.
+
+Have you no pity for those poor defenseless little orphan
+children?
+
+I have, if you haven't, and I respectfully decline the
+position which you offer.
+
+I shall be charmed, however, to accept your invitation to
+visit you in New York, though I must acknowledge that I am not
+very excited over the list of gaieties you have planned.
+
+Please substitute for the New York Orphanage and the
+Foundling Hospital a few theaters and operas and a dinner or so.
+I have two new evening gowns and a blue and gold coat with a
+white fur collar.
+
+I dash to pack them; so telegraph fast if you don't wish to
+see me for myself alone, but only as a successor to Mrs. Lippett.
+                       Yours as ever,
+
+                           Entirely frivolous,
+
+                               And intending to remain so,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+P.S.  Your invitation is especially seasonable.  A charming young
+politician named Gordon Hallock is to be in New York next week. 
+I am sure you will like him when you know him better.  P.S. 2. 
+Sallie taking her afternoon walk as Judy would like to see her:
+
+
+I ask you again, have you both gone mad?
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   February 15.
+Dear Judy:
+
+We arrived in a snowstorm at eleven last night, Singapore and
+Jane and I.  It does not appear to be customary for
+superintendents of orphan asylums to bring with them personal
+maids and Chinese chows.  The night watchman and housekeeper, who
+had waited up to receive me, were thrown into an awful flutter. 
+They had never seen the like of Sing, and thought that I was
+introducing a wolf into the fold.  I reassured them as to his
+dogginess, and the watchman, after studying his black tongue,
+ventured a witticism.  He wanted to know if I fed him on
+huckleberry pie.
+
+It was difficult to find accommodations for my family, Poor
+Sing was dragged off whimpering to a strange woodshed, and given
+a piece of burlap.  Jane did not fare much better.  There was not
+an extra bed in the building, barring a five-foot crib in the
+hospital room.  She, as you know, approaches six.  We tucked her
+in, and she spent the night folded up like a jackknife.  She has
+limped about today, looking like a decrepit letter S, openly
+deploring this latest escapade on the part of her flighty
+mistress, and longing for the time when we shall come to our
+senses, and return to the parental fireside in Worcester.
+
+I know that she is going to spoil all my chances of being
+popular with the rest of the staff.  Having her here is the
+silliest idea that was ever conceived, but you know my family.  I
+fought their objections step by step, but they made their last
+stand on Jane.  If I brought her along to see that I ate
+nourishing food and didn't stay up all night, I might come--
+temporarily; but if I refused to bring her--oh, dear me, I am
+not sure that I was ever again to cross the threshold of Stone
+Gate!  So here we are, and neither of us very welcome, I am
+afraid.
+
+I woke by a gong at six this morning, and lay for a time
+listening to the racket that twenty-five little girls made in the
+lavatory over my head.  It appears that they do not get baths,--
+just face-washes,--but they make as much splashing as twenty-five
+puppies in a pool.  I rose and dressed and explored a bit.  You
+were wise in not having me come to look the place over before I
+engaged.
+
+While my little charges were at breakfast, it seemed a happy
+time to introduce myself; so I sought the dining room.  Horror
+piled on horror--those bare drab walls and oil-cloth-covered
+tables with tin cups and plates and wooden benches, and, by way
+of decoration, that one illuminated text, "The Lord Will
+Provide"!  The trustee who added that last touch must possess a
+grim sense of humor.
+
+Really, Judy, I never knew there was any spot in the world so
+entirely ugly; and when I saw those rows and rows of pale,
+listless, blue-uniformed children, the whole dismal business
+suddenly struck me with such a shock that I almost collapsed.  It
+seemed like an unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine
+to one hundred little faces when what they need is a mother
+apiece.
+
+I plunged into this thing lightly enough, partly because you
+were too persuasive, and mostly, I honestly think, because that
+scurrilous Gordon Hallock laughed so uproariously at the idea of
+my being able to manage an asylum.  Between you all you
+hypnotized me.  And then of course, after I began reading up on
+the subject and visiting all those seventeen institutions, I got
+excited over orphans, and wanted to put my own ideas into
+practice.  But now I'm aghast at finding myself here; it's such a
+stupendous undertaking.  The future health and happiness of a
+hundred human beings lie in my hands, to say nothing of their
+three or four hundred children and thousand grandchildren.  The
+thing's geometrically progressive.  It's awful.  Who am I to
+undertake this job?  Look, oh, look for another superintendent!
+
+Jane says dinner's ready.  Having eaten two of your
+institution meals, the thought of another doesn't excite me.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+The staff had mutton hash and spinach, with tapioca pudding
+for dessert.  What the children had I hate to consider.
+
+I started to tell you about my first official speech at
+breakfast this morning.  It dealt with all the wonderful new
+changes that are to come to the John Grier Home through the
+generosity of Mr. Jervis Pendleton, the president of our board of
+trustees, and of Mrs. Pendleton, the dear "Aunt Judy" of every
+little boy and girl here.
+
+Please don't object to my featuring the Pendleton family so
+prominently.  I did it for political reasons.  As the entire
+working staff of the institution was present, I thought it a good
+opportunity to emphasize the fact that all of these upsetting,
+innovations come straight from headquarters, and not out of my
+excitable brain.
+
+The children stopped eating and stared.  The conspicuous
+color of my hair and the frivolous tilt of my nose are evidently
+new attributes in a superintendent.  My colleagues also showed
+plainly that they consider me too young and too inexperienced to
+be set in authority.  I haven't seen Jervis's wonderful Scotch
+doctor yet, but I assure you that he will have to be VERY
+wonderful to make up for the rest of these people, especially the
+kindergarten teacher.  Miss Snaith and I clashed early on the
+subject of fresh air; but I intend to get rid of this dreadful
+institution smell, if I freeze every child into a little ice
+statue.
+
+This being a sunny, sparkling, snowy afternoon, I ordered
+that dungeon of a playroom closed and the children out of doors.
+
+"She's chasin' us out," I heard one small urchin grumbling as
+he struggled into a two-years-too-small overcoat.
+
+They simply stood about the yard, all humped in their
+clothes, waiting patiently to be allowed to come back in.  No
+running or shouting or coasting or snowballs.  Think of it! 
+These children don't know how to play.
+
+STILL LATER.
+
+
+I have already begun the congenial task of spending your
+money.  I bought eleven hot-water bottles this afternoon (every
+one that the village drug store contained) likewise some woolen
+blankets and padded quilts.  And the windows are wide open in the
+babies' dormitory.  Those poor little tots are going to enjoy the
+perfectly new sensation of being able to breathe at night.
+
+There are a million things I want to grumble about, but it's
+half-past ten, and Jane says I MUST go to bed.
+
+                               Yours in command,
+
+                                       SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S. Before turning in, I tiptoed through the corridor to make
+sure that all was right, and what do you think I found?  Miss
+Snaith softly closing the windows in the babies' dormitory!  Just
+as soon as I can find a suitable position for her in an old
+ladies' home, I am going to discharge that woman.
+
+Jane takes the pen from my hand.
+
+                                       Good night.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                               February 20.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Dr. Robin MacRae called this afternoon to make the acquaintance
+of the new superintendent.  Please invite him to dinner upon the
+occasion of his next visit to New York, and see for yourself what
+your husband has done.  Jervis grossly misrepresented the facts
+when he led me to believe that one of the chief advantages of my
+position would be the daily intercourse with a man of Dr.
+MacRae's polish and brilliancy and scholarliness and charm.
+
+He is tall and thinnish, with sandy hair and cold gray eyes. 
+During the hour he spent in my society (and I was very sprightly)
+no shadow of a smile so much as lightened the straight line of
+his mouth.  Can a shadow lighten?  Maybe not; but, anyway, what
+IS the matter with the man?  Has he committed some remorseful
+crime, or is his taciturnity due merely to his natural
+Scotchness?  He's as companionable as a granite tombstone!
+
+Incidentally, our doctor didn't like me any more than I liked
+him.  He thinks I'm frivolous and inconsequential, and totally
+unfitted for this position of trust.  I dare say Jervis has had a
+letter from him by now asking to have me removed.
+
+In the matter of conversation we didn't hit it off in the
+least.  He discussed broadly and philosophically the evils of
+institutional care for dependent children, while I lightly
+deplored the unbecoming coiffure that prevails among our girls.
+
+To prove my point, I had in Sadie Kate, my special errand
+orphan.  Her hair is strained back as tightly as though it had
+been done with a monkey wrench, and is braided behind into two
+wiry little pigtails.  Decidedly, orphans' ears need to be
+softened.  But Dr. Robin MacRae doesn't give a hang whether their
+ears are becoming or not; what he cares about is their stomachs. 
+We also split upon the subject of red petticoats.  I don't see
+how any little girl can preserve any self-respect when dressed in
+a red flannel petticoat an irregular inch longer than her blue
+checked gingham dress; but he thinks that red petticoats are
+cheerful and warm and hygienic.  I foresee a warlike reign for
+the new superintendent.
+
+In regard to the doctor, there is just one detail to be
+thankful for: he is almost as new as I am, and he cannot instruct
+me in the traditions of the asylum.  I don't believe I COULD have
+worked with the old doctor, who, judging from the specimens of
+his art that he left behind, knew as much about babies as a
+veterinary surgeon.
+
+In the matter of asylum etiquette, the entire staff has
+undertaken my education.  Even the cook this morning told me
+firmly that the John Grier Home has corn meal mush on Wednesday
+nights.
+
+Are you searching hard for another superintendent?  I'll stay
+until she comes, but please find her fast.
+
+                           Yours,
+
+                               With my mind made up,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+                                       SUP'T'S OFFICE,
+
+                                   JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                               February 27.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Are you still insulted because I wouldn't take your advice? 
+Don't you know that a reddish-haired person of Irish forebears,
+with a dash of Scotch, can't be driven, but must be gently led? 
+Had you been less obnoxiously insistent, I should have listened
+sweetly, and been saved.  As it is, I frankly confess that I have
+spent the last five days in repenting our quarrel.  You were
+right, and I was wrong, and, as you see, I handsomely acknowledge
+it.  If I ever emerge from this present predicament, I shall in
+the future be guided (almost always) by your judgment.  Could any
+woman make a more sweeping retraction than that?
+
+The romantic glamour which Judy cast over this orphan asylum
+exists only in her poetic imagination.  The place is AWFUL. 
+Words can't tell you how dreary and dismal and smelly it is: long
+corridors, bare walls; blue-uniformed, dough-faced little inmates
+that haven't the slightest resemblance to human children.  And
+oh, the dreadful institution smell!  A mingling of wet scrubbed
+floors, unaired rooms, and food for a hundred people always
+steaming on the stove.
+
+The asylum not only has to be made over, but every child as
+well, and it's too herculean a task for such a selfish,
+luxurious, and lazy person as Sallie McBride ever to have
+undertaken.  I'm resigning the very first moment that Judy can
+find a suitable successor, but that, I fear, will not be
+immediately.  She has gone off South, leaving me stranded, and of
+course, after having promised, I can't simply abandon her
+asylum.  But in the meantime I assure you that I'm homesick.
+
+Write me a cheering letter, and send a flower to brighten my
+private drawing room.  I inherited it, furnished, from Mrs.
+Lippett.  The wall is covered with a tapestry paper in brown and
+red; the furniture is electric-blue plush, except the center
+table, which is gilt.  Green predominates in the carpet.  If you
+presented some pink rosebuds, they would complete the color
+scheme.
+
+I really was obnoxious that last evening, but you are
+avenged.
+
+                           Remorsefully yours,
+
+                                       SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  You needn't have been so grumpy about the Scotch doctor. 
+The man is everything dour that the word "Scotch" implies.  I
+detest him on sight, and he detests me.  Oh, we're going to have
+a sweet time working together
+
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                           February 22.
+
+My dear Gordon:
+
+Your vigorous and expensive message is here.  I know that you
+have plenty of money, but that is no reason why you should waste
+it so frivolously.  When you feel so bursting with talk that only
+a hundred-word telegram will relieve an explosion, at least turn
+it into a night lettergram.  My orphans can use the money if you
+don't need it.
+
+Also, my dear sir, please use a trifle of common sense.  Of
+course I can't chuck the asylum in the casual manner you
+suggest.  It wouldn't be fair to Judy and Jervis.  If you
+will pardon the statement, they have been my friends for many
+more years than you, and I have no intention of letting them go
+hang.  I came up here in a spirit of--well, say adventure, and I
+must see the venture through.  You wouldn't like me if I were a
+short sport.  This doesn't mean, however, that I am sentencing
+myself for life; I am in tending to resign just as soon as the
+opportunity comes.  But really I ought to feel somewhat gratified
+that the Pendletons were willing to trust me with such a
+responsible post.  Though you, my dear sir, do not suspect it, I
+possess considerable executive ability, and more common sense
+than is visible on the surface.  If I chose to put my whole soul
+into this enterprise, I could make the rippingest superintendent
+that any 111 orphans ever had.
+
+I suppose you think that's funny?  It's true.  Judy and
+Jervis know it, and that's why they asked me to come.  So you
+see, when they have shown so much confidence in me, I can't throw
+them over in quite the unceremonious fashion you suggest.  So
+long as I am here, I am going to accomplish just as much as it is
+given one person to accomplish every twenty-four hours.  I am
+going to turn the place over to my successor with things moving
+fast in the right direction.
+
+But in the meantime please don't wash your hands of me under
+the belief that I'm too busy to be homesick; for I'm not.  I wake
+up every morning and stare at Mrs. Lippett's wallpaper in a sort
+of daze, feeling as though it's some bad dream, and I'm not
+really here.  What on earth was I thinking of to turn my back
+upon my nice cheerful own home and the good times that by rights
+are mine?  I frequently agree with your opinion of my sanity.
+
+But why, may I ask, should you be making such a fuss?  You
+wouldn't be seeing me in any case.  Worcester is quite as far
+from Washington as the John Grier Home.  And I will add, for your
+further comfort, that whereas there is no man in the
+neighborhood of this asylum who admires red hair, in Worcester
+there are several.  Therefore, most difficult of men, please be
+appeased.  I didn't come entirely to spite you.  I wanted an
+adventure in life, and, oh dear! oh dear!  I'm having it! 
+PLEASE write soon, and cheer me up.
+                           Yours in sackcloth,
+
+                                           SALLIE.
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                           February 24.
+Dear Judy:
+
+You tell Jervis that I am not hasty at forming judgments.  I have
+a sweet, sunny, unsuspicious nature, and I like everybody,
+almost.  But no one could like that Scotch doctor.  He NEVER
+smiles.
+
+He paid me another visit this afternoon.  I invited him to
+accommodate himself in one of Mrs. Lippett's electric-blue
+chairs, and then sat down opposite to enjoy the harmony.  He was
+dressed in a mustard-colored homespun, with a dash of green and a
+glint of yellow in the weave, a "heather mixture" calculated to
+add life to a dull Scotch moor.  Purple socks and a red tie, with
+an amethyst pin, completed the picture.  Clearly, your paragon of
+a doctor is not going to be of much assistance in pulling up the
+esthetic tone of this establishment.
+
+During the fifteen minutes of his call he succinctly outlined
+all the changes he wishes to see accomplished in this
+institution.  HE forsooth!  And what, may I ask, are the duties
+of a superintendent?  Is she merely a figurehead to take
+orders from the visiting physician?
+
+It's up wi' the bonnets o' McBride and MacRae!
+
+                               I am,
+
+                                   Indignantly yours,
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                           Monday.
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am sending this note by Sadie Kate, as it seems impossible to
+reach you by telephone.  Is the person who calls herself Mrs.
+McGur-rk and hangs up in the middle of a sentence your
+housekeeper?  If she answers the telephone often, I don't see how
+your patients have any patience left.
+
+As you did not come this morning, per agreement, and the
+painters did come, I was fain to choose a cheerful corn color to
+be placed upon the walls of your new laboratory room.  I trust
+there is nothing unhygienic about corn color.
+
+Also, if you can spare a moment this afternoon, kindly motor
+yourself to Dr. Brice's on Water Street and look at the dentist's
+chair and appurtenances which are to be had at half-price.  If
+all of the pleasant paraphernalia of his profession were here,--
+in a corner of your laboratory,--Dr. Brice could finish his 111
+new patients with much more despatch than if we had to transport
+them separately to Water Street.  Don't you think that's a useful
+idea?  It came to me in the middle of the night, but as I never
+happened to buy a dentist's chair before, I'd appreciate some
+professional advice.
+                                   Yours truly,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   March 1.
+Dear Judy:
+Do stop sending me telegrams!
+
+Of course I know that you want to know everything that is
+happening, and I would send a daily bulletin, but I truly don't
+find a minute.  I am so tired when night comes that if it weren't
+for Jane's strict discipline, I should go to bed with my clothes
+on.
+
+Later, when we slip a little more into routine, and I can be
+sure that my assistants are all running off their respective
+jobs, I shall be the regularest correspondent you ever had.
+
+It was five days ago, wasn't it, that I wrote?  Things have
+been happening in those five days.  The MacRae and I have mapped
+out a plan of campaign, and are stirring up this place to its
+sluggish depths.  I like him less and less, but we have declared
+a sort of working truce.  And the man IS a worker.  I always
+thought I had sufficient energy myself, but when an improvement
+is to be introduced, I toil along panting in his wake.  He is as
+stubborn and tenacious and bull-doggish as a Scotchman can be,
+but he does understand babies; that is, he understands their
+physiological aspects.  He hasn't any more feeling for them
+personally than for so many frogs that he might happen to be
+dissecting.
+
+Do you remember Jervis's holding forth one evening for an
+hour or so about our doctor's beautiful humanitarian ideals? 
+C'EST A RIRE!  The man merely regards the J. G. H. as his own
+private laboratory, where he can try out scientific experiments
+with no loving parents to object.  I shouldn't be surprised
+anyday to find him introducing scarlet fever cultures into
+the babies' porridge in order to test a newly invented serum.
+
+Of the house staff, the only two who strike me as really
+efficient are the primary teacher and the furnace-man.  You
+should see how the children run to meet Miss Matthews and beg for
+caresses, and how painstakingly polite they are to the other
+teachers.  Children are quick to size up character.  I shall be
+very embarrassed if they are too polite to me.
+
+Just as soon as I get my bearings a little, and know exactly
+what we need, I am going to accomplish some widespread
+discharging.  I should like to begin with Miss Snaith; but I
+discover that she is the niece of one of our most generous
+trustees, and isn't exactly dischargeable.  She's a vague,
+chinless, pale-eyed creature, who talks through her nose and
+breathes through her mouth.  She can't say anything decisively
+and then stop; her sentences all trail off into incoherent
+murmurings.  Every time I see the woman I feel an almost
+uncontrollable desire to take her by the shoulders and shake some
+decision into her.  And Miss Snaith is the one who has had entire
+supervision of the seventeen little tots aged from two to five! 
+But, anyway, even if I can't discharge her, I have reduced her to
+a subordinate position without her being aware of the fact.
+
+The doctor has found for me a charming girl who lives a few
+miles from here and comes in every day to manage the
+kindergarten.  She has big, gentle, brown eyes, like a cow's, and
+motherly manners (she is just nineteen), and the babies love her.
+
+At the head of the nursery I have placed a jolly, comfortable
+middle-aged woman who has reared five of her own and has a hand
+with bairns.  Our doctor also found her.  You see, he is useful. 
+She is technically under Miss Snaith, but is usurping
+dictatorship in a satisfactory fashion.  I can now sleep at night
+without being afraid that my babies are being inefficiently
+murdered.
+
+You see, our reforms are getting started; and while I
+acquiesce with all the intelligence at my command to our
+doctor's basic scientific upheavals, still, they sometimes leave
+me cold.  The problem that keeps churning and churning in my mind
+is:  How can I ever instil enough love and warmth and sunshine
+into those bleak little lives?  And I am not sure that the
+doctor's science will accomplish that.
+
+One of our most pressing INTELLIGENT needs just now is to get
+our records into coherent form.  The books have been most
+outrageously unkept.  Mrs. Lippett had a big black account book
+into which she jumbled any facts that happened to drift her way
+as to the children's family, their conduct, and their health. 
+But for weeks at a time she didn't trouble to make an entry.  If
+any adopting family wants to know a child's parentage, half the
+time we can't even tell where we got the child!
+
+           "Where did you come from, baby dear?"
+           "The blue sky opened, and I am here,"
+
+is an exact description of their arrival.
+
+We need a field worker to travel about the country and pick
+up all the hereditary statistics she can about our chicks.  It
+will be an easy matter, as most of them have relatives.  What do
+you think of Janet Ware for the job?  You remember what a shark
+she was in economics; she simply battened on tables and charts
+and surveys.
+
+I have also to inform you that the John Grier Home is
+undergoing a very searching physical examination, and it is the
+shocking truth that out of the twenty-eight poor little rats so
+far examined only five are up to specification.  And the five
+have not been here long.
+
+Do you remember the ugly green reception room on the first
+floor?  I have removed as much of its greenness as possible, and
+fitted it up as the doctor's laboratory.  It contains scales and
+drugs and, most professional touch of all, a dentist's chair and
+one of those sweet grinding machines.  (Bought them second-
+hand from Doctor Brice in the village, who is putting in, for the
+gratification of his own patients, white enamel and nickel-
+plate.)  That drilling machine is looked upon as an infernal
+engine, and I as an infernal monster for instituting it.  But
+every little victim who is discharged FILLED may come to my room
+every day for a week and receive two pieces of chocolate.  Though
+our children are not conspicuously brave, they are, we discover,
+fighters.  Young Thomas Kehoe nearly bit the doctor's thumb in
+two after kicking over a tableful of instruments.  It requires
+physical strength as well as skill to be dental adviser to the J.
+G. H.
+       .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
+
+Interrupted here to show a benevolent lady over the
+institution.  She asked fifty irrelevant questions, took up an
+hour of my time, then finally wiped away a tear and left a dollar
+for my "poor little charges."
+
+So far, my poor little charges are not enthusiastic about
+these new reforms.  They don't care much for the sudden draft of
+fresh air that has blown in upon them, or the deluge of water.  I
+am shoving in two baths a week, and as soon as we collect tubs
+enough and a few extra faucets, they are going to get SEVEN.
+
+But at least I have started one most popular reform.  Our
+daily bill of fare has been increased, a change deplored by the
+cook as causing trouble, and deplored by the rest of the staff as
+causing an immoral increase in expense.  ECONOMY spelt in
+capitals has been the guiding principle of this institution for
+so many years that it has become a religion.  I assure my timid
+co-workers twenty times a day that, owing to the generosity of
+our president, the endowment has been exactly doubled, and that I
+have vast sums besides from Mrs. Pendleton for necessary purposes
+like ice cream.  But they simply CAN'T get over the feeling that
+it is a wicked extravagance to feed these children.
+
+The doctor and I have been studying with care the menus of
+the past, and we are filled with amazement at the mind that could
+have devised them.  Here is one of her frequently recurring
+dinners:
+
+                       BOILED POTATOES
+                       BOILED RICE
+                       BLANC MANGE
+
+
+It's a wonder to me that the children are anything more than
+one hundred and eleven little lumps of starch.
+
+Looking about this institution, one is moved to misquote
+Robert Browning.
+
+           "There may be heaven; there must be hell;
+           Meantime, there is the John Grier--well!"
+                                                       S. McB.
+
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   Saturday.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Dr. Robin MacRae and I fought another battle yesterday over a
+very trivial matter (in which I was right), and since then I have
+adopted for our doctor a special pet name.  "Good morning,
+Enemy!" was my greeting today, at which he was quite solemnly
+annoyed.  He says he does not wish to be regarded as an enemy. 
+He is not in the least antagonistic--so long as I mold my policy
+upon his wishes!
+
+We have two new children, Isador Gutschneider and Max Yog,
+given to us by the Baptist Ladies' Aid Society.  Where on earth
+do you suppose those children picked up such a religion?  I
+didn't want to take them, but the poor ladies were very
+persuasive, and they pay the princely sum of four dollars and
+fifty cents per week per child.  This makes 113, which makes us
+verycrowded.  I have half a dozen babies to give away.  Find
+me some kind families who want to adopt.
+
+You know it's very embarrassing not to be able to remember
+offhand how large your family is, but mine seems to vary from day
+to day, like the stock market.  I should like to keep it at about
+par.  When a woman has more than a hundred children, she can't
+give them the individual attention they ought to have.
+
+
+                                                   Monday.
+
+
+This letter has been lying two days on my desk, and I haven't
+found the time to stick on a stamp.  But now I seem to have a
+free evening ahead, so I will add a page or two more before
+starting it on a pleasant journey to Florida.
+
+I am just beginning to pick out individual faces among the
+children.  It seemed at first as though I could never learn them,
+they looked so hopelessly cut out of one pattern, with those
+unspeakably ugly uniforms.  Now please don't write back that you
+want the children put into new clothes immediately.  I know you
+do; you've already told me five times.  In about a month I shall
+be ready to consider the question, but just now their insides are
+more important than their outsides.
+
+There is no doubt about it--orphans in the mass do not appeal
+to me.  I am beginning to be afraid that this famous mother
+instinct which we hear so much about was left out of my
+character.  Children as children are dirty, spitty little things,
+and their noses all need wiping.  Here and there I pick out a
+naughty, mischievous little one that awakens a flicker of
+interest; but for the most part they are just a composite blur of
+white face and blue check.
+
+With one exception, though.  Sadie Kate Kilcoyne emerged from
+the mass the first day, and bids fair to stay out for all time. 
+She is my special little errand girl, and she furnishes me
+with all my daily amusement.  No piece of mischief has been
+launched in this institution for the last eight years that did
+not originate in her abnormal brain.  This young person has, to
+me, a most unusual history, though I understand it's common
+enough in foundling circles.  She was discovered eleven years ago
+on the bottom step of a Thirty-ninth Street house, asleep in a
+pasteboard box labeled, "Altman & Co."
+
+"Sadie Kate Kilcoyne, aged five weeks.  Be kind to her," was
+neatly printed on the cover.
+
+The policeman who picked her up took her to Bellevue where
+the foundlings are pronounced, in the order of their arrival,
+"Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, Protestant," with perfect
+impartiality.  Our Sadie Kate, despite her name and blue Irish
+eyes, was made a Protestant.  And here she is growing Irisher and
+Irisher every day, but, true to her christening, protesting
+loudly against every detail of life.
+
+Her two little black braids point in opposite directions; her
+little monkey face is all screwed up with mischief; she is as
+active as a terrier, and you have to keep her busy every moment. 
+Her record of badnesses occupies pages in the Doomsday Book.  The
+last item reads:
+
+"For stumping Maggie Geer to get a doorknob into her mouth--
+punishment, the afternoon spent in bed, and crackers for supper."
+
+It seems that Maggie Geer, fitted with a mouth of unusual
+stretching capacity, got the doorknob in, but couldn't get it
+out.  The doctor was called, and cannily solved the problem with
+a buttered shoe-horn.  "Muckle-mouthed Meg," he has dubbed the
+patient ever since.
+
+You can understand that my thoughts are anxiously occupied in
+filling every crevice of Sadie Kate's existence.
+
+There are a million subjects that I ought to consult with the
+president about.  I think it was very unkind of you and him to
+saddle me with your orphan asylum and run off South to play. 
+It would serve you right if I did everything wrong.  While you
+are traveling about in private cars, and strolling in the
+moonlight on palm beaches, please think of me in the drizzle of a
+New York March, taking care of 113 babies that by rights are
+yours--and be grateful.
+
+                       I remain (for a limited time),
+
+                                                   S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                   SUP'T JOHN GRIER HOME.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+I am sending herewith (under separate cover) Sammy Speir, who got
+mislaid when you paid your morning visit.  Miss Snaith brought
+him to light after you had gone.  Please scrutinize his thumb.  I
+never saw a felon, but I have diagnosed it as such.
+                                   Yours truly,
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                           SUP'T JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                               March 6.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I don't know yet whether the children are going to love me or
+not, but they DO love my dog.  No creature so popular as
+Singapore ever entered these gates.  Every afternoon three boys
+who have been perfect in deportment are allowed to brush and comb
+him, while three other good boys may serve him with food and
+drink.  But every Saturday morning the climax of the week is
+reached, when three superlatively good boys give him a nice
+lathery bath with hot water and flea soap.  The privilege of
+serving as Singapore's valet is going to be the only incentive I
+shall need for maintaining discipline.
+
+But isn't it pathetically unnatural for these youngsters to
+be living in the country and never owning a pet?  Especially when
+they, of all children, do so need something to love.  I am going
+to manage pets for them somehow, if I have to spend our new
+endowment for a menagerie.  Couldn't you bring back some baby
+alligators and a pelican?  Anything alive will be gratefully
+received.
+
+This should by rights be my first "Trustees' Day."  I am
+deeply grateful to Jervis for arranging a simple business meeting
+in New York, as we are not yet on dress parade up here; but we
+are hoping by the first Wednesday in April to have something
+visible to show.  If all of the doctor's ideas, and a few of my
+own, get themselves materialized, our trustees will open their
+eyes a bit when we show them about.
+
+I have just made out a chart for next week's meals, and
+posted it in the kitchen in the sight of an aggrieved cook. 
+Variety is a word hitherto not found in the lexicon of the
+J.G.H.  You would never dream all of the delightful surprises we
+are going to have: brown bread, corn pone, graham muffins, samp,
+rice pudding with LOTS of raisins, thick vegetable soup, macaroni
+Italian fashion, polenta cakes with molasses, apple dumplings,
+gingerbread--oh, an endless list!  After our biggest girls have
+assisted in the manufacture of such appetizing dainties, they
+will almost be capable of keeping future husbands in love with
+them.
+
+Oh, dear me!  Here I am babbling these silly nothings when I
+have some real news up my sleeve.  We have a new worker, a gem of
+a worker.
+
+Do you remember Betsy Kindred, 1910?  She led the glee club
+and was president of dramatics.  I remember her perfectly; she
+always had lovely clothes.  Well, if you please, she lives only
+twelve miles from here.  I ran across her by chance yesterday
+morning as she was motoring through the village; or, rather, she
+just escaped running across me.
+
+I never spoke to her in my life, but we greeted each other
+like the oldest friends.  It pays to have conspicuous hair; she
+recognized me instantly.  I hopped upon the running board of her
+car and said:
+
+"Betsy Kindred, 1910, you've got to come back to my orphan
+asylum and help me catalogue my orphans."
+
+And it astonished her so that she came.  She's to be here
+four or five days a week as temporary secretary, and somehow I
+must manage to keep her permanently.  She's the most useful
+person I ever saw.  I am hoping that orphans will become such a
+habit with her that she won't be able to give them up.  I think
+she might stay if we pay her a big enough salary.  She likes to
+be independent of her family, as do all of us in these degenerate
+times.
+
+In my growing zeal for cataloguing people, I should like to
+get our doctor tabulated.  If Jervis knows any gossip about him,
+write it to me, please; the worse, the better.  He called
+yesterday to lance a felon on Sammy Speir's thumb, then
+ascended to my electric-blue parlor to give instructions as
+to the dressing of thumbs.  The duties of a superintendent are
+manifold.
+
+It was just teatime, so I casually asked him to stay, and he
+did!  Not for the pleasure of my society,--no, indeed,--but
+because Jane appeared at the moment with a plate of toasted
+muffins.  He hadn't had any luncheon, it seems, and dinner was a
+long way ahead.  Between muffins (he ate the whole plateful) he
+saw fit to interrogate me as to my preparedness for this
+position.  Had I studied biology in college?  How far had I gone
+in chemistry?  What did I know of sociology?  Had I visited that
+model institution at Hastings?
+
+To all of which I responded affably and openly.  Then I
+permitted myself a question or two: just what sort of youthful
+training had been required to produce such a model of logic,
+accuracy, dignity, and common sense as I saw sitting before me? 
+Through persistent prodding I elicited a few forlorn facts, but
+all quite respectable.  You'd think, from his reticence, there'd
+been a hanging in the family.  The MacRae PERE was born in
+Scotland, and came to the States to occupy a chair at Johns
+Hopkins; son Robin was shipped back to Auld Reekie for his
+education.  His grandmother was a M'Lachlan of Strathlachan (I am
+sure she sounds respectable), and his vacations were spent in the
+Hielands a-chasing the deer.
+
+So much could I gather; so much, and no more.  Tell me, I
+beg, some gossip about my enemy--something scandalous by
+preference.
+
+Why, if he is such an awfully efficient person does he bury
+himself in this remote locality?  You would think an up-and-
+coming scientific man would want a hospital at one elbow and a
+morgue at the other.  Are you sure that he didn't commit a crime
+and isn't hiding from the law?
+
+I seem to have covered a lot of paper without telling you
+much.  VIVE LA BAGATELLE!
+                                   Yours as usual,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  I am relieved on one point.  Dr. MacRae does not pick out
+his own clothes.  He leaves all such unessential trifles to his
+housekeeper, Mrs. Maggie McGurk.
+
+Again, and irrevocably, good-by!
+
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   Wednesday.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Your roses and your letter cheered me for an entire morning, and
+it's the first time I've approached cheerfulness since the
+fourteenth of February, when I waved good-by to Worcester.
+
+Words can't tell you how monotonously oppressive the daily
+round of institution life gets to be.  The only glimmer in the
+whole dull affair is the fact that Betsy Kindred spends four days
+a week with us.  Betsy and I were in college together, and we do
+occasionally find something funny to laugh about.
+
+Yesterday we were having tea in my HIDEOUS parlor when we
+suddenly determined to revolt against so much unnecessary
+ugliness.  We called in six sturdy and destructive orphans, a
+step-ladder, and a bucket of hot water, and in two hours had
+every vestige of that tapestry paper off those walls.  You can't
+imagine what fun it is ripping paper off walls.
+
+Two paperhangers are at work this moment hanging the best
+that our village affords, while a German upholsterer is on his
+knees measuring my chairs for chintz slip covers that will hide
+every inch of their plush upholstery.
+
+Please don't get nervous.  This doesn't mean that I'm
+preparing to spend my life in the asylum.  It means only that I'm
+preparing a cheerful welcome for my successor.  I haven't dared
+tell Judy how dismal I find it, because I don't want to cloud
+Florida; but when she returns to New York she will find my
+official resignation waiting to meet her in the front hall.
+
+I would write you a long letter in grateful payment for seven
+pages, but two of my little dears are holding a fight under the
+window.  I dash to separate them.
+
+                               Yours as ever,
+
+                                           S. McB.
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   March 8.
+
+My dear Judy:
+
+I myself have bestowed a little present upon the John Grier
+Home--the refurnishing of the superintendent's private parlor.  I
+saw the first night here that neither I nor any future occupant
+could be happy with Mrs. Lippett's electric plush.  You see, I am
+planning to make my successor contented and willing to stay.
+
+Betsy Kindred assisted in the rehabilitation of the Lippett's
+chamber of horrors, and between us we have created a symphony in
+dull blue and gold.  Really and truly, it's one of the loveliest
+rooms you've ever seen.  The sight of it will be an artistic
+education to any orphan.  New paper on the wall, new rugs on the
+floor (my own prized Persians expressed from Worcester by an
+expostulating family).  New casement curtains at my three
+windows, revealing a wide and charming view, hitherto hidden by
+Nottingham lace.  A new big table, some lamps and books and a
+picture or so, and a real open fire.  She had closed the
+fireplace because it let in air.
+
+I never realized what a difference artistic surroundings make
+in the peace of one's soul.  I sat last night and watched my fire
+throw nice highlights on my new old fender, and purred with
+contentment.  And I assure you it's the first purr that has come
+from this cat since she entered the gates of the John Grier Home.
+
+But the refurnishing of the superintendent's parlor is the
+slightest of our needs.  The children's private apartments demand
+so much basic attention that I can't decide where to begin.  That
+dark north playroom is a shocking scandal, but no more shocking
+than our hideous dining room or our unventilated dormitories or
+our tubless lavatories.
+
+If the institution is very saving, do you think it can ever
+afford to burn down this smelly old original building, and put up
+instead some nice, ventilated modern cottages?  I cannot
+contemplate that wonderful institution at Hastings without being
+filled with envy.  It would be some fun to run an asylum if you
+had a plant like that to work with.  But, anyway, when you get
+back to New York and are ready to consult the architect about
+remodeling, please apply to me for suggestions.  Among other
+little details I want two hundred feet of sleeping porch running
+along the outside of our dormitories.
+
+You see, it's this way: our physical examination reveals the
+fact that about half of our children are aenemic--aneamic--
+anaemic (Mercy! what a word!), and a lot of them have tubercular
+ancestors, and more have alcoholic.  Their first need is oxygen
+rather than education.  And if the sickly ones need it, why
+wouldn't it be good for the well ones?  I should like to have
+every child, winter and summer, sleeping in the open air; but I
+know that if I let fall such a bomb on the board of trustees, the
+whole body would explode.
+
+Speaking of trustees, I have met up with the Hon. Cyrus
+Wykoff, and I really believe that I dislike him more than Dr.
+Robin MacRae or the kindergarten teacher or the cook.  I seem to
+have a genius for discovering enemies!
+
+Mr. Wykoff called on Wednesday last to look over the new
+superintendent.
+
+Having lowered himself into my most comfortable armchair, he
+proceeded to spend the day.  He asked my father's business, and
+whether or not he was well-to-do.  I told him that my father
+manufactured overalls, and that, even in these hard times, the
+demand for overalls was pretty steady.
+
+He seemed relieved.  He approves of the utilitarian aspect of
+overalls.  He had been afraid that I had come from the family of
+a minister or professor or writer, a lot of high thinking and no
+common sense.  Cyrus believes in common sense.
+
+And what had been my training for this position?
+
+That, as you know, is a slightly embarrassing question.  But
+I produced my college education and a few lectures at the School
+of Philanthropy, also a short residence in the college settlement
+(I didn't tell him that all I had done there was to paint the
+back hall and stairs).  Then I submitted some social work among
+my father's employees and a few friendly visits to the Home for
+Female Inebriates.
+
+To all of which he grunted.
+
+I added that I had lately made a study of the care of
+dependent children, and casually mentioned my seventeen
+institutions.
+
+He grunted again, and said he didn't take much stock in this
+new-fangled scientific charity.
+
+At this point Jane entered with a box of roses from the
+florist's.  That blessed Gordon Hallock sends me roses twice a
+week to brighten the rigors of institution life.
+
+Our trustee began an indignant investigation.  He wished to
+know where I got those flowers, and was visibly relieved when he
+learned that I had not spent the institution's money for them. 
+He next wished to know who Jane might be.  I had foreseen that
+question and decided to brazen it out.
+
+"My maid," said I.
+
+"Your what?" he bellowed, quite red in the face.
+
+"My maid."
+
+"What is she doing here?"
+
+I amiably went into details.  "She mends my clothes, blacks
+my boots, keeps my bureau drawers in order, washes my hair."
+
+I really thought the man would choke, so I charitably added
+that I paid her wages out of my own private income, and paid five
+dollars and fifty cents a week to the institution for her board;
+and that, though she was big, she didn't eat much.
+
+He allowed that I might make use of one of the orphans for
+all legitimate service.
+
+I explained--still polite, but growing bored--that Jane had
+been in my service for many years, and was indispensable.
+
+He finally took himself off, after telling me that he, for
+one, had never found any fault with Mrs. Lippett.  She was a
+common-sense Christian woman, without many fancy ideas, but with
+plenty of good solid work in her.  He hoped that I would be wise
+enough to model my policy upon hers!
+
+And what, my dear Judy, do you think of that?
+
+The doctor dropped in a few minutes later, and I repeated
+the Hon. Cyrus's conversation in detail.  For the first time in
+the history of our intercourse the doctor and I agreed.
+
+"Mrs. Lippett indeed!" he growled.  "The blethering auld
+gomerel!  May the Lord send him mair sense!"
+
+When our doctor really becomes aroused, he drops into Scotch. 
+My latest pet name for him (behind his back) is Sandy.
+
+Sadie Kate is sitting on the floor as I write, untangling
+sewing-silks and winding them neatly for Jane, who is becoming
+quite attached to the little imp.
+
+"I am writing to your Aunt Judy," say I to Sadie Kate.  "What
+message shall I send from you?"
+
+"I never heard of no Aunt Judy."
+
+"She is the aunt of every good little girl in this school."
+
+"Tell her to come and visit me and bring some candy," says
+Sadie Kate.
+
+I say so, too.
+
+                           My love to the president,
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+
+                                                       March 13.
+
+MRS. JUDY ABBOTT PENDLETON,
+
+Dear Madam:
+
+Your four letters, two telegrams, and three checks are at hand,
+and your instructions shall be obeyed just as quickly as this
+overworked superintendent can manage it.
+
+I delegated the dining room job to Betsy Kindred.  One
+hundred dollars did I allow her for the rehabilitation of that
+dreary apartment.  She accepted the trust, picked out five likely
+orphans to assist in the mechanical details, and closed the door.
+
+For three days the children have been eating from the desks in
+the schoolroom.  I haven't an idea what Betsy is doing; but she
+has a lot better taste than I, so there isn't much use in
+interfering.
+
+It is such a heaven-sent relief to be able to leave something
+to somebody else, and be sure it will be carried out!  With all
+due respect to the age and experience of the staff I found here,
+they are not very open to new ideas.  As the John Grier Home was
+planned by its noble founder in 1875, so shall it be run today.
+
+Incidentally, my dear Judy, your idea of a private dining
+room for the superintendent, which I, being a social soul, at
+first scorned, has been my salvation.  When I am dead tired I
+dine alone, but in my live intervals I invite an officer to share
+the meal; and in the expansive intimacy of the dinnertable I get
+in my most effective strokes.  When it becomes desirable to plant
+the seeds of fresh air in the soul of Miss Snaith, I invite her
+to dinner, and tactfully sandwich in a little oxygen between her
+slices of pressed veal.
+
+Pressed veal is our cook's idea of an acceptable PIECE DE
+RESISTANCE for a dinner party.  In another month I am going to
+face the subject of suitable nourishment for the executive staff.
+
+Meanwhile there are so many things more important than our own
+comfort that we shall have to worry along on veal.
+
+A terrible bumping has just occurred outside my door.  One
+little cherub seems to be kicking another little cherub
+downstairs.  But I write on undisturbed.  If I am to spend my
+days among orphans, I must cultivate a cheerful detachment.
+
+Did you get Leonora Fenton's cards?  She's marrying a medical
+missionary and going to Siam to live!  Did you ever hear of
+anything so absurd as Leonora presiding over a missionary's
+menage?  Do you suppose she will entertain the heathen with skirt
+dances?
+
+It isn't any absurder, though, than me in an orphan asylum,
+or you as a conservative settled matron, or Marty Keene a social
+butterfly in Paris.  Do you suppose she goes to embassy balls in
+riding clothes, and what on earth does she do about hair?  It
+couldn't have grown so soon; she must wear a wig.  Isn't our
+class turning out some hilarious surprises?
+
+The mail arrives.  Excuse me while I read a nice fat letter
+from Washington.
+
+
+Not so nice; quite impertinent.  Gordon can't get over the
+idea that it is a joke, S. McB. in conjunction with one hundred
+and thirteen orphans.  But he wouldn't think it such a joke if he
+could try it for a few days.  He says he is going to drop off
+here on his next trip North and watch the struggle.  How would it
+be if I left him in charge while I dashed to New York to
+accomplish some shopping?  Our sheets are all worn out, and we
+haven't more than two hundred and eleven blankets in the house.
+
+Singapore, sole puppy of my heart and home, sends his
+respectful love.
+                               I also,
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       Friday.
+My dearest Judy:
+
+You should see what your hundred dollars and Betsy Kindred did to
+that dining room!
+
+It's a dazzling dream of yellow paint.  Being a north room,
+she thought to brighten it; and she has.  The walls are
+kalsomined buff, with a frieze of little molly cottontails
+skurrying around the top.  All of the woodwork--tables and
+benches included--is a cheerful chrome yellow.  Instead of
+tablecloths, which we can't afford, we have linen runners, with
+stenciled rabbits hopping along their length.  Also yellow bowls,
+filled at present with pussywillows, but looking forward to
+dandelions and cowslips and buttercups.  And new dishes, my
+dear--white, with yellow jonquils (we think), though they may be
+roses; there is no botany expert in the house.  Most wonderful
+touch of all, we have NAPKINS, the first we have seen in our
+whole lives.  The children thought they were handkerchiefs and
+ecstatically wiped their noses.
+
+To honor the opening of the new room, we had ice-cream and
+cake for dessert.  It is such a pleasure to see these children
+anything but cowed and apathetic, that I am offering prizes for
+boisterousness--to every one but Sadie Kate.  She drummed on the
+table with her knife and fork and sang, "Welcome to dem golden
+halls."
+
+You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room
+door--"The Lord Will Provide."  We've painted it out, and covered
+the spot with rabbits.  It's all very well to teach so easy a
+belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof
+behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a
+park bench must learn a more militant creed than that.
+
+"The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world
+to use them in.  Use them well, and you will be provided for; use
+them ill, and you will want," is our motto, and that with
+reservations.
+
+In the sorting process that has been going on I have got rid
+of eleven children.  That blessed State Charities Aid Association
+helped me dispose of three little girls, all placed in very nice
+homes, and one to be adopted legally if the family likes her. 
+And the family will like her; I saw to that.  She was the prize
+child of the institution, obedient and polite, with curly hair
+and affectionate ways, exactly the little girl that every family
+needs.  When a couple of adopting parents are choosing a
+daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though
+I were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate.  Such a
+little thing turns the balance!  The child smiles, and a loving
+home is hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever.
+
+Three of our biggest boys have gone to work on farms, one of
+them out West to a RANCH!  Report has it that he is to become a
+cowboy and Indian fighter and grizzly-bear hunter, though I
+believe in reality he is to engage in the pastoral work of
+harvesting wheat.  He marched off, a hero of romance, followed by
+the wistful eyes of twenty-five adventurous lads, who turned back
+with a sigh to the safely monotonous life of the J. G. H.
+
+Five other children have been sent to their proper
+institutions.  One of them is deaf, one an epileptic, and the
+other three approaching idiocy.  None of them ought ever to have
+been accepted here.  This as an educational institution, and we
+can't waste our valuable plant in caring for defectives.
+
+Orphan asylums have gone out of style.  What I am going to
+develop is a boarding school for the physical, moral, and mental
+growth of children whose parents have not been able to provide
+for their care.
+
+"Orphans" is merely my generic term for the children; a good
+many of them are not orphans in the least.  They have one
+troublesome and tenacious parent left who won't sign a surrender,
+so I can't place them out for adoption.  But those that are
+available would be far better off in loving foster-homes than in
+the best institution that I can ever make.  So I am fitting them
+for adoption as quickly as possible, and searching for the homes.
+
+You ought to run across a lot of pleasant families in your
+travels; can't you bully some of them into adopting children? 
+Boys by preference.  We've got an awful lot of extra boys, and
+nobody wants them.  Talk about anti-feminism!  It's nothing to
+the anti-masculinism that exists in the breasts of adopting
+parents.  I could place out a thousand dimpled little girls with
+yellow hair, but a good live boy from nine to thirteen is a drug
+on the market.  There seems to be a general feeling that they
+track in dirt and scratch up mahogany furniture.
+
+Shouldn't you think that men's clubs might like to adopt
+boys, as a sort of mascot?  The boy could be boarded in a nice
+respectable family, and drawn out by the different members on
+Saturday afternoons.  They could take him to ball games and
+the circus, and then return him when they had had enough, just as
+you do with a library book.  It would be very valuable training
+for the bachelors.  People are forever talking about the
+desirability of training girls for motherhood.  Why not institute
+a course of training in fatherhood, and get the best men's clubs
+to take it up?  Will you please have Jervis agitate the matter at
+his various clubs, and I'll have Gordon start the idea in
+Washington.  They both belong to such a lot of clubs that we
+ought to dispose of at least a dozen boys.
+
+                       I remain,
+
+               The ever-distracted mother of 113.
+
+                                               S. McB.
+
+
+                               THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   March 18.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have been having a pleasant respite from the 113 cares of
+motherhood.
+
+Yesterday who should drop down upon our peaceful village but
+Mr. Gordon Hallock, on his way back to Washington to resume the
+cares of the nation.  At least he said it was on his way, but I
+notice from the map in the primary room that it was one hundred
+miles out of his way.
+
+And dear, but I was glad to see him!  He is the first glimpse
+of the outside world I have had since I was incarcerated in this
+asylum.  And such a lot of entertaining businesses he had to talk
+about!  He knows the inside of all the outside things you read in
+the newspapers; so far as I can make out, he is the social center
+about which Washington revolves.  I always knew he would get on
+in politics, for he has a way with him; there's no doubt about
+it.
+
+You can't imagine how exhilarated and set-up I feel, as
+though I'd come into my own again after a period of social
+ostracism.  I must confess that I get lonely for some one who
+talks my kind of nonsensical talk.  Betsy trots off home every
+week end, and the doctor is conversational enough, but, oh, so
+horribly logical!  Gordon somehow seems to stand for the life I
+belong to,--of country clubs and motors and dancing and sport and
+politeness,--a poor, foolish, silly life, if you will, but mine
+own.  And I have missed it.  This serving society business is
+theoretically admirable and compelling and interesting, but
+deadly stupid in its working details.  I am afraid I was never
+born to set the crooked straight.
+
+I tried to show Gordon about and make him take an interest in
+the babies, but he wouldn't glance at them.  He thinks I came
+just to spite him, which, of course, I did.  Your siren call
+would never have lured me from the path of frivolity had Gordon
+not been so unpleasantly hilarious at the idea of my being able
+to manage an orphan asylum.  I came here to show him that I
+could; and now, when I can show him, the beast refuses to look.
+
+I invited him to dinner, with a warning about the pressed
+veal; but he said no, thanks, that I needed a change.  So we went
+to Brantwood Inn and had broiled lobster.  I had positively
+forgotten that the creatures were edible.
+
+This morning at seven o'clock I was wakened by the furious
+ringing of the telephone bell.  It was Gordon at the station,
+about to resume his journey to Washington.  He was in quite a
+contrite mood about the asylum, and apologized largely for
+refusing to look at my children.  It was not that he didn't like
+orphans, he said; it was just that he didn't like them in
+juxtaposition to me.  And to prove his good intentions, he would
+send them a bag of peanuts.
+
+I feel as fresh and revivified after my little fling as
+though I'd had a real vacation.  There's no doubt about it, an
+hour or so of exciting talk is more of a tonic to me than a pint
+of iron and strychnine pills.
+
+You owe me two letters, dear Madam.  Pay them TOUT DE SUITE,
+or I lay down my pen forever.
+
+                               Yours, as usual,
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                               Tuesday, 5 P.M.
+My dear Enemy:
+
+I am told that during my absence this afternoon you paid us a
+call and dug up a scandal.  You claim that the children under
+Miss Snaith are not receiving their due in the matter of cod-
+liver oil.
+
+I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been carried
+out, but you must know that it is a difficult matter to introduce
+that abominably smelling stuff into the inside of a squirming
+child.  And poor Miss Snaith is a very much overworked person. 
+She has ten more children to care for than should rightly fall
+into the lot of any single woman, and until we find her another
+assistant, she has very little time for the fancy touches you
+demand.
+
+Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to abuse.  When
+you feel in a fighting mood, I wish you would expend your
+belligerence upon me.  I don't mind it; quite the contrary.  But
+that poor lady has retired to her room in a state of hysterics,
+leaving nine babies to be tucked into bed by whomever it may
+concern.
+
+If you have any powders that would be settling to her nerves,
+please send them back by Sadie Kate.
+
+                                   Yours truly,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                       Wednesday Morning.
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; I am simply
+asking that you come to me with all complaints, and not stir up
+my staff in any such volcanic fashion as that of yesterday.
+
+I endeavor to carry out all of your orders--of a medical
+nature--with scrupulous care.  In the present case there seems to
+have been some negligence; I don't know what did become of those
+fourteen unadministered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have
+made such a fuss about, but I shall investigate.
+
+And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in
+the summary fashion you demand.  She may be, in certain respects,
+inefficient; but she is kind to the children, and with
+supervision will answer temporarily.
+
+                                   Yours truly,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                               Thursday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+SOYEZ TRANQUILLE.  I have issued orders, and in the future the
+children shall receive all of the cod-liver oil that by rights is
+theirs.  A wilfu' man maun hae his way.
+
+                                               S. McB.
+
+
+                                                   March 22.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past few days--
+since the great Cod-Liver Oil War has been raging.  The first
+skirmish occurred on Tuesday, and I unfortunately missed it,
+having accompanied four of my children on a shopping trip to the
+village.  I returned to find the asylum teeming with hysterics. 
+Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit.
+
+Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod-liver oil and the
+other for spinach, neither popular in our nursery.  Some time
+ago--before I came, in fact--he had ordered cod-liver oil for all
+       {aenemic}
+ of the{       }--Heavens! there's that word again!
+       {aneamic}
+--children, and had given instructions as to its application to
+Miss Snaith.  Yesterday, in his suspicious Scotch fashion, he
+began nosing about to find out why the poor little rats weren't
+fattening up as fast as he thought they ought, and he un
+earthed a hideous scandal.  They haven't received a whiff of cod-
+liver oil for three whole weeks!  At that point he exploded, and
+all was joy and excitement and hysterics.
+
+Betsy says that she had to send Sadie Kate to the laundry on
+an improvised errand, as his language was not fit for orphan
+ears.  By the time I got home he had gone, and Miss Snaith had
+retired, weeping, to her room, and the whereabouts of fourteen
+bottles of cod-liver oil was still unexplained.  He had accused
+her at the top of his voice of taking them herself.  Imagine Miss
+Snaith,--she who looks so innocent and chinless and inoffensive--
+stealing cod-liver oil from these poor helpless little orphans
+and guzzling it in private!
+
+Her defense consisted in hysterical assertions that she loved
+the children, and had done her duty as she saw it.  She did not
+believe in giving medicine to babies; she thought drugs bad for
+their poor little stomachs.  You can imagine Sandy!  Oh, dear!
+oh, dear!  To think I missed it!
+
+Well, the tempest raged for three days, and Sadie Kate nearly
+ran her little legs off carrying peppery messages back and forth
+between us and the doctor.  It is only under stress that I
+communicate with him by telephone, as he has an interfering old
+termagant of a housekeeper who "listens in" on the down-stairs
+switch.  I don't wish the scandalous secrets of the John Grier
+spread abroad.  The doctor demanded Miss Snaith's instant
+dismissal, and I refused.  Of course she is a vague, unfocused,
+inefficient old thing, but she does love the children, and with
+proper supervision is fairly useful.
+
+At least, in the light of her exalted family connections, I
+can't pack her off in disgrace like a drunken cook.  I am hoping
+in time to eliminate her by a process of delicate suggestion;
+perhaps I can make her feel that her health requires a winter in
+California.  And also, no matter what the doctor wants, so
+positive and dictatorial is his manner that just out of self-
+respect one must take the other side.  When he states that the
+world is round, I instantly assert it to be triangular.
+
+Finally, after three pleasantly exhilarating days, the whole
+business settled itself.  An apology (a very dilute one) was
+extracted from him for being so unkind to the poor lady, and full
+confession, with promises for the future, was drawn from her.  It
+seems that she couldn't bear to make the little dears take the
+stuff, but, for obvious reasons, she couldn't bear to cross Dr.
+MacRae, so she hid the last fourteen bottles in a dark corner of
+the cellar.  Just how she was planning to dispose of her loot I
+don't know.  Can you pawn cod-liver oil?
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Peace negotiations had just ended this afternoon, and Sandy
+had made a dignified exit, when the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff was
+announced.  Two enemies in the course of an hour are really too
+much!
+
+The Hon. Cy was awfully impressed with the new dining room,
+especially when he heard that Betsy had put on those rabbits with
+her own lily-white hands.  Stenciling rabbits on walls, he
+allows, is a fitting pursuit for a woman, but an executive
+position like mine is a trifle out of her sphere.  He thinks it
+would be far wiser if Mr. Pendleton did not give me such free
+scope in the spending of his money.
+
+While we were still contemplating Betsy's mural flight, an
+awful crash came from the pantry, and we found Gladiola Murphy
+weeping among the ruins of five yellow plates.  It is
+sufficiently shattering to my nerves to hear these crashes when I
+am alone, but it is peculiarly shattering when receiving a call
+from an unsympathetic trustee.
+
+I shall cherish that set of dishes to the best of my ability,
+but if you wish to see your gift in all its uncracked beauty, I
+should advise you to hurry North, and visit the John Grier Home
+without delay.
+
+                               Yours as ever,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+                                               March 26.
+My dear Judy:
+
+I have just been holding an interview with a woman who wants to
+take a baby home to surprise her husband.  I had a hard time
+convincing her that, since he is to support the child, it might
+be a delicate attention to consult him about its adoption.  She
+argued stubbornly that it was none of his business, seeing that
+the onerous work of washing and dressing and training would fall
+upon her.  I am really beginning to feel sorry for men.  Some of
+them seem to have very few rights.
+
+Even our pugnacious doctor I suspect of being a victim of
+domestic tyranny, and his housekeeper's at that.  It is
+scandalous the way Maggie McGurk neglects the poor man.  I have
+had to put him in charge of an orphan.  Sadie Kate, with a very
+housewifely air, is this moment sitting cross-legged on the
+hearth rug sewing buttons on his overcoat while he is upstairs
+tending babies.
+
+You would never believe it, but Sandy and I are growing quite
+confidential in a dour Scotch fashion.  It has become his habit,
+when homeward bound after his professional calls, to chug up to
+our door about four in the afternoon, and make the rounds of the
+house to make sure that we are not developing cholera morbus or
+infanticide or anything catching, and then present himself at
+four-thirty at my library door to talk over our mutual problems.
+
+Does he come to see me?  Oh, no, indeed; he comes to get tea
+and toast and marmalade.  The man hath a lean and hungry look. 
+His housekeeper doesn't feed him enough.  As soon as I get
+the upper hand of him a little more, I am going to urge him on to
+revolt.
+
+Meanwhile he is very grateful for something to eat, but oh,
+so funny in his attempts at social grace!  At first he would hold
+a cup of tea in one hand, a plate of muffins in the other, and
+then search blankly for a third hand to eat them with.  Now he
+has solved the problem.  He turns in his toes and brings his
+knees together; then he folds his napkin into a long, narrow
+wedge that fills the crack between them, thus forming a very
+workable pseudo lap; after that he sits with tense muscles until
+the tea is drunk.  I suppose I ought to provide a table, but the
+spectacle of Sandy with his toes turned in is the one gleam of
+amusement that my day affords.
+
+The postman is just driving in with, I trust, a letter from
+you.  Letters make a very interesting break in the monotony of
+asylum life.  If you wish to keep this superintendent contented,
+you'd better write often.
+
+            .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
+
+Mail received and contents noted.
+
+Kindly convey my thanks to Jervis for three alligators in a
+swamp.  He shows rare artistic taste in the selection of his post
+cards.  Your seven-page illustrated letter from Miami arrives at
+the same time.  I should have known Jervis from the palm tree
+perfectly, even without the label, as the tree has so much the
+more hair of the two.  Also, I have a polite bread-and-butter
+letter from my nice young man in Washington, and a book from him,
+likewise a box of candy.  The bag of peanuts for the kiddies he
+has shipped by express.  Did you ever know such assiduity?
+
+Jimmie favors me with the news that he is coming to visit me
+as soon as father can spare him from the factory.  The poor boy
+does hate that factory so!  It isn't that he is lazy; he just
+simply isn't interested in overalls.  But father can't understand
+such a lack of taste.  Having built up the factory, he of course
+has developed a passion for overalls, which should have been
+inherited by his eldest son.  I find it awfully convenient to
+have been born a daughter; I am not asked to like overalls, but
+am left free to follow any morbid career I may choose, such as
+this.
+
+To return to my mail:  There arrives an advertisement from a
+wholesale grocer, saying that he has exceptionally economical
+brands of oatmeal, rice, flour, prunes, and dried apples that he
+packs specially for prisons and charitable institutions.  Sounds
+nutritious, doesn't it?
+
+I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each of whom
+would like to have a strong, husky boy of fourteen who is not
+afraid of work, their object being to give him a good home. 
+These good homes appear with great frequency just as the spring
+planting is coming on.  When we investigated one of them last
+week, the village minister, in answer to our usual question,
+"Does he own any property?" replied in a very guarded manner, "I
+think he must own a corkscrew."
+
+You would hardly credit some of the homes that we have
+investigated.  We found a very prosperous country family the
+other day, who lived huddled together in three rooms in order to
+keep the rest of their handsome house clean.  The fourteen-year
+girl they wished to adopt, by way of a cheap servant, was to
+sleep in the same tiny room with their own three children.  Their
+kitchen-dining-parlor apartment was more cluttered up and unaired
+than any city tenement I ever saw, and the thermometer at eighty-
+four.  One could scarcely say they were living there; they were
+rather COOKING.  You may be sure they got no girl from us!
+
+I have made one invariable rule--every other is flexible.  No
+child is to be placed out unless the proposed family can offer
+better advantages than we can give.  I mean than we are going to
+be able to give in the course of a few months, when we get
+ourselves made over into a model institution.  I shall have to
+confess that at present we are still pretty bad.
+
+But anyway, I am very CHOOSEY in regard to homes, and I
+reject three-fourths of those that offer.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Gordon has made honorable amends to my children.  His bag of
+peanuts is here, made of burlap and three feet high.
+
+Do you remember the dessert of peanuts and maple sugar they
+used to give us at college?  We turned up our noses, but ate.  I
+am instituting it here, and I assure you we don't turn up our
+noses.  It is a pleasure to feed children who have graduated from
+a course of Mrs. Lippett; they are pathetically grateful for
+small blessings.
+
+You can't complain that this letter is too short.
+
+                               Yours,
+
+                       On the verge of writer's cramp,
+
+                                               S. McB.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                   Off and on, all day Friday.
+Dear Judy:
+
+You will be interested to hear that I have encountered another
+enemy--the doctor's housekeeper.  I had talked to the creature
+several times over the telephone, and had noted that her voice
+was not distinguished by the soft, low accents that mark the
+caste of "Vere de Vere"; but now I have seen her.  This morning,
+while returning from the village, I made a slight detour, and
+passed our doctor's house.  Sandy is evidently the result of
+environment--olive green, with a mansard roof and the shades
+pulled down.  You would think he had just been holding a funeral.
+
+I don't wonder that the amenities of life have somewhat escaped
+the poor man.  After studying the outside of his house, I was
+filled with curiosity to see if the inside matched.
+
+Having sneezed five times before breakfast this morning, I
+decided to go in and consult him professionally.  To be sure, he
+is a children's specialist, but sneezes are common to all ages. 
+So I boldly marched up the steps and rang the bell.
+
+Hark!  What sound is that that breaks upon our revelry?  The
+Hon. Cy's voice, as I live, approaching up the stairs.  I've
+letters to write, and I can't be tormented by his blether, so I
+am rushing Jane to the door with orders to look him firmly in the
+eye and tell him I am out.
+
+            .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
+
+On with the dance!  Let joy be unconfined.  He's gone.
+
+But those eight stars represent eight agonizing minutes spent
+in the dark of my library closet.  The Hon. Cy received Jane's
+communication with the affable statement that he would sit
+down and wait.  Whereupon he entered and sat.  But did Jane leave
+me to languish in the closet?  No; she enticed him to the nursery
+to see the AWFUL thing that Sadie Kate has done.  The Hon. Cy
+loves to see awful things, particularly when done by Sadie Kate. 
+I haven't an idea what scandal Jane is about to disclose; but no
+matter, he has gone.
+
+Where was I?  Oh, yes; I had rung the doctor's bell.
+
+The door was opened by a large, husky person with her sleeves
+rolled up.  She looked very businesslike, with a hawk's nose and
+cold gray eyes.
+
+"Well?" said she, her tone implying that I was a vacuum-
+cleaning agent.
+
+"Good morning." I smiled affably, and stepped inside.  "Is
+this Mrs. McGurk?"
+
+"It is," said she.  "An' ye'll be the new young woman in the
+orphan asylum?"
+
+"I am that," said I.  "Is himself at home?"
+
+"He is not," said she.
+
+"But this is his office hour."
+
+"He don't keep it regular'."
+
+"He ought," said I, sternly.  "Kindly tell him that Miss
+McBride called to consult him, and ask him to look in at the John
+Grier Home this afternoon."
+
+"Ump'!" grunted Mrs. McGurk, and closed the door so promptly
+that she shut in the hem of my skirt.
+
+When I told the doctor this afternoon, he shrugged his
+shoulders, and observed that that was Maggie's gracious way.
+
+"And why do you put up with Maggie?" said I.
+
+"And where would I find any one better?" said he.  "Doing the
+work for a lone man who comes as irregularly to meals as a
+twenty-four-hour day will permit is no sinecure.  She furnishes
+little sunshine in the home, but she does manage to produce a hot
+dinner at nine o'clock at night."
+
+Just the same, I am willing to wager that her hot dinners
+are neither delicious nor well served.  She's an inefficient,
+lazy old termagant, and I know why she doesn't like me.  She
+imagines that I want to steal away the doctor and oust her from a
+comfortable position, something of a joke, considering.  But I am
+not undeceiving her; it will do the old thing good to worry a
+little.  She may cook him better dinners, and fatten him up a
+trifle.  I understand that fat men are good-natured.
+
+TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I don't know what silly stuff I have been writing to you off
+and on all day, between interruptions.  It has got to be night at
+last, and I am too tired to do so much as hold up my head.  Your
+song tells the sad truth, "There is no joy in life but sleep."
+
+I bid you good night.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+Isn't the English language absurd?  Look at those forty
+monosyllables in a row!
+
+
+                                               J. G. H.,
+
+                                                   April 1.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have placed out Isador Gutschneider.  His new mother is a
+Swedish woman, fat and smiling, with blue eyes and yellow hair. 
+She chose him out of the whole nurseryful of children because he
+was the brunettest baby there.  She has always loved brunettes,
+but in her most ambitious dreams has never hoped to have one of
+her own.  His name is going to be changed to Oscar Carlson, after
+his new dead uncle.
+
+My first trustees' meeting is to occur next Wednesday.  I
+confess that I am not looking forward to it with impatience--
+especially as an inaugural address by me will be its chief
+feature.  I wish our president were here to back me up!  But at
+least I am sure of one thing.  I am never going to adopt the
+Uriah Heepish attitude toward trustees that characterized Mrs.
+Lippett's manners.  I shall treat "first Wednesdays" as a
+pleasant social diversion, my day at home, when the friends of
+the asylum gather for discussion and relaxation; and I shall
+endeavor not to let our pleasures discommode the orphans.  You
+see how I have taken to heart the unhappy experiences of that
+little Jerusha.
+
+Your last letter has arrived, and no suggestion in it of
+traveling North.  Isn't it about time that you were turning your
+faces back toward Fifth Avenue?  Hame is hame, be 't ever sae
+hamely.  Don't you marvel at the Scotch that flows so readily
+from my pen?  Since being acquent' wi' Sandy, I hae gathered a
+muckle new vocabulary.
+  The dinner gong!  I leave you, to devote a revivifying half-
+hour to mutton hash.  We eat to live in the John Grier Home.
+
+SIX O'CLOCK.
+
+
+The Hon. Cy has been calling again.  He drops in with great
+frequency, hoping to catch me IN DELICTU.  How I do not like that
+man!  He is a pink, fat, puffy old thing, with a pink, fat, puffy
+soul.  I was in a very cheery, optimistic frame of mind before
+his arrival, but now I shall do nothing but grumble for the rest
+of the day.
+
+He deplores all of the useless innovations that I am
+endeavoring to introduce, such as a cheerful playroom, prettier
+clothes, baths, and better food and fresh air and play and fun
+and ice-cream and kisses.  He says that I will unfit these
+children to occupy the position in life that God has called them
+to occupy.
+
+At that my Irish blood came to the surface, and I told him
+that if God had planned to make all of these 113 little children
+into useless, ignorant, unhappy citizens, I was going to fool
+God!  That we weren't educating them out of their class in the
+least.  We were educating them INTO their natural class much more
+effectually than is done in the average family.  We weren't
+trying to force them into college if they hadn't any brains, as
+happens with rich men's sons; and we weren't putting them to work
+at fourteen if they were naturally ambitious, as happens with
+poor men's sons.  We were watching them closely and individually
+and discovering their level.  If our children showed an aptitude
+to become farm laborers and nurse-maids, we were going to teach
+them to be the best possible farm laborers and nurse-maids; and
+if they showed a tendency to become lawyers, we would turn them
+into honest, intelligent, open-minded lawyers.  (He's a lawyer
+himself, but certainly not an open-minded one.)
+
+He grunted when I had finished my remarks, and stirred his
+tea vigorously.  Whereupon I suggested that perhaps he needed
+another lump of sugar, and dropped it in, and left him to absorb
+it.
+
+The only way to deal with trustees is with a firm and steady
+hand.  You have to keep them in their places.
+
+Oh, my dear! that smudge in the corner was caused by
+Singapore's black tongue.  He is trying to send you an
+affectionate kiss.  Poor Sing thinks he's a lap dog--isn't it a
+tragedy when people mistake their vocations?  I myself am not
+always certain that I was born an orphan asylum superintendent.
+
+                               Yours, til deth,
+
+                                       S. McB.
+
+
+                           SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE,
+
+                                   JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                               April 4.
+
+THE PENDLETON FAMILY,
+
+       Palm Beach, Florida.
+
+Dear Sir and Madam:
+
+I have weathered my first visitors' day, and made the trustees a
+beautiful speech.  Everybody said it was a beautiful speech--even
+my enemies.
+
+Mr. Gordon Hallock's recent visit was exceptionally
+opportune; I gleaned from him many suggestions as to how to carry
+an audience.
+
+"Be funny."--I told about Sadie Kate and a few other cherubs
+that you don't know.
+
+"Keep it concrete and fitted to the intelligence of your
+audience."--I watched the Hon. Cy, and never said a thing
+that he couldn't understand.
+
+"Flatter your hearers."--I hinted delicately that all of
+these new reforms were due to the wisdom and initiative of our
+peerless trustees.
+
+"Give it a high moral tone, with a dash of pathos."--I dwelt
+upon the parentless condition of these little wards of Society. 
+And it was very affecting--my enemy wiped away a tear!
+
+Then I fed them up on chocolate and whipped cream and
+lemonade and tartar sandwiches, and sent them home, expansive and
+beaming, but without any appetite for dinner.
+
+I dwell thus at length upon our triumph, in order to create
+in you a happy frame of mind, before passing to the higeous
+calamity that so nearly wrecked the occasion.
+
+       "Now follows the dim horror of my tale,
+        And I feel I'm growing gradually pale,
+           For, even at this day,
+           Though its smell has passed away,
+        When I venture to remember it, I quail!"
+
+
+You never heard of our little Tammas Kehoe, did you?  I
+simply haven't featured Tammas because he requires so much ink
+and time and vocabulary.  He's a spirited lad, and he follows his
+dad, a mighty hunter of old--that sounds like more Bab Ballads,
+but it isn't; I made it up as I went along.
+
+We can't break Tammas of his inherited predatory instincts. 
+He shoots the chickens with bows and arrows and lassoes the pigs
+and plays bull-fight with the cows--and oh, is very destructive! 
+But his crowning villainy occurred an hour before the trustees'
+meeting, when we wanted to be so clean and sweet and engaging.
+
+It seems that he had stolen the rat trap from the oat bin,
+and had set it up in the wood lot, and yesterday morning was so
+fortunate as to catch a fine big skunk.
+
+Singapore was the first to report the discovery.  He returned
+to the house and rolled on the rugs in a frenzy of remorse over
+his part of the business.  While our attention was occupied with
+Sing, Tammas was busily skinning his prey in the seclusion of the
+woodshed.  He buttoned the pelt inside his jacket, conveyed it by
+a devious route through the length of this building, and
+concealed it under his bed where he thought it wouldn't be found.
+
+Then he went--per schedule--to the basement to help freeze the
+ice-cream for our guests.  You notice that we omitted ice-cream
+from the menu.
+
+In the short time that remained we created all the counter-
+irritation that was possible.  Noah (negro furnace man) started
+smudge fires at intervals about the grounds.  Cook waved a
+shovelful of burning coffee through the house.  Betsy sprinkled
+the corridors with ammonia.  Miss Snaith daintily treated the
+rugs with violet water.  I sent an emergency call to the doctor
+who came and mixed a gigantic solution of chlorid of lime.  But
+still, above and beneath and through every other odor, the unlaid
+ghost of Tammas's victim cried for vengeance.
+
+The first business that came up at the meeting, was whether
+we should dig a hole and bury, not only Tammas, but the whole
+main building.  You can see with what finesse I carried off the
+shocking event, when I tell you that the Hon. Cy went home
+chuckling over a funny story, instead of grumbling at the new
+superintendent's inability to manage boys.
+
+We've our ain bit weird to dree!
+
+                                           As ever,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                   Friday, likewise Saturday.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Singapore is still living in the carriage house, and receiving a
+daily carbolic-scented bath from Tammas Kehoe.  I am hoping that
+some day, in the distant future, my darling will be fit to
+return.
+
+You will be pleased to hear that I have instituted a new
+method of spending your money.  We are henceforth to buy a part
+of our shoes and drygoods and drug store comestibles from local
+shops, at not quite such low prices as the wholesale jobbers
+give, but still at a discount, and the education that is being
+thrown in is worth the difference.  The reason is this:  I have
+made the discovery that half of my children know nothing of money
+or its purchasing power.  They think that shoes and corn meal and
+red-flannel petticoats and mutton stew and gingham shirts just
+float down from the blue sky.
+
+Last week I dropped a new green dollar bill out of my purse,
+and an eight-year-old urchin picked it up and asked if he could
+keep that picture of a bird. (American eagle in the center.) 
+That child had never seen a bill in his life!  I began an
+investigation, and discovered that dozens of children in this
+asylum have never bought anything or have ever seen anybody buy
+anything.  And we are planning to turn them out at sixteen into a
+world governed entirely by the purchasing power of dollars and
+cents!  Good heavens! just think of it!  They are not to lead
+sheltered lives with somebody eternally looking after them; they
+have got to know how to get the very most they can out of every
+penny they can manage to earn.
+
+I pondered the question all one night, at intervals, and went
+to the village at nine o'clock the next morning.  I held
+conferences with seven storekeepers; found four open-minded and
+helpful, two doubtful, and one actively stupid.  I have started
+with the four--drygoods, groceries, shoes, and stationery.  In
+return for somewhat large orders from us, they are to turn
+themselves and their clerks into teachers for my children, who
+are to go to the stores, inspect the stocks, and do their own
+purchasing with real money.
+
+For example, Jane needs a spool of blue sewing-silk and a
+yard of elastic; so two little girls, intrusted with a silver
+quarter, trot hand in hand to Mr. Meeker's.  They match the silk
+with anxious care, and watch the clerk jealously while he
+measures the elastic, to make sure that he doesn't stretch it. 
+Then they bring back six cents change, receive my thanks and
+praise, and retire to the ranks tingling with a sense of
+achievement.
+
+Isn't it pathetic?  Ordinary children of ten or twelve
+automatically know so many things that our little incubator
+chicks have never dreamed of.  But I have a variety of plans on
+foot.  Just give me time, and you will see.  One of these days
+I'll be turning out some nearly normal youngsters.
+
+
+LATER.
+
+
+I've an empty evening ahead, so I'll settle to some further
+gossip with you.
+
+You remember the peanuts that Gordon Hallock sent?  Well, I
+was so gracious when I thanked him that it incited him to fresh
+effort.  He apparently went into a toy shop, and placed himself
+unreservedly in the hands of an enterprising clerk.  Yesterday
+two husky expressmen deposited in our front hall a crate full of
+expensive furry animals built to be consumed by the children of
+the rich.  They are not exactly what I should have purchased had
+I been the one to disburse such a fortune, but my babies find
+them very huggable.  The chicks are now taking to bed with them
+lions and elephants and bears and giraffes.  I don't know what
+the psychological effect will be.  Do you suppose when they grow
+up they will all join the circus?
+
+Oh, dear me, here is Miss Snaith, coming to pay a social
+call.
+
+
+Good-by.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+P.S.  The prodigal has returned.  He sends his respectful
+regards, and three wags of the tail.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   April 7.
+My dear Judy:
+
+I have just been reading a pamphlet on manual training for girls,
+and another on the proper diet for institutions--right
+proportions of proteins, fats, starches, etc.  In these days of
+scientific charity, when every problem has been tabulated, you
+can run an institution by chart.  I don't see how Mrs. Lippett
+could have made all the mistakes she did, assuming, of
+course,that she knew how to read.  But there is one quite
+important branch of institutional work that has not been touched
+upon, and I myself am gathering data.  Some day I shall issue a
+pamphlet on the "Management and Control of Trustees."
+
+I must tell you the joke about my enemy--not the Hon. Cy, but
+my first, my original enemy.  He has undertaken a new field of
+endeavor.  He says quite soberly (everything he does is sober; he
+has never smiled yet) that he has been watching me closely since
+my arrival, and though I am untrained and foolish and flippant
+(sic), he doesn't think that I am really so superficial as I at
+first appeared.  I have an almost masculine ability of grasping
+the whole of a question and going straight to the point.
+
+Aren't men funny?  When they want to pay you the greatest
+compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a
+masculine mind.  There is one compliment, incidentally, that I
+shall never be paying him.  I cannot honestly say that he has a
+quickness of perception almost feminine.
+
+So, though Sandy quite plainly sees my faults, still, he
+thinks that some of them may be corrected; and he has determined
+to carry on my education from the point where the college dropped
+it.  A person in my position ought to be well read in physiology,
+biology, psychology, sociology, and eugenics; she should know the
+hereditary effects of insanity, idiocy, and alcohol; should be
+able to administer the Binet test; and should understand the
+nervous system of a frog.  In pursuance whereof, he has placed at
+my disposal his own scientific library of four thousand volumes. 
+He not only fetches in the books he wants me to read, but comes
+and asks questions to make sure I haven't skipped.
+
+We devoted last week to the life and letters of the Jukes
+family.  Margaret, the mother of criminals, six generations ago,
+founded a prolific line, and her progeny, mostly in jail, now
+numbers some twelve hundred.  Moral: watch the children with
+a bad heredity so carefully that none of them can ever have any
+excuse for growing up into Jukeses.
+
+So now, as soon as we have finished our tea, Sandy and I get
+out the Doomsday Book, and pore over its pages in an anxious
+search for alcoholic parents.  It's a cheerful little game to
+while away the twilight hour after the day's work is done.
+
+QUELLE VIE!  Come home fast and take me out of it.  I'm
+wearying for the sight of you.
+
+                                           SALLIE.
+
+
+
+                                       J. G. H.,
+
+                                   Thursday morning.
+My dear Pendleton Family:
+
+I have received your letter, and I seize my pen to stop you.  I
+don't wish to be relieved.  I take it back.  I change my mind. 
+The person you are planning to send sounds like an exact twin of
+Miss Snaith.  How can you ask me to turn over my darling children
+to a kind, but ineffectual, middle-aged lady without any chin? 
+The very thought of it wrings a mother's heart.
+
+Do you imagine that such a woman can carry on this work even
+temporarily?  No!  The manager of an institution like this has
+got to be young and husky and energetic and forceful and
+efficient and red-haired and sweet-tempered, like me.  Of course
+I've been discontented,--anybody would be with things in such a
+mess,--but it's what you socialists call a holy discontent.  And
+do you think that I am going to abandon all of the beautiful
+reforms I have so painstakingly started?  No!  I am not to be
+moved from this spot until you find a superintendent superior to
+Sallie McBride.
+
+That does not mean, though, that I am mortgaging myself
+forever.  Just for the present, until things get on their
+feet.  While the face washing, airing, reconstructing period
+lasts, I honestly believe you chose the right person when you hit
+upon me. I LOVE to plan improvements and order people about.
+
+This is an awfully messy letter, but I'm dashing it off in
+three minutes in order to catch you before you definitely engage
+that pleasant, inefficient middle-aged person without a chin.
+
+Please, kind lady and gentleman, don't do me out of me job! 
+Let me stay a few months longer.  Just gimme a chance to show
+what I'm good for, and I promise you won't never regret it.
+
+                                               S. McB.
+
+
+                                               J. G. H.,
+
+                                           Thursday afternoon.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I've composed a poem--a paean of victory.
+
+               Robin MacRae
+               Smiled today.
+
+It's the truth!
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       April 13.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I am gratified to learn that you were gratified to learn that I
+am going to stay.  I hadn't realized it, but I am really getting
+sort of attached to orphans.
+
+It's an awful disappointment that Jervis has business which
+will keep you South so much longer.  I am bursting with talk, and
+it is such a laborious nuisance having to write everything I want
+to say.
+
+Of course I am glad that we are to have the building
+remodeled, and I think all of your ideas good, but I have a few
+extra good ones myself.  It will be nice to have the new
+gymnasium and sleeping-porches, but, oh, my soul does long for
+cottages!  The more I look into the internal workings of an
+orphan asylum, the more I realize that the only type of asylum
+that can compete with a private family is one on the cottage
+system.  So long as the family is the unit of society, children
+should be hardened early to family life.
+
+The problem that is keeping me awake at present is, What to
+do with the children while we are being made over?  It is hard to
+live in a house and build it at the same time.  How would it be
+if I rented a circus tent and pitched it on the lawn?
+
+Also, when we plunge into our alterations, I want a few guest
+rooms where our children can come back when ill or out of work. 
+The great secret of our lasting influence in their lives will be
+our watchful care afterward.  What a terrible ALONE feeling it
+must give a person not to have a family hovering in the
+background!  With all my dozens of aunts and uncles and mothers
+and fathers and cousins and brothers and sisters, I can't
+visualize it.  I'd be terrified and panting if I didn't have lots
+of cover to run to.  And for these forlorn little mites, somehow
+or other the John Grier Home must supply their need.  So, dear
+people, send me half a dozen guest rooms, if you please.
+
+Good-by, and I'm glad you didn't put in the other woman.  The
+very suggestion of somebody else taking over my own beautiful
+reforms before they were even started, stirred up all the
+opposition in me.  I'm afraid I'm like Sandy--I canna think aught
+is dune richt except my ain hand is in 't.
+
+                               Yours, for the present,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       Sunday.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+I know that I haven't written lately; you have a perfect right to
+grumble, but oh dear! oh dear! you can't imagine what a busy
+person an orphan asylum superintendent is.  And all the writing
+energy I possess has to be expended upon that voracious Judy
+Abbott Pendleton.  If three days go by without a letter she
+telegraphs to know if the asylum has burned; whereas, if you--
+nice man--go letterless, you simply send us a present to remind
+us of your existence.  So, you see, it's distinctly to our
+advantage to slight you often.
+
+You will probably be annoyed when I tell you that I have
+promised to stay on here.  They finally did find a woman to take
+my place, but she wasn't at all the right type and would have
+answered only temporarily.  And, my dear Gordon, it's true, when
+I faced saying good-by to this feverish planning and activity,
+Worcester somehow looked rather colorless.  I couldn't bear to
+let my asylum go unless I was sure of substituting a life packed
+equally full of sensation.
+
+I know the alternative you will suggest, but please don't--
+just now.  I told you before that I must have a few months longer
+to make up my mind.  And in the meantime I like the feeling that
+I'm of use in the world.  There's something constructive and
+optimistic about working with children; that is, if you look at
+it from my cheerful point of view, and not from our Scotch
+doctor's.  I've never seen anybody like that man; he's always
+pessimistic and morbid and down.  It's best not to be too
+intelligent about insanity and dipsomania and all the other
+hereditary details.  I am just about ignorant enough to be light-
+hearted and effective in a place like this.
+
+The thought of all of these little lives expanding in every
+direction eternally thrills me.  There are so many possibilities
+in our child garden for every kind of flower.  It has been
+planted rather promiscuously, to be sure, but though we
+undoubtedly shall gather a number of weeds, we are also hoping
+for some rare and beautiful blossoms.  Am I not growing
+sentimental?  It is due to hunger--and there goes the dinner-
+gong!  We are going to have a delicious meal: roast beef and
+creamed carrots and beet greens, with rhubarb pie for dessert. 
+Would you not like to dine with me?  I should love to have you.
+
+                               Most cordially yours,
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+P.S.  You should see the number of poor homeless cats that these
+children want to adopt.  We had four when I came, and they have
+all had kittens since.  I haven't taken an exact census, but I
+think the institution possesses nineteen.
+
+
+                                                   April 15.
+My dear Judy:
+
+You'd like to make another slight donation to the J. G. H. out of
+the excess of last month's allowance?  BENE!  Will you kindly
+have the following inserted in all low-class metropolitan
+dailies:
+
+                           Notice!
+       To Parents Planning to Abandon their Children:
+       Please do it before they have reached their third year.
+
+
+I can't think of any action on the part of abandoning parents
+that would help us more effectually.  This having to root up evil
+before you begin planting good is slow, discouraging work.
+
+We have one child here who has almost floored me; but I WILL
+NOT acknowledge myself beaten by a child of five.  He alternates
+between sullen moroseness, when he won't speak a word, and the
+most violent outbursts of temper, when he smashes everything
+within reach.  He has been here only three months, and in that
+time he has destroyed nearly every piece of bric-a-brac in the
+institution--not, by the way, a great loss to art.
+
+A month or so before I came he pulled the tablecloth from the
+officers' table while the girl in charge was in the corridor
+sounding the gong.  The soup had already been served.  You can
+imagine the mess!  Mrs. Lippett half killed the child on that
+occasion, but the killing did nothing to lessen the temper, which
+was handed on to me intact.
+
+His father was Italian and his mother Irish; he has red hair
+and freckles from County Cork and the most beautiful brown
+eyes that ever came out of Naples.  After the father was stabbed
+in a fight and the mother had died of alcoholism, the poor little
+chap by some chance or other got to us.  I suspect that he
+belongs in the Catholic Protectory.  As for his manners--oh dear!
+oh dear!  They are what you would expect.  He kicks and bites and
+swears.  I have dubbed him Punch.
+
+Yesterday he was brought squirming and howling to my office,
+charged with having knocked down a little girl and robbed her of
+her doll.  Miss Snaith plumped him into a chair behind me, and
+left him to grow quiet, while I went on with my writing.  I was
+suddenly startled by an awful crash.  He had pushed that big
+green jardiniere off the window-sill and broken it into five
+hundred pieces.  I jumped with a suddenness that swept the ink-
+bottle to the floor, and when Punch saw that second catastrophe,
+he stopped roaring with rage and threw back his head and roared
+with laughter.  The child is DIABOLICAL.
+
+I have determined to try a new method of discipline that I
+don't believe in the whole of his forlorn little life he has ever
+experienced.  I am going to see what praise and encouragement and
+love will do.  So, instead of scolding him about the jardiniere,
+I assumed that it was an accident.  I kissed him and told him not
+to feel bad; that I didn't mind in the least.  It shocked him
+into being quiet; he simply held his breath and stared while I
+wiped away his tears and sopped up the ink.
+
+The child just now is the biggest problem that the J. G. H.
+affords.  He needs the most patient, loving, individual care--a
+proper mother and father, likewise some brothers and sisters and
+a grandmother.  But I can't place him in a respectable family
+until I make over his language and his propensity to break
+things.  I separated him from the other children, and kept him in
+my room all the morning, Jane having removed to safe heights all
+destructible OBJETS D'ART.  Fortunately, he loves to draw, and he
+sat on a rug for two hours, and occupied himself with colored
+pencils.  He was so surprised when I showed an interest in a red-
+and-green ferryboat, with a yellow flag floating from the mast,
+that he became quite profanely affable.  Until then I couldn't
+get a word out of him.
+
+In the afternoon Dr. MacRae dropped in and admired the
+ferryboat, while Punch swelled with the pride of creation.  Then,
+as a reward for being such a good little boy, the doctor took him
+out in his automobile on a visit to a country patient.
+
+Punch was restored to the fold at five o'clock by a sadder
+and wiser doctor.  At a sedate country estate he had stoned the
+chickens, smashed a cold frame, and swung the pet Angora cat by
+its tail.  Then when the sweet old lady tried to make him be kind
+to poor pussy, he told her to go to hell.
+
+I can't bear to consider what some of these children have
+seen and experienced.  It will take years of sunshine and
+happiness and love to eradicate the dreadful memories that they
+have stored up in the far-back corners of their little brains. 
+And there are so many children and so few of us that we can't hug
+them enough; we simply haven't arms or laps to go around.
+
+MAIS PARLONS D'AUTRES CHOSES!  Those awful questions of
+heredity and environment that the doctor broods over so
+constantly are getting into my blood, too; and it's a vicious
+habit.  If a person is to be of any use in a place like this, she
+must see nothing but good in the world.  Optimism is the only
+wear for a social worker.
+
+"'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock"--do you know
+where that beautiful line of poetry comes from?  "Cristabel," of
+English K. Mercy! how I hated that course!  You, being an English
+shark, liked it; but I never understood a word that was said from
+the time I entered the classroom till I left it.  However, the
+remark with which I opened this paragraph is true.  It IS the
+middle of night by the mantelpiece clock, so I'll wish you
+pleasant dreams.
+                                           ADDIO!
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                   Tuesday.
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You doctored the whole house, then stalked past my library with
+your nose in the air, while I was waiting tea with a plate of
+Scotch scones sitting on the trivet, ordered expressly for you as
+a peace-offering.
+
+If you are really hurt, I will read the Kallikak book; but I
+must tell you that you are working me to death.  It takes
+almost all of my energy to be an effective superintendent, and
+this university extension course that you are conducting I find
+wearing.  You remember how indignant you were one day last week
+because I confessed to having stayed up until one o'clock the
+night before?  Well, my dear man, if I were to accomplish all the
+vicarious reading you require, I should sit up until morning
+every night.
+
+However, bring it in.  I usually manage half an hour of
+recreation after dinner, and though I had wanted to glance at
+Wells's latest novel, I will amuse myself instead with your
+feeble-minded family.
+
+Life of late is unco steep.
+                                   Obligingly yours,
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                               April 17.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Thank you for the tulips, likewise the lilies of the valley. 
+They are most becoming to my blue Persian bowls.
+
+Have you ever heard of the Kallikaks?  Get the book and read
+them up.  They are a two-branch family in New Jersey, I think,
+though their real name and origin is artfully concealed.  But,
+anyway,--and this is true,--six generations ago a young
+gentleman, called for convenience Martin Kallikak, got drunk one
+night and temporarily eloped with a feeble-minded barmaid, thus
+founding a long line of feeble-minded Kallikaks,--drunkards,
+gamblers, prostitutes, horse thieves,--a scourge to New Jersey
+and surrounding States.
+
+Martin later straightened up, married a normal woman, and
+founded a second line of proper Kallikaks,--judges, doctors,
+farmers, professors, politicians,--a credit to their country. 
+And there the two branches still are, flourishing side by side. 
+You can see what a blessing it would have been to New Jersey
+if something drastic had happened to that feeble-minded barmaid
+in her infancy.
+
+It seems that feeblemindedness is a very hereditary quality,
+and science isn't able to overcome it.  No operation has been
+discovered for introducing brains into the head of a child who
+didn't start with them.  And the child grows up with, say, a
+nine-year brain in a thirty-year body, and becomes an easy tool
+for any criminal he meets.  Our prisons are one-third full of
+feeble-minded convicts.  Society ought to segregate them on
+feeble-minded farms, where they can earn their livings in
+peaceful menial pursuits, and not have children.  Then in a
+generation or so we might be able to wipe them out.
+
+Did you know all that?  It's very necessary information for a
+politician to have.  Get the book and read it, please; I'd send
+my copy only that it's borrowed.
+
+It's also very necessary information for me to have.  There
+are eleven of these chicks that I suspect a bit, and I am SURE of
+Loretta Higgins.  I have been trying for a month to introduce one
+or two basic ideas into that child's brain, and now I know what
+the trouble is: her head is filled with a sort of soft cheesy
+substance instead of brain.
+
+I came up here to make over this asylum in such little
+details as fresh air and food and clothes and sunshine, but,
+heavens! you can see what problems I am facing.  I've got to make
+over society first, so that it won't send me sub-normal children
+to work with.  Excuse all this excited conversation; but I've
+just met up with the subject of feeble-mindedness, and it's
+appalling--and interesting.  It is your business as a legislator
+to make laws that will remove it from the world.  Please attend
+to this immediately,
+                                       And oblige,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE,
+
+                                   Sup't John Grier Home.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+Dear Man of Science:
+
+You didn't come today.  Please don't skip us tomorrow.  I have
+finished the Kallikak family and I am bursting with talk.  Don't
+you think we ought to have a psychologist examine these children?
+
+We owe it to adopting parents not to saddle them with feeble-
+minded offspring.
+
+You know, I'm tempted to ask you to prescribe arsenic for
+Loretta's cold.  I've diagnosed her case; she's a Kallikak.  Is
+it right to let her grow up and found a line of 378 feeble-minded
+people for society to care for?  Oh dear!  I do hate to poison
+the child, but what can I do?
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You aren't interested in feeble-minded people, and you are
+shocked because I am?  Well, I am equally shocked because you are
+not.  If you aren't interested in everything of the sort that
+there unfortunately is in this world, how can you make wise laws?
+
+You can't.
+
+However, at your request, I will converse upon a less morbid
+subject.  I've just bought fifty yards of blue and rose and green
+and corn-colored hair-ribbon as an Easter present for my fifty
+little daughters.  I am also thinking of sending you an
+Easter present.  How would a nice fluffy little kitten please
+you?  I can offer any of the following patterns:--
+
+
+Number 3 comes in any color, gray, black, or yellow.  If you
+will let me know which you would rather have, I will express it
+at once.
+
+I would write a respectable letter, but it's teatime, and I
+see that a guest approaches.
+
+                                   ADDIO!
+
+                                           SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  Don't you know some one who would like to adopt a desirable
+baby boy with seventeen nice new teeth?
+
+
+                                                   April 20.
+My dear Judy:
+
+One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!  We've had a Good
+Friday present of ten dozen, given by Mrs. De Peyster Lambert, a
+high church, stained-glass-window soul whom I met at a tea a few
+days ago.  (Who says now that teas are a silly waste of time?) 
+She asked me about my "precious little waifs," and said I was
+doing a noble work and would be rewarded.  I saw buns in her eye,
+and sat down and talked to her for half an hour.
+
+Now I shall go and thank her in person, and tell her with a
+great deal of affecting detail how much those buns were
+appreciated by my precious little waifs--omitting the account of
+how precious little Punch threw his bun at Miss Snaith and
+plastered her neatly in the eye.  I think, with encouragement,
+Mrs. De Peyster Lambert can be developed into a cheerful giver.
+
+Oh, I'm growing into the most shocking beggar!  My family
+don't dare to visit me, because I demand BAKSHISH in such a
+brazen manner.  I threatened to remove father from my calling
+list unless he shipped immediately sixty-five pairs of overalls
+for my prospective gardeners.  A notice from the freight office
+this morning asks me to remove two packing cases consigned to
+them by the J. L. McBride Co. of Worcester; so I take it that
+father desires to continue my acquaintance.  Jimmie hasn't sent
+us anything yet, and he's getting a huge salary.  I write him
+frequently a pathetic list of our needs.
+
+But Gordon Hallock has learned the way to a mother's heart. 
+I was so pleasant about the peanuts and menagerie that now he
+sends a present of some sort every few days, and I spend my
+entire time composing thank-you letters that aren't exact copies
+of the ones I've sent before.  Last week we received a dozen big
+scarlet balls.  The nursery is FULL of them; you kick them before
+you as you walk.  And yesterday there arrived a half-bushel of
+frogs and ducks and fishes to float in the bathtubs.
+
+Send, O best of trustees, the tubs in which to float them!
+
+                                       I am, as usual,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                                   Tuesday.
+My dear Judy:
+
+Spring must be lurking about somewhere; the birds are arriving
+from the South.  Isn't it time you followed their example?
+
+Society note from the BIRD O' PASSAGE NEWS:
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. First Robin have returned from a trip to
+Florida.  It is hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Jervis Pendleton will
+arrive shortly."
+
+Even up here in our dilatory Dutchess County the breeze
+smells green.  It makes you want to be out and away, roaming the
+hills, or else down on your knees grubbing in the dirt.  Isn't it
+funny what farmering instincts the budding spring awakens in even
+the most urban souls?
+
+I have spent the morning making plans for little private
+gardens for every child over nine.  The big potato field is
+doomed.  That is the only feasible spot for sixty-two private
+gardens.  It is near enough to be watched from the north windows,
+and yet far enough away, so that their messing will not injure
+our highly prized landscape lawn.  Also the earth is rich, and
+they have some chance of success.  I don't want the poor little
+chicks to scratch all summer, and then not turn up any treasure
+in the end.  In order to furnish an incentive, I shall announce
+that the institution will buy their produce and pay in real
+money, though I foresee we shall be buried under a mountain of
+radishes.
+
+I do so want to develop self-reliance and initiative in these
+children, two sturdy qualities in which they are conspicuously
+lacking (with the exception of Sadie Kate and a few other bad
+ones).  Children who have spirit enough to be bad I consider very
+hopeful.  It's those who are good just from inertia that are
+discouraging.
+
+The last few days have been spent mainly in charming the
+devil out of Punch, an interesting task if I could devote my
+whole time to it.  But with one hundred and seven other little
+devils to charm away, my attention is sorely deflected.
+
+The awful thing about this life is that whatever I am doing,
+the other things that I am not doing, but ought to be, keep
+tugging at my skirts.  There is no doubt but Punch's personal
+devil needs the whole attention of a whole person,--preferably
+two persons,--so that they could spell each other and get some
+rest.
+
+Sadie Kate has just flown in from the nursery with news of a
+scarlet goldfish (Gordon's gift) swallowed by one of our babies. 
+Mercy! the number of calamities that can occur in an orphan
+asylum!
+
+9 P.M.
+
+
+My children are in bed, and I've just had a thought. 
+Wouldn't it be heavenly if the hibernating system prevailed among
+the human young?  There would be some pleasure in running an
+asylum if one could just tuck the little darlings into bed the
+first of October and keep them there until the twenty-second of
+April.
+
+                               I'm yours, as ever,
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+
+                                                       April 24.
+Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.:
+
+This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent you ten
+minutes ago.  Fifty words not being enough to convey any idea of
+my emotions, I herewith add a thousand.
+
+As you will know by the time you receive this, I have
+discharged the farmer, and he has refused to be discharged. 
+Being twice the size of me, I can't lug him to the gate and chuck
+him out.  He wants a notification from the president of the board
+of trustees written in vigorous language on official paper in
+typewriting.  So, dear president of the board of trustees, kindly
+supply all of this at your earliest convenience.
+
+Here follows the history of the case:
+
+The winter season still being with us when I arrived and
+farming activities at a low ebb, I have heretofore paid little
+attention to Robert Sterry except to note on two occasions that
+his pigpens needed cleaning; but today I sent for him to come and
+consult with me in regard to spring planting.
+
+Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at ease in my
+office with his hat upon his head.  I suggested as tactfully as
+might be that he remove it, an entirely necessary request, as
+little orphan boys were in and out on errands, and "hats off in
+the house" is our first rule in masculine deportment.
+
+Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened himself to be
+against whatever I might desire.
+
+I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that the diet of
+the John Grier Home in the year to come is to consist less
+exclusively of potatoes.  At which our farmer grunted in the
+manner of the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff, only it was a less ethereal and
+gentlemanly grunt than a trustee permits himself.  I enumerated
+corn and beans and onions and peas and tomatoes and beets and
+carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes.
+
+Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was good enough
+for him, he guessed they was good enough for charity children.
+
+I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre potato
+field was to be plowed and fertilized, and laid out into sixty
+individual gardens, the boys assisting in the work.
+
+At that Sterry exploded.  The two-acre field was the most
+fertile and valuable piece of earth on the whole place.  He
+guessed if I was to break that up into play gardens for the
+children to mess about in, I'd be hearing about it pretty danged
+quick from the board of trustees.  That field was fitted for
+potatoes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was going to
+continue to raise them just as long as he had anything to say
+about it.
+
+"You have nothing whatever to say about it," I amiably
+replied.  "I have decided that the two-acre field is the best
+plot to use for the children's gardens, and you and the potatoes
+will have to give way."
+
+Whereupon he rose in a storm of bucolic wrath, and said he'd
+be gol darned if he'd have a lot of these danged city brats
+interfering with his work.
+
+I explained--very calmly for a red-haired person with Irish
+forebears--that this place was run for the exclusive benefit of
+these children; that the children were not here to be exploited
+for the benefit of the place, a philosophy which he did not
+grasp, though my fancy city language had a slightly dampening
+effect.  I added that what I required in a farmer was the ability
+and patience to instruct the boys in gardening and simple outdoor
+work; that I wished a man of large sympathies whose example would
+be an inspiring influence to these children of the city streets.
+
+Sterry, pacing about like a caged woodchuck, launched into a
+tirade about silly Sunday-school notions, and, by a transition
+which I did not grasp, passed to a review of the general subject
+of woman's suffrage.  I gathered that he is not in favor of the
+movement.  I let him argue himself quiet, then I handed him a
+check for his wages, and told him to vacate the tenant house by
+twelve o'clock next Wednesday.
+
+Sterry says he'll be danged if he will.  (Excuse so many
+DANGEDS.  It is the creature's only adjective.)  He was engaged
+to work for this institution by the president of the board of
+trustees, and he will not move from that house until the
+president of the board of trustees tells him to go.  I don't
+think poor Sterry realizes that since his arrival a new president
+has come to the throne.
+
+ALORS you have the story.  I make no threats, but Sterry or
+McBride--take your choice, dear sir.
+
+I am also about to write to the head of the Massachusetts
+Agricultural College, at Amherst, asking him to recommend a good,
+practical man with a nice, efficient, cheerful wife, who will
+take the entire care of our modest domain of seventeen acres, and
+who will be a man with the right personality to place over our
+boys.
+
+If we get the farming end of this institution into running
+shape, it ought to furnish not only beans and onions for the
+table, but education for our hands and brains.
+
+
+I remain, sir,
+                               Yours most truly,
+                                       S.  McBRIDE,
+                   Superintendent of the John Grier Home.
+
+P.S.  I think that Sterry will probably come back some night and
+throw rocks through the windows.  Shall I have them insured?
+
+
+
+My dear Enemy:
+
+You disappeared so quickly this afternoon that I had no chance to
+thank you, but the echoes of that discharge penetrated as far as
+my library.  Also, I have viewed the debris.  What on earth did
+you do to poor Sterry?  Watching the purposeful set of your
+shoulders as you strode toward the carriage house, I was filled
+with sudden compunction.  I did not want the man murdered, merely
+reasoned with.  I am afraid you were a little harsh.
+
+However, your technic seems to have been effective.  Report
+says that he has telephoned for a moving wagon and that Mrs.
+Sterry is even now on her hands and knees ripping up the parlor
+carpet.
+
+For this relief much thanks.
+
+                                       SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+                                               April 26.
+Dear Jervis:
+
+Your vigorous telegram was, after all, not needed.  Dr. Robin
+MacRae, who is a grand PAWKY mon when it comes to a fight,
+accomplished the business with beautiful directness.  I was so
+bubbling with rage that immediately after writing to you I called
+up the doctor on the telephone, and rehearsed the whole business
+over again.  Now, our Sandy, whatever his failings (and he has
+them), does have an uncommon supply of common sense.  He knows
+how useful those gardens are going to be, and how worse than
+useless Sterry was.  Also says he, "The superintendent's
+authority must be upheld."  (That, incidentally, is beautiful,
+coming from him.)  But anyway, those were his words.  And he hung
+up the receiver, cranked up his car, and flew up here at lawless
+speed.  He marched straight to Sterry, impelled by a fine Scotch
+rage, and he discharged the man with such vigor and precision,
+that the carriage house window was shattered to fragments.
+
+Since this morning at eleven, when Sterry's wagonload of
+furniture rumbled out of the gates, a sweet peace has reigned
+over the J. G. H.  A man from the village is helping us out while
+we hopefully await the farmer of our dreams.
+
+I am sorry to have troubled you with our troubles.  Tell Judy
+that she owes me a letter, and won't hear from until she has paid
+it.
+                           Your ob'd't servant,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+In my letter of yesterday to Jervis I forgotted (Punch's word) to
+convey to you our thanks for three tin bathtubs.  The skyblue tub
+with poppies on the side adds a particularly bright note to the
+nursery.  I do love presents for the babies that are too big to
+be swallowed.
+
+You will be pleased to hear that our manual training is well
+under way.  The carpenter benches are being installed in the old
+primary room, and until our schoolhouse gets its new addition,
+our primary class is meeting on the front porch, in accordance
+with Miss Matthew's able suggestion.
+
+The girls' sewing classes are also in progress.  A circle of
+benches under the copper beech tree accommodates the hand
+sewers, while the big girls take turns at our three machines. 
+Just as soon as they gain some proficiency we will begin the
+glorious work of redressing the institution.  I know you think
+I'm slow, but it's really a task to accomplish one hundred and
+eighty new frocks.  And the girls will appreciate them so much
+more if they do the work themselves.
+
+I may also report that our hygiene system has risen to a high
+level.  Dr. MacRae has introduced morning and evening exercises,
+and a glass of milk and a game of tag in the middle of school
+hours.  He has instituted a physiology class, and has separated
+the children into small groups, so that they may come to his
+house, where he has a manikin that comes apart and shows all its
+messy insides.  They can now rattle off scientific truths about
+their little digestions as fluently as Mother Goose rhymes.  We
+are really becoming too intelligent for recognition.  You would
+never guess that we were orphans to hear us talk; we are quite
+like Boston children.
+
+2 P.M.
+
+
+O Judy, such a calamity!  Do you remember several weeks ago I
+told you about placing out a nice little girl in a nice family
+home where I hoped she would be adopted?  It was a kind Christian
+family living in a pleasant country village, the foster-father a
+deacon in the church.  Hattie was a sweet, obedient, housewifely
+little body, and it looked as though we had exactly fitted them
+to each other.  My dear, she was returned this morning for
+STEALING.  Scandal piled on scandal: SHE HAD STOLEN A COMMUNION
+CUP FROM CHURCH!
+
+Between her sobs and their accusations it took me half an
+hour to gather the truth.  It seems that the church they attend
+is very modern and hygienic, like our doctor, and has introduced
+individual communion cups.  Poor little Hattie had never heard of
+communion in her life.  In fact, she wasn't very used to church,
+Sunday-school having always sufficed for her simple religious
+needs.  But in her new home she attended both, and one day, to
+her pleased surprise, they served refreshments.  But they skipped
+her.  She made no comment, however; she is used to being skipped.
+
+But as they were starting home she saw that the little silver cup
+had been casually left in the seat, and supposing that it was a
+souvenir that you could take if you wished, she put it into her
+pocket.
+
+It came to light two days later as the most treasured
+ornament of her doll's-house.  It seems that Hattie long ago saw
+a set of doll's dishes in a toy shop window, and has ever since
+dreamed of possessing a set of her own.  The communion cup was
+not quite the same, but it answered.  Now, if our family had only
+had a little less religion and a little more sense, they would
+have returned the cup, perfectly unharmed, and have marched
+Hattie to the nearest toy shop and bought her some dishes.  But
+instead, they bundled the child and her belongings into the first
+train they could catch, and shoved her in at our front door,
+proclaiming loudly that she was a thief.
+
+I am pleased to say that I gave that indignant deacon and his
+wife such a thorough scolding as I am sure they have never
+listened to from the pulpit.  I borrowed some vigorous bits from
+Sandy's vocabulary, and sent them home quite humbled.  As for
+poor little Hattie, here she is back again, after going out with
+such high hopes.  It has an awfully bad moral effect on a child
+to be returned to the asylum in disgrace, especially when she
+wasn't aware of committing a crime.  It gives her a feeling that
+the world is full of unknown pitfalls, and makes her afraid to
+take a step.  I must bend all my energies now toward finding
+another set of parents for her, and ones that haven't grown so
+old and settled and good that they have entirely forgotten their
+own childhood.
+
+                                                   Sunday.
+
+
+I forgot to tell you that our new farmer is here, Turnfelt by
+name; and his wife is a love, yellow hair and dimples.  If she
+were an orphan, I could place her in a minute.  We can't let her
+go to waste.  I have a beautiful plan of building an addition to
+the farmer's cottage, and establishing under her comfortable care
+a sort of brooding-house where we can place our new little
+chicks, to make sure they haven't anything contagious and to
+eliminate as much profanity as possible before turning them loose
+among our other perfect chicks.
+
+How does that strike you?  It is very necessary in an
+institution as full of noise and movement and stir as this to
+have some isolated spot where we can put cases needing individual
+attention.  Some of our children have inherited nerves, and a
+period of quiet contemplation is indicated.  Isn't my vocabulary
+professional and scientific?  Daily intercourse with Dr. Robin
+MacRae is extremely educational.
+
+Since Turnfelt came, you should see our pigs.  They are so
+clean and pink and unnatural that they don't recognize one
+another any more as they pass.
+
+Our potato field is also unrecognizable.  It has been divided
+with string and pegs into as many squares as a checker-board,
+and every child has staked out a claim.  Seed catalogues form our
+only reading matter.
+
+Noah has just returned from a trip to the village for the
+Sunday papers to amuse his leisure.  Noah is a very cultivated
+person; he not only reads perfectly, but he wears tortoise-shell-
+rimmed spectacles while he does it.  He also brought from the
+post office a letter from you, written Friday night.  I am pained
+to note that you do not care for "Gosta Berling" and that Jervis
+doesn't.  The only comment I can make is, "What a shocking lack
+of literary taste in the Pendleton family!"
+
+Dr. MacRae has another doctor visiting him, a very melancholy
+gentleman who is at the head of a private psychopathic
+institution, and thinks there's no good in life.  But I suppose
+this pessimistic view is natural if you eat three meals a day
+with a tableful of melancholics.  He goes up and down the world
+looking for signs of degeneracy, and finds them everywhere.  I
+expected, after half an hour's conversation, that he would ask to
+look down my throat to see if I had a cleft palate.  Sandy's
+taste in friends seems to resemble his taste in literature.
+Gracious! this is a letter!
+
+                                           Good-by.
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+                                               Thursday, May 2.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Such a bewildering whirl of events!  The J. G. H. is breathless. 
+Incidentally, I am on the way toward solving my problem of what
+to do with the children while the carpenters and plumbers and
+masons are here.  Or, rather, my precious brother has solved it
+for me.
+
+This afternoon I went over my linen supply, and made the
+shocking discovery that we have only sheets enough to change the
+children's beds every two weeks, which, it appears, is our
+shiftless custom.  While I was still in the midst of my household
+gear, with a bunch of keys at my girdle, looking like the
+chatelaine of a medieval chateau, who should be ushered in but
+Jimmie?
+
+Being extremely occupied, I dropped a slanting kiss on his
+nose, and sent him off to look over the place in charge of my two
+oldest urchins.  They collected six friends and organized a
+baseball game.  Jimmie came back blown, but enthusiastic, and
+consented to prolong his visit over the week end, though after
+the dinner I gave him he has decided to take his future meals at
+the hotel.  As we sat with our coffee before the fire, I confided
+to him my anxiety as to what should be done with the chicks while
+their new brooder is building.  You know Jimmie.  In one half a
+minute his plan was formulated.
+
+"Build an Adirondack camp on that little plateau up by the
+wood lot.  You can make three open shacks, each holding eight
+bunks, and move the twenty-four oldest boys out there for the
+summer.  It won't cost two cents."
+
+"Yes," I objected, "but it will cost more than two cents to
+engage a man to look after them."
+
+"Perfectly easy," said Jimmie, grandly.  "I'll find you a
+college fellow who'll be glad to come during the vacation for his
+board and a mere pittance, only you'll have to set up more
+filling board than you gave me tonight."
+
+Dr. MacRae dropped in about nine o'clock, after visiting the
+hospital ward.  We've got three cases of whooping cough, but all
+isolated, and no more coming.  How those three got in is a
+mystery.  It seems there is a little bird that brings whooping
+cough to orphan asylums.
+
+Jimmie fell upon him for backing in his camp scheme, and the
+doctor gave it enthusiastically.  They seized pencil and
+paper and drew up plans.  And before the evening was over, the
+last nail was hammered.  Nothing would satisfy those two men but
+to go to the telephone at ten o'clock and rouse a poor carpenter
+from his sleep.  He and some lumber are ordered for eight in the
+morning.
+
+I finally got rid of them at ten-thirty, still talking
+uprights and joists and drainage and roof slants.
+
+The excitement of Jimmie and coffee and all these building
+operations induced me to sit down immediately and write a letter
+to you; but I think, by your leave, I'll postpone further details
+to another time.
+                                       Yours ever,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                   Saturday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Will you be after dining with us at seven tonight?  It's a real
+dinner party; we're going to have ice-cream.
+
+My brother has discovered a promising young man to take
+charge of the boys,--maybe you know him,--Mr. Witherspoon, at the
+bank.  I wish to introduce him to asylum circles by easy steps,
+so PLEASE don't mention insanity or epilepsy or alcoholism or any
+of your other favorite topics.
+
+He is a gay young society leader, used to very fancy things
+to eat.  Do you suppose we can ever make him happy at the John
+Grier Home?
+                           Yours in evident haste,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                                       Sunday.
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Jimmie was back at eight Friday morning, and the doctor at a
+quarter past.  They and the carpenter and our new farmer and Noah
+and our two horses and our eight biggest boys have been working
+ever since.  Never were building operations set going in faster
+time.  I wish I had a dozen Jimmies on the place, though I will
+say that my brother works faster if you catch him before the
+first edge of his enthusiasm wears away.  He would not be much
+good at chiseling out a medieval cathedral.
+
+He came back Saturday morning aglow with a new idea.  He had
+met at the hotel the night before a friend who belongs to his
+hunting club in Canada, and who is cashier of our First (and
+only) National Bank.
+
+"He's a bully good sport," said Jimmie, "and exactly the man
+you want to camp out with those kids and lick 'em into shape. 
+He'll be willing to come for his board and forty dollars a month,
+because he's engaged to a girl in Detroit and wants to save.  I
+told him the food was rotten, but if he kicked enough, you'd
+probably get a new cook."
+
+"What's his name?" said I, with guarded interest.
+
+"He's got a peach of a name.  It's Percy de Forest
+Witherspoon."
+
+I nearly had hysterics.  Imagine a Percy de Forest
+Witherspoon in charge of those twenty-four wild little savages!
+
+But you know Jimmie when he has an idea.  He had already
+invited Mr. Witherspoon to dine with me on Saturday evening, and
+had ordered oysters and squabs and ice-cream from the village
+caterer to help out my veal.  It ended by my giving a very
+formal dinner party, with Miss Matthews and Betsy and the doctor
+included.
+
+I almost asked the Hon. Cy and Miss Snaith.  Ever since I
+have known those two, I have felt that there ought to be a
+romance between them.  Never have I known two people who matched
+so perfectly.  He's a widower with five children.  Don't you
+suppose it might be arranged?  If he had a wife to take up his
+attention, it might deflect him a little from us.  I'd be getting
+rid of them both at one stroke.  It's to be considered among our
+future improvements.
+
+Anyway, we had our dinner.  And during the course of the
+evening my anxiety grew, not as to whether Percy would do for us,
+but as to whether we should do for Percy.  If I searched the
+world over, I never could find a young man more calculated to win
+the affection of those boys.  You know, just by looking at him,
+that he does everything well, at least everything vigorous.  His
+literary and artistic accomplishments I suspect a bit, but he
+rides and shoots and plays golf and football and sails a boat. 
+He likes to sleep out of doors and he likes boys.  He has always
+wanted to know some orphans; often read about 'em in books, he
+says, but never met any face to face.  Percy does seem too good
+to be true.
+
+Before they left, Jimmie and the doctor hunted up a lantern,
+and in their evening clothes conducted Mr. Witherspoon across a
+plowed field to inspect his future dwelling.
+
+And such a Sunday as we passed!  I had absolutely to forbid
+their carpentering.  Those men would have put in a full day,
+quite irrespective of the damage done to one hundred and four
+little moral natures.  As it is, they have just stood and looked
+at those shacks and handled their hammers, and thought about
+where they would drive the first nail tomorrow morning.  The more
+I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the
+world but boys grown too big to be spankable.
+
+I am awfully worried as to how to feed Mr. Witherspoon. 
+He looks as though he had a frightfully healthy appetite, and
+he looks as though he couldn't swallow his dinner unless he had
+on evening clothes.  I've made Betsy send home for a trunkful of
+evening gowns in order to keep up our social standing.  One thing
+is fortunate: he takes his luncheon at the hotel, and I hear
+their luncheons are very filling.
+
+Tell Jervis I am sorry he is not with us to drive a nail for
+the camp.  Here comes the Hon. Cy up the path.  Heaven save us!
+
+                           Ever your unfortunate,
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       May 8.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Our camp is finished, our energetic brother has gone, and our
+twenty-four boys have passed two healthful nights in the open. 
+The three bark-covered shacks add a pleasant rustic touch to the
+grounds.  They are like those we used to have in the Adirondacks,
+closed on three sides and open in the front, and one larger than
+the rest to allow a private pavilion for Mr. Percy Witherspoon. 
+An adjacent hut, less exposed to the weather, affords extremely
+adequate bathing facilities, consisting of a faucet in the wall
+and three watering-cans.  Each camp has a bath master who stands
+on a stool and sprinkles each little shiverer as he trots under. 
+Since our trustees WON'T give us enough bathtubs, we have to use
+our wits.
+
+The three camps have organized into three tribes of Indians,
+each with a chief of its own to answer for its conduct, Mr.
+Witherspoon high chief of all, and Dr. MacRae the medicine
+man.  They dedicated their lodges Tuesday evening with
+appropriate tribal ceremonies.  And though they politely invited
+me to attend, I decided that it was a purely masculine affair, so
+I declined to go, but sent refreshments, a very popular move. 
+Betsy and I walked as far as the baseball field in the course of
+the evening, and caught a glimpse of the orgies.  The braves were
+squatting in a circle about a big fire, each decorated with a
+blanket from his bed and a rakish band of feathers.  (Our
+chickens seem very scant as to tail, but I have asked no
+unpleasant questions.)  The doctor, with a Navajo blanket about
+his shoulders, was executing a war dance, while Jimmie and Mr.
+Witherspoon beat on war drums--two of our copper kettles, now
+permanently dented.  Fancy Sandy!  It's the first youthful
+glimmer I have ever caught in the man.
+
+After ten o'clock, when the braves were safely stowed for the
+night, the three men came in and limply dropped into comfortable
+chairs in my library, with the air of having made martyrs of
+themselves in the great cause of charity.  But they did not
+deceive me.  They originated all that tomfoolery for their own
+individual delectation.
+
+So far Mr. Percy Witherspoon appears fairly happy.  He is
+presiding at one end of the officers' table under the special
+protection of Betsy, and I am told that he instills considerable
+life into that sedate assemblage.  I have endeavored to run up
+their menu a trifle, and he accepts what is put before him with a
+perfectly good appetite, irrespective of the absence of such
+accustomed trifles as oysters and quail and soft-shell crabs.
+
+There was no sign of a private sitting room that I could put
+at this young man's disposal, but he himself has solved the
+difficulty by proposing to occupy our new laboratory.  So he
+spends his evenings with a book and a pipe, comfortably stretched
+in the dentist's chair.  There are not many society men who would
+be willing to spend their evenings so harmlessly.  That girl in
+Detroit is a lucky young thing.
+
+Mercy!  An automobile full of people has just arrived to look
+over the institution, and Betsy, who usually does the honors, not
+here.  I fly.
+
+                                       ADDIO!
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+My dear Gordon:
+
+This is not a letter,--I don't owe you one,--it's a receipt for
+sixty-five pairs of roller skates.
+
+                               Many thanks.
+
+                                               S. McB.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+I hear that I missed a call today, but Jane delivered your
+message, together with the "Genetic Philosophy of Education." 
+She says that you will call in a few days for my opinion of the
+book.  Is it to be a written or an oral examination?
+
+And doesn't it ever occur to you that this education business
+is rather one-sided?  It often strikes me that Dr. Robin MacRae's
+mental attitude would also be the better for some slight
+refurbishing.  I will promise to read your book, provided you
+read one of mine.  I am sending herewith the "Dolly Dialogues,"
+and shall ask for an opinion in a day or so.
+
+It's uphill work making a Scotch Presbyterian frivolous, but
+persistency accomplishes wonders.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                                   May 12.
+My dear, dear Judy:
+
+Talk about floods in Ohio!  Right here in Dutchess County we are
+the consistency of a wet sponge.  Rain for five days, and
+everything wrong with this institution.
+
+The babies have had croup, and we have been up o' nights with
+them.  Cook has given notice, and there's a dead rat in the
+walls.  Our three camps leaked, and in the early dawn, after the
+first cloudburst, twenty-four bedraggled little Indians, wrapped
+in damp bedding, came shivering to the door and begged for
+admission.  Since then every clothesline, every stair-railing has
+been covered with wet and smelly blankets that steam, but won't
+dry.  Mr. Percy de Forest Witherspoon has returned to the hotel
+to wait until the sun comes out.
+
+After being cooped up for four days with no exercise to
+speak of, the children's badness is breaking out in red spots,
+like the measles.  Betsy and I have thought of every form of
+active and innocent occupation that could be carried on in such a
+congested quarter as this: blind man's buff and pillow fights and
+hide-and-go-seek, gymnastics in the dining room, and bean-bags in
+the school room.  (We broke two windows.)  The boys played
+leapfrog up and down the hall, and jarred all the plaster in the
+building.  We have cleaned energetically and furiously.  All the
+woodwork has been washed, and all of the floors polished.  But
+despite everything, we have a great deal of energy left, and we
+are getting to that point of nerves where we want to punch one
+another.
+
+Sadie Kate has been acting like a little deil--do they have
+feminine deils?  If not, Sadie Kate has originated the species. 
+And this afternoon Loretta Higgins had--well, I don't know
+whether it was a sort of fit or just a temper.  She lay down on
+the floor and howled for a solid hour, and when any one tried to
+approach her, she thrashed about like a little windmill and bit
+and kicked.
+
+By the time the doctor came she had pretty well worn herself
+out.  He picked her up, limp and drooping, and carried her to a
+cot in the hospital room; and after she was asleep he came down
+to my library and asked to look at the archives.
+
+Loretta is thirteen; in the three years she has been here she
+has had five of these outbreaks, and has been punished good and
+hard for them.  The child's ancestral record is simple:  "Mother
+died of alcoholic dementia, Bloomingdale Asylum.  Father
+unknown."
+
+He studied the page long and frowningly and shook his head.
+
+"With a heredity like that, is it right to punish the child
+for having a shattered nervous system?"
+
+"It is not," said I, firmly.  "We will mend her shattered
+nervous system."
+
+"If we can."
+
+"We'll feed her up on cod-liver oil and sunshine, and find a
+nice kind foster mother who will take pity on the poor little--"
+
+But then my voice trailed off into nothing as I pictured
+Loretta's face, with her hollow eyes and big nose and open mouth
+and no chin and stringy hair and sticking-out ears.  No foster
+mother in the world would love a child who looked like that.
+
+"Why, oh, why," I wailed, "doesn't the good Lord send orphan
+children with blue eyes and curly hair and loving dispositions? 
+I could place a million of that sort in kind homes, but no one
+wants Loretta."
+
+"I'm afraid the good Lord doesn't have anything to do with
+bringing our Lorettas into the world.  It is the devil who
+attends to them."
+
+Poor Sandy!  He gets awfully pessimistic about the future of
+the universe; but I don't wonder, with such a cheerless life as
+he leads.  He looked today as though his own nervous system was
+shattered.  He had been splashing about in the rain since five
+this morning, when he was called to a sick baby case.  I made him
+sit down and have some tea, and we had a nice, cheerful talk on
+drunkenness and idiocy and epilepsy and insanity.  He dislikes
+alcoholic parents, but he ties himself into a knot over insane
+parents.
+
+Privately, I don't believe there's one thing in heredity,
+provided you snatch the babies away before their eyes are opened.
+
+We've got the sunniest youngster here you ever saw; his mother
+and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as
+placid and unexcitable as a cow.
+
+Good-by, my dear.  I am sorry this is not a more cheerful
+letter, though at this moment nothing unpleasant seems to be
+happening.  It's eleven o'clock, and I have just stuck my head
+into the corridor, and all is quiet except for two banging
+shutters and leaking eaves.  I promised Jane I would go to
+bed at ten.
+                   Good night, and joy be wi' ye baith!
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I
+have to be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a
+lingering attack of grippe.  In a burst of thankfulness I sent
+him a bunch of violets.
+P.S. 2.  We are having an epidemic of pinkeye.
+
+
+                                                       May 16.
+Good morning, my dear Judy!
+
+Three days of sunshine, and the J. G. H. is smiling.
+
+I am getting my immediate troubles nicely settled.  Those
+beastly blankets have dried at last, and our camps have been made
+livable again.  They are floored with wooden slats and roofed
+with tar paper.  (Mr.  Witherspoon calls them chicken coops.)  We
+are digging a stone-lined ditch to convey any further cloudbursts
+from the plateau on which they stand to the cornfield below.  The
+Indians have resumed savage life, and their chief is back at his
+post.
+
+The doctor and I have been giving Loretta Higgins's nerves
+our most careful consideration.  We think that this barrack life,
+with its constant movement and stir, is too exciting, and we have
+decided that the best plan will be to board her out in a private
+family, where she will receive a great deal of individual
+attention.
+
+The doctor, with his usual resourcefulness, has produced the
+family.  They live next door to him and are very nice people; I
+have just returned from calling.  The husband is foreman of the
+casting room at the iron works, and the wife is a comfortable
+soul who shakes all over when she laughs.  They live mostly
+in their kitchen in order to keep the parlor neat; but it is such
+a cheerful kitchen that I should like to live in it myself.  She
+has potted begonias in the window and a nice purry tiger cat
+asleep on a braided rug in front of the stove.  She bakes on
+Saturday--cookies and gingerbread and doughnuts.  I am planning
+to pay my weekly call upon Loretta every Saturday morning at
+eleven o'clock.  Apparently I made as favorable an impression on
+Mrs. Wilson as she made on me.  After I had gone, she confided to
+the doctor that she liked me because I was just as common as she
+was.
+
+Loretta is to learn housework and have a little garden of her
+own, and particularly play out of doors in the sunshine.  She is
+to go to bed early and be fed up on nice nourishing food, and
+they are to pet her and make her happy.  All this for three
+dollars a week!
+
+Why not find a hundred such families, and board out all the
+children?  Then this building could be turned into an idiot
+asylum, and I, not knowing anything about idiots, could
+conscientiously resign and go back home and live happily ever
+after.
+
+Really, Judy, I am growing frightened.  This asylum will get
+me if I stay long enough.  I am becoming so interested in it that
+I can't think or talk or dream of anything else.  You and Jervis
+have blasted all my prospects in life.
+
+Suppose I should retire and marry and have a family.  As
+families go nowadays, I couldn't hope for more than five or six
+children at the most, and all with the same heredity.  But,
+mercy! such a family appears perfectly insignificant and
+monotonous.  You have institutionalized me.
+
+                               Reproachfully yours,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  We have a child here whose father was lynched.  Isn't that
+a piquant detail to have in one's history?
+
+
+                                                   Tuesday.
+Dearest Judy:
+
+What shall we do?  Mamie Prout does not like prunes.  This
+antipathy to a cheap and healthful foodstuff is nothing but
+imagination, and ought not to be countenanced among the inmates
+of a well-managed institution.  Mamie must be made to like
+prunes.  So says our grammar teacher, who spends the noonday hour
+with us and overlooks the morals of our charges.  About one
+o'clock today she marched Mamie to my office charged with the
+offense of refusing, ABSOLUTELY refusing, to open her mouth and
+put in a prune.  The child was plumped down on a stool to await
+punishment from me.
+
+Now, as you know, I do not like bananas, and I should hate
+awfully to be forced to swallow them; so, by the same token, why
+should I force Mamie Prout to swallow prunes?
+
+While I was pondering a course that would seem to uphold Miss
+Keller's authority, but would at the same time leave a loophole
+for Mamie, I was called to the telephone.
+
+"Sit there until I come back," I said, and went out and
+closed the door.
+
+The message was from a kind lady wishing to motor me to a
+committee meeting.  I didn't tell you that I am organizing local
+interest in our behalf.  The idle rich who possess estates in
+this neighborhood are beginning to drift out from town, and I am
+laying my plans to catch them before they are deflected by too
+many garden parties and tennis tournaments.  They have never been
+of the slightest use to this asylum, and I think it's about time
+they woke up to a realization of our presence.
+
+Returning at teatime, I was waylaid in the hall by Dr.
+MacRae, who demanded some statistics from my office.  I
+opened the door, and there sat Mamie Prout exactly where she had
+been left four hours before.
+
+"Mamie darling!" I cried in horror.  "You haven't been here
+all this time?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Mamie; "you told me to wait until you came
+back."
+
+That poor patient little thing was fairly swaying with
+weariness, but she never uttered a whimper.
+
+I will say for Sandy that he was SWEET.  He gathered her up
+in his arms and carried her to my library, and petted her and
+caressed her back to smiles.  Jane brought the sewing table and
+spread it before the fire, and while the doctor and I had tea,
+Mamie had her supper.  I suppose, according to the theory of some
+educators, now, when she was thoroughly worn out and hungry,
+would have been the psychological moment to ply her with prunes. 
+But you will be pleased to hear that I did nothing of the sort,
+and that the doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles. 
+Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, embellished
+with strawberry jam from my private jar and peppermints from
+Sandy's pocket.  We returned her to her mates happy and
+comforted, but still possessing that regrettable distaste for
+prunes.
+
+Did you ever know anything more appalling than this soul-
+crushing unreasoning obedience which Mrs. Lippett so insistently
+fostered?  It's the orphan asylum attitude toward life, and
+somehow I must crush it out.  Initiative, responsibility,
+curiosity, inventiveness, fight--oh dear!  I wish the doctor had
+a serum for injecting all these useful virtues into an orphan's
+circulation.
+
+LATER.
+
+
+I wish you'd come back to New York.  I've appointed you press
+agent for this institution, and we need some of your floweriest
+writing immediately.  There are seven tots here crying to be
+adopted, and it's your business to advertise them.
+
+Little Gertrude is cross-eyed, but dear and affectionate and
+generous.  Can't you write her up so persuasively that some
+loving family will be willing to take her even if she isn't
+beautiful?  Her eyes can be operated on when she's older; but if
+it were a cross disposition she had, no surgeon in the world
+could remove that.  The child knows there is something missing,
+though she has never seen a live parent in her life.  She holds
+up her arms persuasively to every person who passes.  Put in all
+the pathos you are capable of, and see if you can't fetch her a
+mother and father.
+
+Maybe you can get one of the New York papers to run a Sunday
+feature article about a lot of different children.  I'll send
+some photographs.  You remember what a lot of responses that
+"Smiling Joe" picture brought for the Sea Breeze people?  I can
+furnish equally taking portraits of Laughing Lou and Gurgling
+Gertrude and Kicking Karl if you will just add the literary
+touch.
+
+And do find me some sports who are not afraid of heredity. 
+This wanting every child to come from one of the first families
+of Virginia is getting tiresome.
+
+                                   Yours, as usual,
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+My dear, dear Judy:
+
+Such an upheaval!  I've discharged the cook and the housekeeper,
+and in delicate language conveyed the impression to our grammar
+teacher that she needn't come back next year.  But, oh, if I
+could only discharge the Honorable Cy!
+
+I must tell you what happened this morning.  Our trustee, who
+has had a dangerous illness, is now dangerously well again, and
+dropped in to pay a neighborly call.  Punch was occupying a rug
+on my library floor, virtuously engaged with building blocks.  I
+am separating him from the other kindergarten children, and
+trying the Montessori method of a private rug and no nervous
+distraction.  I was flattering myself that it was working well;
+his vocabulary of late has become almost prudish.
+
+After half an hour's desultory visit, the Hon. Cy rose to go. 
+As the door closed behind him (I am at least thankful the child
+waited for that), Punch raised his appealing brown eyes to mine
+and murmured, with a confiding smile:
+
+"Gee! ain't he got de hell of a mug?"
+
+If you know a kind Christian family where I can place out a
+sweet little five-year boy, please communicate at once with
+
+                                               S.  McBRIDE,
+
+                                   Sup't John Grier Home.
+
+
+
+Dear Pendletons:
+
+I've never known anything like you two snails.  You've only just
+reached Washington, and I have had my suitcase packed for days,
+ready to spend a rejuvenating week end CHEZ VOUS.  Please hurry! 
+I've languished in this asylum atmosphere as long as humanely
+possible.  I shall gasp and die if I don't get a change.
+
+                           Yours,
+
+                           on the point of suffocation,
+
+                                                       S. McB.
+
+P.S.  Drop a card to Gordon Hallock, telling him you are there. 
+He will be charmed to put himself and the Capitol at your
+disposal.  I know that Jervis doesn't like him, but Jervis ought
+to get over his baseless prejudices against politicians.  Who
+knows?  I may be entering politics myself some day.
+
+
+My dear Judy:
+
+We do receive the most amazing presents from our friends and
+benefactors.  Listen to this.  Last week Mr. Wilton J. Leverett
+(I quote from his card) ran over a broken bottle outside our
+gate, and came in to visit the institution while his chauffeur
+was mending the tire.  Betsy showed him about.  He took an
+intelligent interest in everything he saw, particularly our new
+camps.  That is an exhibit which appeals to men.  He ended
+by removing his coat, and playing baseball with two tribes of
+Indians.  After an hour and a half he suddenly looked at his
+watch, begged for a glass of water, and bowed himself off.
+
+We had entirely forgotten the episode until this afternoon,
+when the expressman drove up to the door with a present for the
+John Grier Home from the chemical laboratories of Wilton J.
+Leverett.  It was a barrel--well, anyway, a good sized keg--full
+of liquid green soap!
+
+Did I tell you that the seeds for our garden came from
+Washington?  A polite present from Gordon Hallock and the U. S.
+Government.  As an example of what the past regime did not
+accomplish, Martin Schladerwitz, who has spent three years on
+this pseudo farm, knew no more than to dig a grave two feet deep
+and bury his lettuce seeds!
+
+Oh, you can't imagine the number of fields in which we need
+making over; but of course you, of all people, can imagine. 
+Little by little I am getting my eyes wide open, and things that
+just looked funny to me at first, now--oh dear!  It's very
+disillusionizing.  Every funny thing that comes up seems to have
+a little tragedy wrapped inside it.
+
+Just at present we are paying anxious attention to our
+manners--not orphan asylum manners, but dancing school manners. 
+There is to be nothing Uriah Heepish about our attitude toward
+the world.  The little girls make curtseys when they shake hands,
+and the boys remove caps and rise when a lady stands, and push in
+chairs at the table.  (Tommy Woolsey shot Sadie Kate into her
+soup yesterday, to the glee of all observers except Sadie, who is
+an independent young damsel and doesn't care for these useless
+masculine attentions.)  At first the boys were inclined to jeer,
+but after observing the politeness of their hero, Percy de Forest
+Witherspoon, they have come up to the mark like little
+gentlemen.
+
+Punch is paying a call this morning.  For the last half-hour,
+while I have been busily scratching away to you, he has been
+established in the window seat, quietly and undestructively
+engaged with colored pencils.  Betsy, EN PASSANT, just dropped a
+kiss upon his nose.
+
+"Aw, gwan!" said Punch, blushing quite pink, and wiping off
+the caress with a fine show of masculine indifference.  But I
+notice he has resumed work upon his red-and-green landscape with
+heightened ardor and an attempt at whistling.  We'll succeed yet
+in conquering that young man's temper.
+
+
+                                                   Tuesday.
+
+
+The doctor is in a very grumbly mood today.  He called just
+as the children were marching in to dinner, whereupon he marched,
+too, and sampled their food, and, oh, my dear! the potatoes were
+scorched!  And such a clishmaclaver as that man made!  It is the
+first time the potatoes ever have been scorched, and you know
+that scorching sometimes happens in the best of families.  But
+you would think from Sandy's language that the cook had scorched
+them on purpose, in accordance with my orders.
+
+As I have told you before, I could do very nicely without
+Sandy.
+
+
+                                                   Wednesday.
+
+
+Yesterday being a wonderful sunny day, Betsy and I turned our
+backs upon duty and motored to the very fancy home of some
+friends of hers, where we had tea in an Italian garden.  Punch
+and Sadie Kate had been SUCH good children all day that at the
+last moment we telephoned for permission to include them, too.
+
+"Yes, indeed, do bring the little dears," was the
+enthusiastic response.
+
+But the choice of Punch and Sadie Kate was a mistake.  We
+ought to have taken Mamie Prout, who has demonstrated her ability
+to sit.  I shall spare you the details of our visit; the climax
+was reached when Punch went goldfishing in the bottom of the
+swimming pool.  Our host pulled him out by an agitated leg, and
+the child returned to the asylum swathed in that gentleman's
+rose-colored bathrobe.
+
+What do you think?  Dr. Robin MacRae, in a contrite mood for
+having been so intensely disagreeable yesterday, has just invited
+Betsy and me to take supper in his olive-green house next Sunday
+evening at seven o'clock in order to look at some
+microscopic slides.  The entertainment, I believe, is to consist
+of a scarlet-fever culture, some alcoholic tissue, and a
+tubercular gland.  These social attentions bore him excessively;
+but he realizes that if he is to have free scope in applying his
+theories to the institution he must be a little polite to its
+superintendent.
+
+I have just read this letter over, and I must admit that it
+skips lightly from topic to topic.  But though it may not contain
+news of any great moment, I trust you will realize that its
+writing has consumed every vacant minute during the last three
+days.
+                               I am,
+
+                                   Most fully occupied,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  A blessed woman came this morning and said she would take a
+child for the summer--one of the sickest, weakest, neediest
+babies I could give her.  She had just lost her husband, and
+wanted something HARD to do.  Isn't that really very touching?
+
+
+                                           Saturday afternoon.
+Dear Judy and Jervis:
+
+Brother Jimmie (we are very alliterative!), spurred on by sundry
+begging letters from me, has at last sent us a present; but he
+picked it out himself.
+
+WE HAVE A MONKEY!  His name is Java.
+The children no longer hear the school bell ring.  On the day the
+creature came, this entire institution formed in line and filed
+past and shook his paw.  Poor Sing's nose is out of joint.  I
+have to PAY to have him washed.
+
+Sadie Kate is developing into my private secretary.  I have
+her answer the thank-you letters for the institution, and her
+literary style is making a hit among our benefactors.  She
+invariably calls out a second gift.  I had hitherto believed that
+the Kilcoyne family sprang from the wild west of Ireland, but I
+begin to suspect that their source was nearer Blarney Castle. 
+You can see from the inclosed copy of the letter she sent to
+Jimmie what a persuasive pen the young person has.  I trust that
+in this case at least, it will not bear the fruit that she
+suggests.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Jimie
+
+We thank you very much for the lovly monkey you give.  We name
+him java because that's a warm iland across the ocian where he
+was born up in a nest like a bird only big the doctor told us.
+
+The first day he come every boy and girl shook his hand and
+said good morning java his hand feels funny he holds so tite.  I
+was afraid to touch him but now I let him sit on my shoulder and
+put his arms around my kneck if he wants to.  He makes a funny
+noise that sounds like swering and gets mad when his tale is
+puled.
+
+We love him dearly and we love you two.
+
+The next time you have to give a present, please send an
+elifant.  Well I guess Ill stop.
+
+                                       Yours truly,
+
+                                   SADIE KATE KILCOYNE.
+
+
+
+Percy de Forest Witherspoon is still faithful to his little
+followers, though I am so afraid he will get tired that I urge
+him to take frequent vacations.  He has not only been faithful
+himself, but has brought in recruits.  He has large social
+connections in the neighborhood, and last Saturday evening he
+introduced two friends, nice men who sat around the campfire and
+swapped hunting stories.
+
+One of them was just back from around the world, and told
+hair-raising anecdotes of the head hunters of Sarawak, a narrow
+pink country on the top of Borneo.  My little braves pant to grow
+up and get to Sarawak, and go out on the war-path after head
+hunters.  Every encyclopedia in this institution has been
+consulted, and there isn't a boy here who cannot tell you the
+history, manners, climate, flora, and fungi of Borneo.  I only
+wish Mr. Witherspoon would introduce friends who had been head
+hunting in England, France, and Germany, countries not quite so
+CHIC as Sarawak, but more useful for general culture.
+
+We have a new cook, the fourth since my reign began.  I
+haven't bothered you with my cooking troubles, but institutions
+don't escape any more than families.  The last is a negro woman,
+a big, fat, smiling, chocolate-colored creature from Souf
+Ca'lina.  And ever since she came on honey dew we've fed!  Her
+name is--what do you guess?  SALLIE, if you please.  I suggested
+that she change it.
+
+"Sho, Miss, I's had dat name Sallie longer'n you, an' I
+couldn't get used nohow to answerin' up pert-like when you sings
+out `Mollie!'  Seems like Sallie jest b'longs to me."
+
+So "Sallie" she remains; but at least there is no danger of
+our getting our letters mixed, for her last name is nothing so
+plebeian as McBride.  It's Johnston-Washington, with a hyphen.
+
+                                                   Sunday.
+
+
+Our favorite game of late is finding pet names for Sandy. 
+His austere presence lends itself to caricature.  We have just
+originated a new batch.  The "Laird o' Cockpen" is Percy's
+choice.
+
+           The Laird o' Cockpen he's proud and he's great;
+           His mind is ta'en up wi' the things of the state.
+
+Miss Snaith disgustedly calls him "that man," and Betsy refers to
+him (in his absence) as "Dr. Cod-Liver."  My present favorite is
+"Macphairson Clon Glocketty Angus McClan."  But for real poetic
+feeling, Sadie Kate beats us all.  She calls him "Mister Someday
+Soon."  I don't believe that the doctor ever dropped into verse
+but once in his life, but every child in this institution knows
+that one poem by heart.
+
+Someday soon something nice is going to happen;
+
+Be a good little girl and take this hint:
+Swallow with a smile your cod-liver ile,
+
+And the first thing you know you will have a peppermint.
+
+
+It's this evening that Betsy and I attend his supper party,
+and I confess that we are looking forward to seeing the interior
+of his gloomy mansion with gleeful eagerness.  He never talks
+about himself or his past or anybody connected with himself.  He
+appears to be an isolated figure standing on a pedestal labeled
+S C I E N C E, without a glimmer of any ordinary affections or
+emotions or human frailties except temper.  Betsy and I are
+simply eaten up with curiosity to know what sort of past he came
+out of; but just let us get inside his house, and to our
+detective senses it will tell its own story.  So long as the
+portal was guarded by a fierce McGurk, we had despaired of ever
+effecting an entrance; but now, behold!  The door has opened of
+its own accord.
+
+                   To be continued.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                                       Monday.
+Dear Judy:
+
+We attended the doctor's supper party last night, Betsy and Mr.
+Witherspoon and I.  It turned out a passably cheerful occasion,
+though I will say that it began under heavy auspices.
+
+His house on the inside is all that the outside promises. 
+Never in my life have I seen such an interior as that man's
+dining room.  The walls and carpets and lambrequins are a heavy
+dark green.  A black marble mantelpiece shelters a few smoking
+black coals.  The furniture is as nearly black as furniture
+comes.  The decorations are two steel engravings in shiny black
+frames--the "Monarch of the Glen," and the "Stag at Bay."
+
+We tried hard to be light and sparkling, but it was like
+eating supper in the family vault.  Mrs. McGurk, in black alpaca
+with a black silk apron, clumped around the table, passing cold,
+heavy things to eat, with a step so firm that she rattled the
+silver in the sideboard drawers.  Her nose was up, and her mouth
+was down.  She clearly does not approve of the master's
+entertaining, and she wishes to discourage all guests from ever
+accepting again.
+
+Sandy sort of dimly knows that there is something the matter
+with his house, and in order to brighten it up a bit in honor of
+his guests, he had purchased flowers,--dozens of them,--the most
+exquisite pink Killarney roses and red and yellow tulips.  The
+McGurk had wedged them all together as tight as they would fit
+into a peacock-blue jardiniere, and plumped it down in the center
+of the table.  The thing was as big as a bushel-basket. 
+Betsy and I nearly forgot our manners when we saw that
+centerpiece; but the doctor seemed so innocently pleased at
+having obtained a bright note in his dining room that we
+suppressed our amusement and complimented him warmly upon his
+happy color scheme.
+
+The moment supper was over, we hastened with relief to his
+own part of the house, where the McGurk's influence does not
+penetrate.  No one in a cleaning capacity ever enters either his
+library or office or laboratory except Llewelyn, a short, wiry,
+bow-legged Welshman, who combines to a unique degree the
+qualities of chambermaid and chauffeur.
+
+The library, though not the most cheerful room I have ever
+seen, still, for a man's house, is not so bad--books all around
+from floor to ceiling, with the overflow in piles on floor and
+table and mantelpiece; half a dozen abysmal leather chairs and a
+rug or so, with another black marble mantelpiece, but this time
+containing a crackling wood fire.  By way of bric-a-brac, he has
+a stuffed pelican and a crane with a frog in its mouth, also a
+raccoon sitting on a log, and a varnished tarpon.  A faint
+suggestion of iodoform floats in the air.
+
+The doctor made the coffee himself in a French machine, and
+we dismissed his housekeeper from our spirits.  He really did do
+his best to be a thoughtful host and I have to report that the
+word "insanity" was not once mentioned.  It seems that Sandy, in
+his moments of relaxation, is a fisherman.  He and Percy began
+swapping stories of salmon and trout, and he finally got out his
+case of fishing flies, and gallantly presented Betsy and me with
+a "silver doctor" and a "Jack Scott" out of which to make
+hatpins.  Then the conversation wandered to sport on the Scotch
+moors, and he told about one time when he was lost, and spent the
+night out in the heather.  There is no doubt about it, Sandy's
+heart is in the highlands.
+
+I am afraid that Betsy and I have wronged him.  Though
+it is hard to relinquish the interesting idea, he may not,
+after all, have committed a crime.  We are now leaning to the
+belief that he was crossed in love.
+
+It's really horrid of me to make fun of poor Sandy, for,
+despite his stern bleakness of disposition, he's a pathetic
+figure of a man.  Think of coming home after an anxious day's
+round to eat a solitary dinner in that grim dining room!
+
+Do you suppose it would cheer him up a little if I should
+send my company of artists to paint a frieze of rabbits around
+the wall?
+
+                           With love, as usual,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+Aren't you ever coming back to New York?  Please hurry!  I need a
+new hat, and am desirous of shopping for it on Fifth Avenue, not
+on Water Street.  Mrs. Gruby, our best milliner, does not believe
+in slavishly following Paris Fashions; she originates her own
+styles.  But three years ago, as a great concession to
+convention, she did make a tour of the New York shops, and is
+still creating models on the uplift of that visit.
+
+Also, besides my own hat, I must buy 113 hats for my
+children, to say nothing of shoes and knickerbockers and shirts
+and hair-ribbons and stockings and garters.  It's quite a task to
+keep a little family like mine decently clothed.
+
+Did you get that big letter I wrote you last week?  You never
+had the grace to mention it in yours of Thursday, and it was
+seventeen pages long, and took me DAYS to write.
+
+                                   Yours truly,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  Why don't you tell me some news about Gordon?  Have you
+seen him, and did he mention me?  Is he running after any of
+those pretty Southern girls that Washington is so full of?  You
+know that I want to hear.  Why must you be so beastly
+uncommunicative?
+
+
+                                           Tuesday, 4:27 P.M.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your telegram came two minutes ago by telephone.
+
+Yes, thank you, I shall be delighted to arrive at 5:49 on
+Thursday afternoon.  And don't make any engagements for that
+evening, please, as I intend to sit up until midnight talking
+John Grier gossip with you and the president.
+
+Friday and Saturday and Monday I shall have to devote to
+shopping.  Oh, yes, you're right; I already possess more clothes
+than any jailbird needs, but when spring comes, I must have new
+plumage.  As it is, I wear an evening gown every night just to
+wear them out--no, not entirely that; to make myself believe that
+I'm still an ordinary girl despite this extraordinary life that
+you have pushed me into.
+
+The Hon. Cy found me yesterday arrayed in a Nile-green crepe
+(Jane's creation, though it looked Parisian).  He was quite
+puzzled when he found I wasn't going to a ball.  I invited him to
+stay and dine with me, and he accepted!  We got on very affably. 
+He expands over his dinner.  Food appears to agree with him.  If
+there's any Bernard Shaw in New York just now, I believe that I
+might spare a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a matinee. 
+G. B. S.'s dialogue would afford such a life-giving contrast to
+the Hon. Cy's.
+
+There's no use writing any more; I'll wait and talk.
+
+                                           ADDIO.
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  Oh dear! just as I had begun to catch glimmerings of
+niceness in Sandy, he broke out again and was ABOMINABLE.  We
+unfortunately have five cases of measles in this institution, and
+the man's manner suggests that Miss Snaith and I gave the measles
+to the children on purpose to make him trouble.  There are many
+days when I should be willing to accept our doctor's resignation.
+
+
+                                                   Wednesday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at hand.  I have
+never known anybody whose literary style resembled so exactly his
+spoken word.
+
+And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my absurd
+fashion of calling you "Enemy"?  I will drop my absurd fashion of
+calling you Enemy just as soon as you drop your absurd fashion of
+getting angry and abusive and insulting the moment any little
+thing goes wrong.
+
+I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend four days in New
+York.
+
+                                       Yours truly,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                               CHEZ THE PENDLETONS, New York.
+My dear Enemy:
+
+I trust that this note will find you in a more affable frame of
+mind than when I saw you last.  I emphatically repeat that it was
+not due to the carelessness of the superintendent of our
+institution that those two new cases of measles crept in, but
+rather to the unfortunate anatomy of our old-fashioned building,
+which does not permit of the proper isolation of contagious
+cases.
+
+As you did not deign to visit us yesterday morning before I
+left, I could not offer any parting suggestions.  I therefore
+write to ask that you cast your critical eye upon Mamie Prout. 
+She is covered all over with little red spots which may be
+measles, though I am hoping not.  Mamie spots very easily.
+
+I return to prison life next Monday at six o'clock.
+
+                                   Yours truly,
+
+                                           S. McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  I trust you will pardon my mentioning it, but you are not
+the kind of doctor that I admire.  I like them chubby and round
+and smiling.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       June 9.
+Dear Judy:
+
+You are an awful family for an impressionable young girl to
+visit.  How can you expect me to come back and settle down
+contentedly to institution life after witnessing such a happy
+picture of domestic concord as the Pendleton household
+presents?
+
+All the way back in the train, instead of occupying myself
+with two novels, four magazines, and one box of chocolates that
+your husband thoughtfully provided, I spent the time in a mental
+review of the young men of my acquaintance to see if I couldn't
+discover one as nice as Jervis.  I did!  (A little nicer, I
+think.)  From this day on he is the marked-down victim, the
+destined prey.
+
+I shall hate to give up the asylum after getting so excited
+over it, but unless you are willing to move it to the capital, I
+don't see any alternative.
+
+The train was awfully late.  We sat and smoked on a siding
+while two accommodations and a freight dashed past.  I think we
+must have broken something, and had to tinker up our engine.  The
+conductor was soothing, but uncommunicative.
+
+It was 7:30 when I descended, the only passenger, at our
+insignificant station in the pitch darkness and RAIN, without an
+umbrella, and wearing that precious new hat.  No Turnfelt to meet
+me; not even a station hack.  To be sure, I hadn't telegraphed
+the exact time of my arrival, but, still, I did feel rather
+neglected.  I had sort of vaguely expected all ONE HUNDRED AND
+THIRTEEN to be drawn up by the platform, scattering flowers and
+singing songs of welcome.  Just as I was telling the station man
+that I would watch his telegraph instrument while he ran across
+to the corner saloon and telephoned for a vehicle, there came
+whirling around the corner two big searchlights aimed straight at
+me.  They stopped nine inches before running me down, and I heard
+Sandy's voice saying:
+
+"Weel, weel, Miss Sallie McBride!  I'm thinking it's ower
+time you came back to tak' the bit bairns off my hands."
+
+That man had come three times to meet me on the off chance of
+the train's getting in some time.  He tucked me and my new hat
+and bags and books and chocolates all in under his waterproof
+flap, and we splashed off.  Really, I felt as if I was getting
+back home again, and quite sad at the thought of ever having
+to leave.  Mentally, you see, I had already resigned and packed
+and gone.  The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest
+of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling.  That's why
+trial marriages would never work.  You've got to feel you're in a
+thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really
+put your whole mind into making it a success.
+
+It's astounding how much news can accrue in four days.  Sandy
+just couldn't talk fast enough to tell me everything I wanted to
+hear.  Among other items, I learned that Sadie Kate had spent two
+days in the infirmary, her malady being, according to the
+doctor's diagnosis, half a jar of gooseberry jam and Heaven knows
+how many doughnuts.  Her work had been changed during my absence
+to dishwashing in the officers' pantry, and the juxtaposition of
+so many exotic luxuries was too much for her fragile virtue.
+
+Also, our colored cook Sallie and our colored useful man Noah
+have entered upon a war of extermination.  The original trouble
+was over a little matter of kindling, augmented by a pail of hot
+water that Sallie threw out of the window with, for a woman,
+unusual accuracy of aim.  You can see what a rare character the
+head of an orphan asylum must have.  She has to combine the
+qualities of a baby nurse and a police magistrate.
+
+The doctor had told only the half when we reached the house,
+and as he had not yet dined, owing to meeting me three times, I
+begged him to accept the hospitality of the John Grier.  I would
+get Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon, and we would hold an executive
+meeting, and settle all our neglected businesses.
+
+Sandy accepted with flattering promptness.  He likes to dine
+outside of the family vault.
+
+But Betsy, I found, had dashed home to greet a visiting
+grandparent, and Percy was playing bridge in the village.  It's
+seldom the young thing gets out of an evening, and I'm glad for
+him to have a little cheerful diversion.
+
+So it ended in the doctor's and my dining tete-a-tete on a
+hastily improvised dinner,--it was then close upon eight, and our
+normal dinner hour is 6:30,--but it was such an improvised dinner
+as I am sure Mrs. McGurk never served him.  Sallie, wishing to
+impress me with her invaluableness, did her absolutely Southern
+best.  And after dinner we had coffee before the fire in my
+comfortable blue library, while the wind howled outside and the
+shutters banged.
+
+We passed a most cordial and intimate evening.  For the first
+time since our acquaintance I struck a new note in the man. 
+There really is something attractive about him when you once come
+to know him.  But the process of knowing him requires time and
+tact.  He's no' very gleg at the uptak.  I've never seen such a
+tantalizing inexplicable person.  All the time I'm talking to him
+I feel as though behind his straight line of a mouth and his
+half-shut eyes there were banked fires smoldering inside.  Are
+you sure he hasn't committed a crime?  He does manage to convey
+the delicious feeling that he has.
+
+And I must add that Sandy's not so bad a talker when he lets
+himself go.  He has the entire volume of Scotch literature at his
+tongue's end.
+
+"Little kens the auld wife as she sits by the fire what the
+wind is doing on Hurly-Burly-Swire," he observed as a specially
+fierce blast drove the rain against the window.  That sounds pat,
+doesn't it?  I haven't, though, the remotest idea what it means. 
+And listen to this: between cups of coffee (he drinks far too
+much coffee for a sensible medical man) he casually let fall the
+news that his family knew the R. L. S. family personally, and
+used to take supper at 17 Heriot Row!  I tended him assiduously
+for the rest of the evening in a
+               Did you once see Shelley plain,
+               And did he stop and speak to you?
+frame of mind.
+
+When I started this letter, I had no intention of filling it
+with a description of the recently excavated charms of Robin
+MacRae; it's just by way of remorseful apology.  He was so nice
+and companionable last night that I have been going about today
+feeling conscience-smitten at the thought of how mercilessly I
+made fun of him to you and Jervis.  I really didn't mean quite
+all of the impolite things that I said.  About once a month the
+man is sweet and tractable and engaging.
+
+Punch has just been paying a social call, and during the
+course of it he lost three little toadlings an inch long.  Sadie
+Kate recovered one of them from under the bookcase, but the other
+two hopped away; and I'm so afraid they've taken sanctuary in my
+bed!  I do wish that mice and snakes and toads and angleworms
+were not so portable.  You never know what is going on in a
+perfectly respectable-looking child's pocket.
+
+I had a beautiful visit in Casa Pendleton.  Don't forget your
+promise to return it soon.
+
+                                   Yours as ever,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  I left a pair of pale-blue bedroom slippers under the bed. 
+Will you please have Mary wrap them up and mail them to me?  And
+hold her hand while she writes the address.  She spelt my name on
+the place cards "Mackbird."
+
+
+                                                       Tuesday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+As I told you, I left an application for an accomplished nurse
+with the employment bureau of New York.
+
+
+Wanted!  A nurse maid with an ample lap suitable for the
+accommodation of seventeen babies at once.
+
+
+She came this afternoon, and this is the fine figure of a
+woman that I drew!
+
+We couldn't keep a baby from sliding off her lap unless we
+fastened him firmly with safety pins.
+
+Please give Sadie Kate the magazine.  I'll read it tonight
+and return it tomorrow.
+
+Was there ever a more docile and obedient pupil than
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE?
+
+
+                                                       Thursday.
+My dear Judy:
+
+I've been spending the last three days busily getting under way
+all those latest innovations that we planned in New York.  Your
+word is law.  A public cooky jar has been established.
+
+Also, the eighty play boxes have been ordered.  It is a
+wonderful idea, having a private box for each child, where he can
+store up his treasures.  The ownership of a little personal
+property will help develop them into responsible citizens.  I
+ought to have thought of it myself, but for some reason the idea
+didn't come.  Poor Judy!  You have inside knowledge of the
+longings of their little hearts that I shall never be able to
+achieve, not with all the sympathy I can muster.
+
+We are doing our best to run this institution with as few
+discommoding rules as possible, but in regard to those play boxes
+there is one point on which I shall have to be firm.  The
+children may not keep in them mice or toads or angleworms.
+
+I can't tell you how pleased I am that Betsy's salary is to
+be raised, and that we are to keep her permanently.  But the Hon.
+Cy Wykoff deprecates the step.  He has been making inquiries, and
+he finds that her people are perfectly able to take care of her
+without any salary.
+
+"You don't furnish legal advice for nothing," say I to him. 
+"Why should she furnish her trained services for nothing?"
+
+"This is charitable work."
+
+"Then work which is undertaken for your own good should be
+paid, but work which is undertaken for the public good should not
+be paid?"
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" says he.  "She's a woman, and her family
+ought to support her."
+
+This opened up vistas of argument which I did not care to
+enter with the Hon. Cy, so I asked him whether he thought it
+would be nicer to have a real lawn or hay on the slope that leads
+to the gate.  He likes to be consulted, and I pamper him as much
+as possible in all unessential details.  You see, I am following
+Sandy's canny advice:  "Trustees are like fiddlestrings; they
+maunna be screwed ower tight.  Humor the mon, but gang your ain
+gait."  Oh, the tact that this asylum is teaching me!  I should
+make a wonderful politician's wife.
+
+                                               Thursday night.
+
+
+You will be interested to hear that I have temporarily placed
+out Punch with two charming spinsters who have long been
+tottering on the brink of a child.  They finally came last week,
+and said they would like to try one for a month to see what the
+sensation felt like.
+
+They wanted, of course, a pretty ornament, dressed in pink
+and white and descended from the Mayflower.  I told them that any
+one could bring up a daughter of the Mayflower to be an ornament
+to society, but the real feat was to bring up a son of an Italian
+organ-grinder and an Irish washerwoman.  And I offered Punch. 
+That Neapolitan heredity of his, artistically speaking, may turn
+out a glorious mixture, if the right environment comes along to
+choke out all the weeds.
+
+I put it up to them as a sporting proposition, and they were
+game.  They have agreed to take him for one month and concentrate
+upon his remaking all their years of conserved force, to the end
+that he may be fit for adoption in some moral family.  They both
+have a sense of humor and ACCOMPLISHING characters, or I should
+never have dared to propose it.  And really I believe it's going
+to be the one way of taming our young fire-eater.  They will
+furnish the affection and caresses and attention that in his
+whole abused little life he has never had.
+
+They live in a fascinating old house with an Italian garden,
+and furnishings selected from the whole round world.  It does
+seem like sacrilege to turn that destructive child loose in such
+a collection of treasures.  But he hasn't broken anything here
+for more than a month, and I believe that the Italian in him will
+respond to all that beauty.
+
+I warned them that they must not shrink from any profanity
+that might issue from his pretty baby lips.
+
+He departed last night in a very fancy automobile, and maybe
+I wasn't glad to say good-by to our disreputable young man!  He
+has absorbed just about half of my energy.
+
+
+                                                   Friday.
+
+
+The pendant arrived this morning.  Many thanks!  But you
+really ought not to have given me another; a hostess cannot be
+held accountable for all the things that careless guests lose in
+her house.  It is far too pretty for my chain.  I am thinking of
+having my nose pierced, Cingalese fashion, and wearing my new
+jewel where it will really show.
+
+I must tell you that our Percy is putting some good
+constructive work into this asylum.  He has founded the John
+Grier Bank, and has worked out all the details in a very
+professional and businesslike fashion, entirely incomprehensible
+to my non-mathematical mind.  All of the older children possess
+properly printed checkbooks, and they are each to be paid five
+dollars a week for their services, such as going to school and
+accomplishing housework.  They are then to pay the institution
+(by check) for their board and clothes, which will consume their
+five dollars.  It looks like a vicious circle, but it's really
+very educative; they will comprehend the value of money before we
+dump them into a mercenary world.  Those who are particularly
+good in lessons or work will receive an extra recompense.  My
+head aches at the thought of the bookkeeping, but Percy
+waves that aside as a mere bagatelle.  It is to be accomplished
+by our prize arithmeticians, and will train them for positions of
+trust.  If Jervis hears of any opening for bank officials, let me
+know; I shall have a well-trained president, cashier, and paying
+teller ready to be placed by this time next year.
+
+
+                                               Saturday.
+
+
+Our doctor doesn't like to be called "Enemy."  It hurts his
+feelings or his dignity or something of the sort.  But since I
+will persist, despite his expostulations, he has finally
+retaliated with a nickname for me.  He calls me "Miss Sally
+Lunn," and is in a glow of pride at having achieved such an
+imaginative flight.
+
+He and I have invented a new pastime: he talks Scotch, and I
+answer in Irish.  Our conversations run like this:
+
+"Good afthernoon to ye, docther.  An' how's yer health the
+day?"
+
+"Verra weel, verra weel.  And how gas it wi' a' the bairns?"
+
+"Shure, they're all av thim doin' foin."
+
+"I'm gey glad to hear it.  This saft weather is hard on folk. 
+There's muckle sickness aboot the kintra."
+
+"Hiven be praised it has not lighted here!  But sit down,
+docther, an' make yersilf at home.  Will ye be afther havin' a
+cup o' tay?"
+
+"Hoot, woman!  I would na hae you fash yoursel', but a wee
+drap tea winna coom amiss."
+
+"Whist!  It's no thruble at all."
+
+You may not think this a very dizzying excursion into
+frivolity; but I assure you, for one of Sandy's dignity, it's
+positively riotous.  The man has been in a heavenly temper ever
+since I came back; not a single cross word.  I am beginning to
+think I may reform him as well as Punch.
+
+This letter must be about long enough even for you.  I've
+been writing it bit by bit for three days, whenever I happened to
+pass my desk.
+
+                                   Yours as ever,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  I don't think much of your vaunted prescription for hair
+tonic.  Either the druggist didn't mix it right, or Jane didn't
+apply it with discretion.  I stuck to the pillow this morning.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+                                                   Saturday.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Your letter of Thursday is at hand, and extremely silly I
+consider it.  Of course I am not trying to let you down easy;
+that isn't my way.  If I let you down at all, it will be suddenly
+and with an awful bump.  But I honestly didn't realize that it
+had been three weeks since I wrote.  Please excuse!
+
+Also, my dear sir, I have to bring you to account.  You were
+in New York last week, and you never ran up to see us.  You
+thought we wouldn't find it out, but we heard--and are insulted.
+
+Would you like an outline of my day's activities?  Wrote
+monthly report for trustees' meeting.  Audited accounts. 
+Entertained agent of State Charities Aid Association for
+luncheon.  Supervised children's menus for next ten days. 
+Dictated five letters to families who have our children.  Visited
+our little feeble-minded Loretta Higgins (pardon the reference; I
+know you don't like me to mention the feeble-minded), who is
+being boarded out in a nice comfortable family, where she is
+learning to work.  Came back to tea and a conference with the
+doctor about sending a child with tubercular glands to a
+sanatorium.  Read an article on cottage VERSUS congregate system
+for housing dependent children.  (We do need cottages!  I wish
+you'd send us a few for a Christmas present.)  And now at nine
+o'clock I'm sleepily beginning a letter to you.  Do you know many
+young society girls who can point to such a useful day as that?
+
+Oh, I forgot to say that I stole ten minutes from my accounts
+this morning to install a new cook.  Our Sallie Washington-
+Johnston, who cooked fit for the angels had a dreadful, dreadful
+temper and terrorized poor Noah, our super-excellent furnace man,
+to the point of giving notice.  We couldn't spare Noah.  He's
+more useful to the institution than its superintendent, and so
+Sallie Washington-Johnston is no more.
+
+When I asked the new cook her name, she replied, "Ma name is
+Suzanne Estelle, but ma friends call me Pet."  Pet cooked the
+dinner tonight, but I must say that she lacks Sallie's delicate
+touch.  I am awfully disappointed that you didn't visit us while
+Sallie was still here.  You would have taken away an exalted
+opinion of my housekeeping.
+
+
+Drowsiness overcame me at that point, and it's now two days
+later.
+
+Poor neglected Gordon!  It has just occurred to me that you
+never got thanked for the modeling clay which came two weeks ago,
+and it was such an unusually intelligent present that I should
+have telegraphed my appreciation.  When I opened the box and saw
+all that nice messy putty stuff, I sat down on the spot and
+created a statue of Singapore.  The children love it; and it is
+very good to have the handicraft side of their training
+encouraged.
+
+After a careful study of American history, I have
+determined that nothing is so valuable to a future president
+as an early obligatory unescapable performance of CHORES.
+
+Therefore I have divided the daily work of this institution
+into a hundred parcels, and the children rotate weekly through a
+succession of unaccustomed tasks.  Of course they do everything
+badly, for just as they learn how, they progress to something
+new.  It would be infinitely easier for us to follow Mrs.
+Lippett's immoral custom of keeping each child sentenced for life
+to a well-learned routine; but when the temptation assails me, I
+recall the dreary picture of Florence Henty, who polished the
+brass doorknobs of this institution for seven years--and I
+sternly shove the children on.
+
+I get angry every time I think of Mrs Lippett.  She had
+exactly the point of view of a Tammany politician--no slightest
+sense of service to society.  Her only interest in the John Grier
+Home was to get a living out of it.
+
+
+                                                   Wednesday.
+
+
+What new branch of learning do you think I have introduced
+into my asylum?  Table manners!
+
+I never had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble to
+teach children how to eat and drink.  Their favorite method is to
+put their mouths down to their mugs and lap their milk like
+kittens.  Good manners are not merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs.
+Lippett's regime appeared to believe.  They mean self-discipline
+and thought for others, and my children have got to learn them.
+
+That woman never allowed them to talk at their meals, and I
+am having the most dreadful time getting any conversation out of
+them above a frightened whisper.  So I have instituted the custom
+of the entire staff, myself included, sitting with them at the
+table, and directing the talk along cheerful and improving lines.
+
+Also I have established a small, very strict training table,
+where the little dears, in relays, undergo a week of steady
+badgering.  Our uplifting table conversations run like this:
+
+"Yes, Tom, Napoleon Bonaparte was a very great man--elbows
+off the table.  He possessed a tremendous power of concentrating
+his mind on whatever he wanted to have; and that is the way to
+accomplish--don't snatch, Susan; ask politely for the bread, and
+Carrie will pass it to you.--But he was an example of the fact
+that selfish thought just for oneself, without considering the
+lives of others, will come to disaster in the--Tom!  Keep your
+mouth shut when you chew--and after the battle of Waterloo--let
+Sadie's cooky alone--his fall was all the greater because--Sadie
+Kate, you may leave the table.  It makes no difference what he
+did.  Under no provocation does a lady slap a gentleman."
+
+
+Two more days have passed; this is the same kind of
+meandering letter I write to Judy.  At least, my dear man, you
+can't complain that I haven't been thinking about you this week! 
+I know you hate to be told all about the asylum, but I can't help
+it, for it's all I know.  I don't have five minutes a day to read
+the papers.  The big outside world has dropped away.  My
+interests all lie on the inside of this little iron inclosure.
+
+                                   I am at present,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE,
+
+                               Superintendent of the
+
+                                   John Grier Home.
+
+
+                                                       Thursday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."  Hasn't that a very
+philosophical, detached, Lord of the Universe sound?  It comes
+from Thoreau, whom I am assiduously reading at present.  As you
+see, I have revolted against your literature and taken to my own
+again.  The last two evenings have been devoted to "Walden," a
+book as far removed as possible from the problems of the
+dependent child.
+
+Did you ever read old Henry David Thoreau?  You really ought. 
+I think you'd find him a congenial soul.  Listen to this: 
+"Society is commonly too cheap.  We meet at very short intervals,
+not having had time to acquire any new value for each other.  It
+would be better if there were but one habitation to a square
+mile, as where I live."  A pleasant, expansive, neebor-like man
+he must have been!  He minds me in some ways o' Sandy.
+
+This is to tell you that we have a placing-out agent visiting
+us.  She is about to dispose of four chicks, one of them Thomas
+Kehoe.  What do you think?  Ought we to risk it?  The place she
+has in mind for him is a farm in a no-license portion of
+Connecticut, where he will work hard for his board, and live in
+the farmer's family.  It sounds exactly the right thing, and we
+can't keep him here forever; he'll have to be turned out some day
+into a world full of whisky.
+
+I'm sorry to tear you away from that cheerful work on
+"Dementia Precox," but I'd be most obliged if you'd drop in here
+toward eight o'clock for a conference with the agent.
+
+                                   I am, as usual,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                                   June 17.
+My dear Judy:
+
+Betsy has perpetrated a most unconscionable trick upon a pair of
+adopting parents.  They have traveled East from Ohio in their
+touring car for the dual purpose of seeing the country and
+picking up a daughter.  They appear to be the leading citizens of
+their town, whose name at the moment escapes me; but it's a very
+important town.  It has electric lights and gas, and Mr. Leading
+Citizen owns the controlling interest in both plants.  With a
+wave of his hand he could plunge that entire town into darkness;
+but fortunately he's a kind man, and won't do anything so harsh,
+not even if they fail to reelect him mayor.  He lives in a brick
+house with a slate roof and two towers, and has a deer and
+fountain and lots of nice shade trees in the yard.  (He carries
+its photograph in his pocket.)  They are good-natured, generous,
+kind-hearted, smiling people, and a little fat; you can see what
+desirable parents they would make.
+
+Well, we had exactly the daughter of their dreams, only, as
+they came without giving us notice, she was dressed in a
+flannellet nightgown, and her face was dirty.  They looked
+Caroline over, and were not impressed; but they thanked us
+politely, and said they would bear her in mind.  They wanted to
+visit the New York Orphanage before deciding.  We knew well that,
+if they saw that superior assemblage of children, our poor little
+Caroline would never have a chance.
+
+Then Betsy rose to the emergency.  She graciously invited
+them to motor over to her house for tea that afternoon and
+inspect one of our little wards who would be visiting her baby
+niece.  Mr. and Mrs. Leading Citizen do not know many people in
+the East, and they haven't been receiving the invitations
+that they feel are their due; so they were quite innocently
+pleased at the prospect of a little social diversion.  The moment
+they had retired to the hotel for luncheon, Betsy called up her
+car, and rushed baby Caroline over to her house.  She stuffed her
+into baby niece's best pink-and-white embroidered frock, borrowed
+a hat of Irish lace, some pink socks and white slippers, and set
+her picturesquely upon the green lawn under a spreading beech
+tree.  A white-aproned nurse (borrowed also from baby niece)
+plied her with bread and milk and gaily colored toys.  By the
+time prospective parents arrived, our Caroline, full of food and
+contentment, greeted them with cooes of delight.  From the moment
+their eyes fell upon her they were ravished with desire.  Not a
+suspicion crossed their unobservant minds that this sweet little
+rosebud was the child of the morning.  And so, a few formalities
+having been complied with, it really looks as though baby
+Caroline would live in the Towers and grow into a leading
+citizen.
+
+I must really get to work, without any further delay, upon
+the burning question of new clothes for our girls.
+
+With the highest esteem, I am,
+       D'r Ma'am,
+           Y'r most ob'd't and h'mble serv't,
+
+                                                   SAL. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                                   June 19th.
+My dearest Judy:
+
+Listen to the grandest innovation of all, and one that will
+delight your heart.
+
+                   NO MORE BLUE GINGHAM!
+
+
+Feeling that this aristocratic neighborhood of country
+estates might contain valuable food for our asylum, I have of
+late been moving in the village social circles, and at a luncheon
+yesterday I dug out a beautiful and charming widow who wears
+delectable, flowing gowns that she designs herself.  She confided
+to me that she would have loved to have been a dressmaker, if she
+had only been born with a needle in her mouth instead of a golden
+spoon.  She says she never sees a pretty girl badly dressed but
+she longs to take her in hand and make her over.  Did you ever
+hear anything so apropos?  From the moment she opened her lips
+she was a marked man.
+
+"I can show you fifty-nine badly dressed girls," said I to
+her, and you have got to come back with me and plan their new
+clothes and make them beautiful."
+
+She expostulated; but in vain.  I led her out to her
+automobile, shoved her in, and murmured, "John Grier Home" to the
+chauffeur.  The first inmate our eyes fell upon was Sadie Kate,
+just fresh, I judge, from hugging the molasses barrel; and a
+shocking spectacle she was for any esthetically minded person. 
+In addition to the stickiness, one stocking was coming down, her
+pinafore was buttoned crookedly, and she had lost a hair-ribbon. 
+But--as always--completely at ease, she welcomed us with a cheery
+grin, and offered the lady a sticky paw.
+
+"Now," said I, in triumph, "you see how much we need you. 
+What can you do to make Sadie Kate beautiful?"
+
+"Wash her," said Mrs. Livermore.
+
+Sadie Kate was marched to my bathroom.  When the scrubbing
+was finished and the hair strained back and the stocking restored
+to seemly heights, I returned her for a second inspection--a
+perfectly normal little orphan.  Mrs. Livermore turned her from
+side to side, and studied her long and earnestly.
+
+Sadie Kate by nature is a beauty, a wild, dark, Gypsyish
+little colleen.  She looks fresh from the wind-swept moors of
+Connemara.  But, oh, we have managed to rob her of her
+birthright with this awful institution uniform!
+
+After five minutes' silent contemplation, Mrs. Livermore
+raised her eyes to mine.
+
+"Yes, my dear, you need me."
+
+And then and there we formed our plans.  She is to head the
+committee on C L O T H E S.  She is to choose three friends to
+help her.  And they, with the two dozen best sewers among the
+girls and our sewing-teacher and five sewing machines, are going
+to make over the looks of this institution.  And the charity is
+all on our side.  We are supplying Mrs. Livermore with the
+profession that Providence robbed her of.  Wasn't it clever of me
+to find her?  I woke this morning at dawn and crowed!
+
+Lots more news,--I could run into a second volume,--but I am
+going to send this letter to town by Mr. Witherspoon, who, in a
+very high collar and the blackest of evening clothes, is on the
+point of departure for a barn dance at the country club.  I
+told him to pick out the nicest girls he danced with to come and
+tell stories to my children.
+
+It is dreadful, the scheming person I am getting to be.  All
+the time I am talking to any one, I am silently thinking, "What
+use can you be to my asylum?"
+
+There is grave danger that this present superintendent will
+become so interested in her job that she will never want to
+leave.  I sometimes picture her a white-haired old lady,
+propelled about the building in a wheeled chair, but still
+tenaciously superintending her fourth generation of orphans.
+
+PLEASE discharge her before that day!
+
+                                       Yours,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Yesterday morning, without the slightest warning, a station hack
+drove up to the door and disgorged upon the steps two men, two
+little boys, a baby girl, a rocking horse, and a Teddy bear, and
+then drove off!
+
+The men were artists, and the little ones were children of
+another artist, dead three weeks ago.  They had brought the mites
+to us because they thought "John Grier" sounded solid and
+respectable, and not like a public institution.  It had never
+entered their unbusinesslike heads that any formality is
+necessary about placing a child in an asylum.
+
+I explained that we were full, but they seemed so stranded
+and aghast, that I told them to sit down while I advised them
+what to do.  So the chicks were sent to the nursery, with a
+recommendation of bread and milk, while I listened to their
+history.  Those artists had a fatally literary touch, or maybe it
+was just the sound of the baby girl's laugh, but, anyway, before
+they had finished, the babes were ours.
+
+Never have I seen a sunnier creature than the little Allegra
+(we don't often get such fancy names or such fancy children). 
+She is three years old, is lisping funny baby talk and bubbling
+with laughter.  The tragedy she has just emerged from has never
+touched her.  But Don and Clifford, sturdy little lads of five
+and seven, are already solemn-eyed and frightened at the hardness
+of life.
+
+Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who married an artist
+on a capital of enthusiasm and a few tubes of paint.  His friends
+say that he had talent, but of course he had to throw it away to
+pay the milkman.  They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety
+old studio, cooking behind screens, the babies sleeping on
+shelves.
+
+But there seems to have been a very happy side to it--a great
+deal of love and many friends, all more or less poor, but
+artistic and congenial and high-thinking.  The little lads, in
+their gentleness and fineness, show that phase of their
+upbringing.  They have an air which many of my children, despite
+all the good manners I can pour into them, will forever lack.
+
+The mother died in the hospital a few days after Allegra's
+birth, and the father struggled on for two years, caring for his
+brood and painting like mad--advertisements, anything--to keep a
+roof over their heads.
+
+He died in St. Vincent's three weeks ago,--overwork, worry,
+pneumonia.  His friends rallied about the babies, sold such of
+the studio fittings as had escaped pawning, paid off the debts,
+and looked about for the best asylum they could find.  And,
+Heaven save them! they hit upon us!
+
+Well, I kept the two artists for luncheon,--nice creatures
+in soft hats and Windsor ties, and looking pretty frayed
+themselves,--and then started them back to New York with the
+promise that I would give the little family my most parental
+attention.
+
+So here they are, one little mite in the nursery, two in the
+kindergarten room, four big packing cases full of canvases in the
+cellar, and a trunk in the store room with the letters of their
+father and mother.  And a look in their faces, an intangible
+spiritual SOMETHING, that is their heritage.
+
+I can't get them out of my mind.  All night long I was
+planning their future.  The boys are easy.  They have already
+been graduated from college, Mr. Pendleton assisting, and are
+pursuing honorable business careers.  But Allegra I don't know
+about; I can't think what to wish for the child.  Of course the
+normal thing to wish for any sweet little girl is that two kind
+foster parents will come along to take the place of the real
+parents that Fate has robbed her of.  But in this case it would
+be cruel to steal her away from her brothers.  Their love for the
+baby is pitiful.  You see, they have brought her up.  The only
+time I ever hear them laugh is when she has done something funny.
+
+The poor little fellows miss their father horribly.  I found Don,
+the five-year-old one, sobbing in his crib last night because he
+couldn't say good night to "daddy."
+
+But Allegra is true to her name, the happiest young miss of
+three I have ever seen.  The poor father managed well by her, and
+she, little ingrate, has already forgotten that she has lost him.
+
+Whatever can I do with these little ones?  I think and think
+and think about them.  I can't place them out, and it does seem
+too awful to bring them up here; for as good as we are going to
+be when we get ourselves made over, still, after all, we are an
+institution, and our inmates are just little incubator chicks. 
+They don't get the individual, fussy care that only an old hen
+can give.
+
+There is a lot of interesting news that I might have been
+telling you, but my new little family has driven everything out
+of my mind.
+
+Bairns are certain joy, but nae sma' care.
+
+                                       Yours ever,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+P.S.  Don't forget that you are coming to visit me next week.
+
+P.S. II.  The doctor, who is ordinarily so scientific and
+unsentimental, has fallen in love with Allegra.  He didn't so
+much as glance at her tonsils; he simply picked her up in his
+arms and hugged her.  Oh, she is a little witch!  Whatever is to
+become of her?
+
+
+
+                                                       June 22.
+My dear Judy:
+
+I may report that you need no longer worry as to our inadequate
+fire protection.  The doctor and Mr. Witherspoon have been giving
+the matter their gravest attention, and no game yet devised has
+proved so entertaining and destructive as our fire drill.
+
+The children all retire to their beds and plunge into alert
+slumber.  Fire alarm sounds.  They spring up and into their
+shoes, snatch the top blanket from their beds, wrap it around
+their imaginary nightclothes, fall into line, and trot to the
+hall and stairs.
+
+Our seventeen little tots in the nursery are each in charge
+of an Indian, and are bundled out, shrieking with delight.  The
+remaining Indians, so long as there is no danger of the roof
+falling, devote themselves to salvage.  On the occasion of our
+first drill, Percy in command, the contents of a dozen clothes
+lockers were dumped into sheets and hurled out of the windows.  I
+usurped dictatorship just in time to keep the pillows and
+mattresses from following.  We spent hours resorting those
+clothes, while Percy and the doctor, having lost all interest
+strolled up to the camp with their pipes.
+
+Our future drills are to be a touch less realistic.  However,
+I am pleased to tell you that, under the able direction of Fire
+Chief Witherspoon, we emptied the building in six minutes and
+twenty-eight seconds.
+
+That baby Allegra has fairy blood in her veins.  Never did
+this institution harbor such a child, barring one that Jervis and
+I know of.  She has completely subjugated the doctor.  Instead of
+going about his visits like a sober medical man, he comes down to
+my library hand in hand with Allegra, and for half an hour at a
+time crawls about on a rug, pretending he's a horse, while the
+bonnie wee lassie sits on his back and kicks.  You know, I am
+thinking of putting a card in the paper:
+
+               Characters neatly remodeled.
+                                       S. McBride.
+
+
+Sandy dropped in two nights ago to have a bit of conversation
+with Betsy and me, and he was FRIVOLOUS.  He made three jokes,
+and he sat down at the piano and sang some old Scotch, "My luve's
+like a red, red rose," and "Come under my plaidie," and "Wha's at
+the window?  Wha?  Wha?" not in the least educational, and then
+danced a few steps of the strathspey!
+
+I sat and beamed upon my handiwork, for it's true, I've done
+it all through my frivolous example and the books I've given him
+and the introducing of such lightsome companions as Jimmie and
+Percy and Gordon Hallock.  If I have a few more months in which
+to work, I shall get the man human.  He has given up purple ties,
+and at my tactful suggestion has adopted a suit of gray. 
+You have no idea how it sets him off.  He will be quite
+distinguished looking as soon as I can make him stop carrying
+bulgy things in his pockets.
+
+Good-by; and remember that we're expecting you on Friday.
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  Here is a picture of Allegra, taken by Mr. Witherspoon. 
+Isn't she a love?  Her present clothes do not enhance her beauty,
+but in the course of a few weeks she will move into a pink
+smocked frock.
+
+                               Wednesday, June 24, 10 A.M.
+MRS. JERVIS PENDLETON.
+
+Madam:
+
+Your letter is at hand, stating that you cannot visit me on
+Friday per promise, because your husband has business that keeps
+him in town.  What clishmaclaver is this!  Has it come to such a
+pass that you can't leave him for two days?
+
+I did not let 113 babies interfere with my visit to you, and
+I see no reason why you should let one husband interfere with
+your visit to me.  I shall meet the Berkshire express on Friday
+as agreed.
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                                       June 30.
+My dear Judy:
+
+That was a very flying visit you paid us; but for all small
+favors we are grateful.  I am awfully pleased that you were so
+delighted with the way things are going, and I can't wait for
+Jervis and the architect to get up here and really begin a
+fundamental ripping-up.
+
+You know, I had the queerest feeling all the time that you
+were here.  I can't make it seem true that you, my dear,
+wonderful Judy, were actually brought up in this institution, and
+know from the bitter inside what these little tots need. 
+Sometimes the tragedy of your childhood fills me with an anger
+that makes me want to roll up my sleeves and fight the whole
+world and force it into making itself over into a place more fit
+for children to live in.  That Scotch-Irish ancestry of mine
+seems to have deposited a tremendous amount of FIGHT in my
+character.
+
+If you had started me with a modern asylum, equipped with
+nice, clean, hygienic cottages and everything in running order, I
+couldn't have stood the monotony of its perfect clockwork.  It's
+the sight of so many things crying to be done that makes it
+possible for me to stay.  Sometimes, I must confess, I wake up in
+the morning and listen to these institution noises, and sniff
+this institution air, and long for the happy, carefree life that
+by rights is mine.
+
+You my dear witch, cast a spell over me, and I came.  But
+often in the night watches your spell wears thin, and I start the
+day with the burning decision to run away from the John Grier
+Home.  But I postpone starting until after breakfast.  And as I
+issue into the corridor, one of these pathetic tots runs to meet
+me, and shyly slips a warm, crumpled little fist into my hand,
+and looks up with wide baby eyes, mutely asking for a little
+petting, and I snatch him up and hug him.  And then, as I look
+over his shoulder at the other forlorn little mites, I long to
+take all 113 into my arms and love them into happiness.  There is
+something hypnotic about this working with children.  Struggle as
+you may, it gets you in the end.
+
+Your visit seems to have left me in a broadly philosophical
+frame of mind; but I really have one or two bits of news that I
+might convey.  The new frocks are marching along, and, oh, but
+they are going to be sweet!  Mrs. Livermore was entranced
+with those parti-colored bales of cotton cloth you sent,--you
+should see our workroom, with it all scattered about,--and when I
+think of sixty little girls, attired in pink and blue and yellow
+and lavender, romping upon our lawn of a sunny day, I feel that
+we should have a supply of smoked eye glasses to offer visitors. 
+Of course you know that some of those brilliant fabrics are going
+to be very fadeable and impractical.  But Mrs. Livermore is as
+bad as you--she doesn't give a hang.  She'll make a second and a
+third set if necessary.  DOWN WITH CHECKED GINGHAM!
+
+I am glad you liked our doctor.  Of course we reserve the
+right to say anything about him we choose, but our feelings would
+be awfully hurt if anybody else should make fun of him.
+
+He and I are still superintending each other's reading.  Last
+week he appeared with Herbert Spencer's "System of Synthetic
+Philosophy" for me to glance at.  I gratefully accepted it, and
+gave him in return the "Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff."  Do you
+remember in college how we used to enrich our daily speech with
+quotations from Marie?  Well, Sandy took her home and read her
+painstakingly and thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes," he acknowledged today when he came to report, "it is a
+truthful record of a certain kind of morbid, egotistical
+personality that unfortunately does exist.  But I can't
+understand why you care to read it; for, thank God!  Sally Lunn,
+you and Bash haven't anything in common."
+
+That's the nearest to a compliment he ever came, and I feel
+extremely flattered.  As to poor Marie, he refers to her as
+"Bash" because he can't pronounce her name, and is too disdainful
+to try.
+
+We have a child here, the daughter of a chorus girl, and she
+is a conceited, selfish, vain, posing, morbid, lying little minx,
+but she has eyelashes!  Sandy has taken the most violent dislike
+to that child.  And since reading poor Marie's diary, he has
+found a new comprehensive adjective for summing up all of
+her distressing qualities.  He calls her BASHY, and dismisses
+her.
+
+Good-by and come again.
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  My children show a distressing tendency to draw out their
+entire bank accounts to buy candy.
+
+
+
+                                               Tuesday night.
+My dear Judy:
+
+What do you think Sandy has done now?  He has gone off on a
+pleasure trip to that psychopathic institution whose head
+alienist visited us a month or so ago.  Did you ever know
+anything like the man?  He is fascinated by insane people, and
+can't let them alone.
+
+When I asked for some parting medical instructions, he
+replied:
+
+"Feed a cowld and hunger a colic and put nae faith in
+doctors."
+
+With that advice, and a few bottles of cod-liver oil we are
+left to our own devices.  I feel very free and adventurous. 
+Perhaps you had better run up here again, as there's no telling
+what joyous upheaval I may accomplish when out from under Sandy's
+dampening influence.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       Friday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+Here I stay lashed to the mast, while you run about the country
+disporting yourself with insane people.  And just as I was
+thinking that I had nicely cured you of this morbid predilection
+for psychopathic institutions!  It's very disappointing.  You had
+seemed almost human of late.
+
+May I ask how long you are intending to stay?  You had
+permission to go for two days, and you've already been away four.
+
+Charlie Martin fell out of a cherry tree yesterday and cut his
+head open, and we were driven to calling in a foreign doctor. 
+Five stitches.  Patient doing well.  But we don't like to depend
+on strangers.  I wouldn't say a word if you were away on
+legitimate business, but you know very well that, after
+associating with melancholics for a week, you will come back home
+in a dreadful state of gloom, dead sure that humanity is going to
+the dogs; and upon me will fall the burden of getting you
+decently cheerful again.
+
+Do leave those insane people to their delusions, and come
+back to the John Grier Home, which needs you.
+
+               I am most fervent'
+               Your friend and servant,
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+P.S.  Don't you admire that poetical ending?  It was borrowed
+from Robert Burns, whose works I am reading assiduously as a
+compliment to a Scotch friend.
+
+
+                                                       July 6.
+Dear Judy:
+
+That doctor man is still away.  No word; just disappeared into
+space.  I don't know whether he is ever coming back or not, but
+we seem to be running very happily without him.
+
+I lunched yesterday CHEZ the two kind ladies who have taken
+our Punch to their hearts.  The young man seems to be very much
+at home.  He took me by the hand, and did the honors of the
+garden, presenting me with the bluebell of my choice.  At
+luncheon the English butler lifted him into his chair and tied on
+his bib with as much manner as though he were serving a prince of
+the blood.  The butler has lately come from the household of the
+Earl of Durham, Punch from a cellar in Houston Street.  It was a
+very uplifting spectacle.
+
+My hostesses entertained me afterward with excerpts from
+their table conversations of the last two weeks.  (I wonder the
+butler hasn't given notice; he looked like a respectable man.) 
+If nothing more comes of it, at least Punch has furnished them
+with funny stories for the rest of their lives.  One of them is
+even thinking of writing a book.  "At least," says she, wiping
+hysterical tears from her eyes, "we have lived!"
+
+The Hon. Cy dropped in at 6:30 last night, and found me in an
+evening gown, starting for a dinner at Mrs. Livermore's house. 
+He mildly observed that Mrs. Lippett did not aspire to be a
+society leader, but saved her energy for her work.  You know I'm
+not vindictive, but I never look at that man without wishing he
+were at the bottom of the duck pond, securely anchored to a rock.
+
+Otherwise he'd pop up and float.
+
+Singapore respectfully salutes you, and is very glad that you
+can't see him as he now appears.  A shocking calamity has
+befallen his good looks.  Some bad child--and I don't think she's
+a boy--has clipped that poor beastie in spots, until he looks
+like a mangy, moth-eaten checkerboard.  No one can imagine who
+did it.  Sadie Kate is very handy with the scissors, but she is
+also handy with an alibi!  During the time when the clipping
+presumably occurred, she was occupying a stool in the corner of
+the schoolroom with her face to the wall, as twenty-eight
+children can testify.  However, it has become Sadie Kate's daily
+duty to treat those spots with your hair tonic.
+
+                                   I am, as usual,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  This is a recent portrait of the Hon. Cy drawn from life. 
+The man, in some respects, is a fascinating talker; he makes
+gestures with his nose.
+
+
+                                           Thursday evening.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Sandy is back after a ten-days' absence,--no explanations,--and
+plunged deep into gloom.  He resents our amiable efforts to cheer
+him up, and will have nothing to do with any of us except baby
+Allegra.  He took her to his house for supper tonight and never
+brought her back until half-past seven, a scandalous hour for a
+young miss of three.  I don't know what to make of our doctor; he
+grows more incomprehensible every day.
+
+But Percy, now, is an open-minded, confiding young man.  He
+has just been making a dinner call (he is very punctilious
+in all social matters), and our entire conversation was devoted
+to the girl in Detroit.  He is lonely and likes to talk about
+her; and the wonderful things he says!  I hope that Miss Detroit
+is worthy of all this fine affection, but I'm afraid.  He fetched
+out a leather case from the innermost recesses of his waistcoat
+and, reverently unwrapping two layers of tissue-paper, showed me
+the photograph of a silly little thing, all eyes and earrings and
+fuzzy hair.  I did my best to appear congratulatory, but my heart
+shut up out of pity for the poor boy's future.
+
+Isn't it funny how the nicest men often choose the worst
+wives, and the nicest women the worst husbands?  Their very
+niceness, I suppose, makes them blind and unsuspicious.
+
+You know, the most interesting pursuit in the world is
+studying character.  I believe I was meant to be a novelist;
+people fascinate me--until I know them thoroughly.  Percy and the
+doctor form a most engaging contrast.  You always know at any
+moment what that nice young man is thinking about; he is written
+like a primer in big type and one-syllable words.  But the
+doctor!  He might as well be written in Chinese so far as
+legibility goes.  You have heard of people with a dual nature;
+well, Sandy possesses a triple one.  Usually he's scientific and
+as hard as granite, but occasionally I suspect him of being quite
+a sentimental person underneath his official casing.  For days at
+a time he will be patient and kind and helpful, and I begin to
+like him; then without any warning an untamed wild man swells up
+from the innermost depths, and--oh, dear! the creature's
+impossible.
+
+I always suspect that sometime in the past he has suffered a
+terrible hurt, and that he is still brooding over the memory of
+it.  All the time he is talking you have the uncomfortable
+feeling that in the far back corners of his mind he is thinking
+something else.  But this may be merely my romantic
+interpretation of an uncommonly bad temper.  In any case, he's
+baffling.
+
+We have been waiting for a week for a fine windy afternoon,
+and this is it.  My children are enjoying "kite-day," a leaf
+taken from Japan.  All of the big-enough boys and most of the
+girls are spread over "Knowltop" (that high, rocky sheep pasture
+which joins us on the east) flying kites made by themselves.
+
+I had a dreadful time coaxing the crusty old gentleman who
+owns the estate into granting permission.  He doesn't like
+orphans, he says, and if he once lets them get a start in his
+grounds, the place will be infested with them forever.  You would
+think, to hear him talk, that orphans were a pernicious kind of
+beetle.
+
+But after half an hour's persuasive talking on my part, he
+grudgingly made us free of his sheep pasture for two hours,
+provided we didn't step foot into the cow pasture over the lane,
+and came home promptly when our time was up.  To insure the
+sanctity of his cow pasture, Mr. Knowltop has sent his gardener
+and chauffeur and two grooms to patrol its boundaries while the
+flying is on.  The children are still at it, and are having a
+wonderful adventure racing over that windy height and getting
+tangled up in one another's strings.  When they come panting back
+they are to have a surprise in the shape of ginger cookies and
+lemonade.
+
+These pitiful little youngsters with their old faces!  It's a
+difficult task to make them young, but I believe I'm
+accomplishing it.  And it really is fun to feel you're doing
+something positive for the good of the world.  If I don't fight
+hard against it, you'll be accomplishing your purpose of turning
+me into a useful person.  The social excitements of Worcester
+almost seem tame before the engrossing interest of 113 live,
+warm, wriggling little orphans.
+
+                                   Yours with love,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  I believe, to be accurate, that it's 107 children I possess
+this afternoon.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+This being Sunday and a beautiful blossoming day, with a warm
+wind blowing, I sat at my window with the "Hygiene of the Nervous
+System" (Sandy's latest contribution to my mental needs) open in
+my lap, and my eyes on the prospect without.  "Thank Heaven!"
+thought I, "that this institution was so commandingly placed that
+at least we can look out over the cast-iron wall which shuts us
+in."
+
+I was feeling very cooped-up and imprisoned and like an
+orphan myself; so I decided that my own nervous system required
+fresh air and exercise and adventure.  Straight before me ran
+that white ribbon of road that dips into the valley and up over
+the hills on the other side.  Ever since I came I have longed to
+follow it to the top and find out what lies beyond those hills. 
+Poor Judy!  I dare say that very same longing enveloped your
+childhood.  If any one of my little chicks ever stands by the
+window and looks across the valley to the hills and asks, "What's
+over there?"  I shall telephone for a motor car.
+
+But today my chicks were all piously engaged with their
+little souls, I the only wanderer at heart.  I changed my silken
+Sunday gown for homespun, planning meanwhile a means to get to
+the top of those hills.
+
+Then I went to the telephone and brazenly called up 505.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mrs. McGurk," said I, very sweet.  "May I be
+speaking with Dr. MacRae?"
+
+"Howld the wire," said she, very short.
+
+"Afternoon, Doctor," said I to him.  "Have ye, by chance, any
+dying patients who live on the top o' the hills beyant?"
+
+"I have not, thank the Lord!"
+
+"'Tis a pity," said I, disappointed.  "And what are ye afther
+doin' with yerself the day?"
+
+"I am reading the `Origin of Species.'"
+
+"Shut it up; it's not fit for Sunday.  And tell me now, is
+yer motor car iled and ready to go?"
+
+"It is at your disposal.  Are you wanting me to take some
+orphans for a ride?"
+
+"Just one who's sufferin' from a nervous system.  She's taken
+a fixed idea that she must get to the top o' the hills."
+
+"My car is a grand climber.  In fifteen minutes--"
+
+"Wait!" said I.  "Bring with ye a frying pan that's a decent
+size for two.  There's nothing in my kitchen smaller than a cart
+wheel.  And ask Mrs. McGurk can ye stay out for supper."
+
+So I packed in a basket a jar of bacon and some eggs and
+muffins and ginger cookies, with hot coffee in the thermos
+bottle, and was waiting on the steps when Sandy chugged up with
+his automobile and frying pan.
+
+We really had a beautiful adventure, and he enjoyed the
+sensation of running away exactly as much as I.  Not once did I
+let him mention insanity.  I made him look at the wide stretches
+of meadow and the lines of pollard willows backed by billowing
+hills, and sniff the air, and listen to the cawing crows and the
+tinkle of cowbells and the gurgling of the river.  And we
+talked--oh, about a million things far removed from our asylum. 
+I made him throw away the idea that he is a scientist, and
+pretend to be a boy.  You will scarcely credit the assertion, but
+he succeeded--more or less.  He did pull off one or two really
+boyish pranks.  Sandy is not yet out of his thirties and, mercy!
+that is too early to be grown up.
+
+We camped on a bluff overlooking our view, gathered some
+driftwood, built a fire, and cooked the NICEST supper--a
+sprinkling of burnt stick in our fried eggs, but charcoal's
+healthy.  Then, when Sandy had finished his pipe and "the sun
+was setting in its wonted west," we packed up and coasted
+back home.
+
+He says it was the nicest afternoon he has had in years, and,
+poor deluded man of science, I actually believe it's true.  His
+olive green home is so uncomfortable and dreary and uninspiring
+that I don't wonder he drowns his troubles in books.  Just as
+soon as I can find a nice comfortable house mother to put in
+charge, I am going to plot for the dismissal of Maggie McGurk,
+though I foresee that she will be even harder than Sterry to pry
+from her moorings.
+
+Please don't draw the conclusion that I am becoming unduly
+interested in our bad-tempered doctor, for I'm not.  It's just
+that he leads such a comfortless life that I sometimes long to
+pat him on the head and tell him to cheer up; the world's full of
+sunshine, and some of it's for him--just as I long to comfort my
+hundred and seven orphans; so much and no more.
+
+I am sure that I had some real news to tell you, but it has
+completely gone out of my head.  The rush of fresh air has made
+me sleepy.  It's half-past nine, and I bid you good night.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+P.S.  Gordon Hallock has evaporated into thin air.  Not a word
+for three weeks; no candy or stuffed animals or tokimentoes of
+any description.  What on earth do you suppose has become of that
+attentive young man?
+
+
+                                                       July 13.
+Dearest Judy:
+
+Hark to the glad tidings!
+
+This being the thirty-first day of Punch's month, I
+telephoned to his two patronesses, as nominated in the bond, to
+arrange for his return.  I was met by an indignant refusal.  Give
+up their sweet little volcano just as they are getting it trained
+not to belch forth fire?  They are outraged that I can make such
+an ungrateful request.  Punch has accepted their invitation to
+spend the summer.
+
+The dressmaking is still going on.  You should hear the
+machines whir and the tongues clatter in the sewing room.  Our
+most cowed, apathetic, spiritless little orphan cheers up and
+takes an interest in life when she hears that she is to possess
+three perfectly private dresses of her own, and each a different
+color, chosen by herself.  And you should see how it encourages
+their sewing ability.  Even the little ten-year-olds are bursting
+into seamstresses.  I wish I could devise an equally effective
+way to make them take an interest in cooking.  But our kitchen is
+extremely uneducative.  You know how hampering it is to one's
+enthusiasm to have to prepare a bushel of potatoes at
+once.
+
+I think you've heard me mention the fact that I should like
+to divide up my kiddies into ten nice little families, with a
+nice comfortable house mother over each?  If we just had ten
+picturesque cottages to put them in, with flowers in the front
+yard and rabbits and kittens and puppies and chickens in the
+back, we should be a perfectly presentable institution, and
+wouldn't be ashamed to have these charity experts come visiting
+us.
+
+
+                                                   Thursday.
+
+
+I started this letter three days ago, was interrupted to talk
+to a potential philanthropist (fifty tickets to the circus), and
+have not had time to pick up my pen since.  Betsy has been in
+Philadelphia for three days, being a bridesmaid for a miserable
+cousin.  I hope that no more of her family are thinking of
+getting married, for it's most upsetting to the J. G. H.
+
+While there, she investigated a family who had applied for a
+child.  Of course we haven't a proper investigating plant, but
+once in a while, when a family drops right into our arms, we do
+like to put the business through.  As a usual thing, we work with
+the State Charities' Aid Association.  They have a lot of trained
+agents traveling about the State, keeping in touch with families
+who are willing to take children, and with asylums that have them
+to give.  Since they are willing to work for us, there is no
+slightest use in our going to the expense of peddling our own
+babies.  And I do want to place out as many as are available, for
+I firmly believe that a private home is the best thing for the
+child, provided, of course, that we are very fussy about the
+character of the homes we choose.  I don't require rich foster
+parents, but I do require kind, loving, intelligent parents. 
+This time I think Betsy has landed a gem of a family.  The child
+is not yet delivered or the papers signed, and of course there is
+always danger that they may give a sudden flop, and splash back
+into the water.
+
+Ask Jervis if he ever heard of J. F. Bretland of
+Philadelphia.  He seems to move in financial circles.  The first
+I ever heard of him was a letter addressed to the "Supt. John
+Grier Home, Dear Sir,"--a curt, typewritten, businesslike letter,
+from an AWFULLY businesslike lawyer, saying that his wife had
+determined to adopt a baby girl of attractive appearance and good
+health between the ages of two and three years.  The child
+must be an orphan of American stock, with unimpeachable
+heredity, and no relatives to interfere.  Could I furnish one as
+required and oblige, yours truly, J. F. Bretland?
+
+By way of reference he mentioned "Bradstreets."  Did you ever
+hear of anything so funny?  You would think he was opening a
+charge account at a nursery, and inclosing an order from our seed
+catalogue.
+
+We began our usual investigation by mailing a reference blank
+to a clergyman in Germantown, where the J. F. B.'s reside.
+
+Does he own any property?
+
+Does he pay his bills?
+
+Is he kind to animals?
+
+Does he attend church?
+
+Does he quarrel with his wife?  And a dozen other impertinent
+questions.
+
+We evidently picked a clergyman with a sense of humor. 
+Instead of answering in laborious detail, he wrote up and down
+and across the sheet, "I wish they'd adopt me!"
+
+This looked promising, so B. Kindred obligingly dashed out to
+Germantown as soon as the wedding breakfast was over.  She is
+developing the most phenomenal detective instinct.  In the course
+of a social call she can absorb from the chairs and tables a
+family's entire moral history.
+
+She returned from Germantown bursting with enthusiastic
+details.
+
+Mr. J. F. Bretland is a wealthy and influential citizen,
+cordially loved by his friends and deeply hated by his enemies
+(discharged employees, who do not hesitate to say that he is a
+HAR-RD man).  He is a little shaky in his attendance at church,
+but his wife seems regular, and he gives money.
+
+She is a charming, kindly, cultivated gentlewoman, just out
+of a sanatorium after a year of nervous prostration.  The
+doctor says that what she needs is some strong interest in
+life, and advises adopting a child.  She has always longed to do
+it, but her hard husband has stubbornly refused.  But finally, as
+always, it is the gentle, persistent wife who has triumphed, and
+hard husband has been forced to give in.  Waiving his own natural
+preference for a boy, he wrote, as above, the usual request for a
+blue-eyed girl.
+
+Mrs. Bretland, with the firm intention of taking a child, has
+been reading up for years, and there is no detail of infant
+dietetics that she does not know.  She has a sunny nursery, with
+a southwestern exposure, all ready.  And a closet full of
+surreptitiously gathered dolls!  She has made the clothes for
+them herself,--she showed them to Betsy with the greatest
+pride,--so you can understand the necessity for a girl.
+
+She has just heard of an excellent English trained nurse that
+she can secure, but she isn't sure but that it would be better to
+start with a French nurse, so that the child can learn the
+language before her vocal cords are set.  Also, she was extremely
+interested when she heard that Betsy was a college woman.  She
+couldn't make up her mind whether to send the baby to college or
+not.  What was Betsy's honest opinion?  If the child were Betsy's
+own daughter, would Betsy send her to college?
+
+All this would be funny if it weren't so pathetic; but really
+I can't get away from the picture of that poor lonely woman
+sewing those doll clothes for the little unknown girl that she
+wasn't sure she could have.  She lost her own two babies years
+ago, or, rather, she never had them; they were never alive.
+
+You can see what a good home it's going to be.  There's lots
+of love waiting for the little mite, and that is better than all
+the wealth which, in this case, goes along.
+
+But the problem now is to find the child, and that isn't
+easy.  The J. F. Bretlands are so abominably explicit in their
+requirements.  I have just the baby boy to give them; but with
+that closetful of dolls, he is impossible.  Little Florence
+won't do--one tenacious parent living.  I've a wide variety of
+foreigners with liquid brown eyes--won't do at all.  Mrs.
+Bretland is a blonde, and daughter must resemble her.  I have
+several sweet little mites with unspeakable heredity, but the
+Bretlands want six generations of church-attending grandparents,
+with a colonial governor at the top.  Also I have a darling
+little curly-headed girl (and curls are getting rarer and rarer),
+but illegitimate.  And that seems to be an unsurmountable barrier
+in the eyes of adopting parents, though, as a matter of fact, it
+makes no slightest difference in the child.  However, she won't
+do.  The Bretlands hold out sternly for a marriage certificate.
+
+There remains just one child out of all these one hundred and
+seven that appears available.  Our little Sophie's father and
+mother were killed in a railroad accident, and the only reason
+she wasn't killed was because they had just left her in a
+hospital to get an abscess cut out of her throat.  She comes from
+good common American stock, irreproachable and uninteresting in
+every way.  She's a washed-out, spiritless, whiney little thing. 
+The doctor has been pouring her full of his favorite cod-liver
+oil and spinach, but he can't get any cheerfulness into her.
+
+However, individual love and care does accomplish wonders in
+institution children, and she may bloom into something rare and
+beautiful after a few months' transplanting.  So I yesterday
+wrote a glowing account of her immaculate family history to
+J. F. Bretland, offering to deliver her in Germantown.
+
+This morning I received a telegram from J. F. B.  Not at all! 
+He does not purpose to buy any daughter sight unseen.  He will
+come and inspect the child in person at three o'clock on
+Wednesday next.
+
+Oh dear, if he shouldn't like her!  We are now bending all
+our energies toward enhancing that child's beauty-like a pup
+bound for the dog show.  Do you think it would be awfully
+immoral if I rouged her cheeks a suspicion?  She is too young to
+pick up the habit.
+
+Heavens! what a letter!  A million pages written without a
+break.  You can see where my heart is.  I'm as excited over
+little Sophie's settling in life as though she were my own
+darling daughter.
+
+Respectful regards to the president.
+
+                                               SAL. McB.
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+That was an obnoxious, beastly, low-down trick not to send me a
+cheering line for four weeks just because, in a period of
+abnormal stress I once let you go for three.  I had really begun
+to be worried for fear you'd tumbled into the Potomac.  My chicks
+would miss you dreadfully; they love their uncle Gordon.  Please
+remember that you promised to send them a donkey.
+
+Please also remember that I'm a busier person than you. it's
+a lot harder to run the John Grier Home than the House of
+Representatives.  Besides, you have more efficient people to
+help.
+
+This isn't a letter; it's an indignant remonstrance.  I'll
+write tomorrow--or the next day.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+P.S.  On reading your letter over again I am slightly mollified,
+but dinna think I believe a' your saft words.  I ken weel ye only
+flatter when ye speak sae fair.
+
+
+                                                       July 17.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I have a history to recount.
+
+This, please remember, is Wednesday next.  So at half-past
+two o'clock our little Sophie was bathed and brushed and clothed
+in fine linen, and put in charge of a trusty orphan, with anxious
+instructions to keep her clean.
+
+At three-thirty to the minute--never have I known a human
+being so disconcertingly businesslike as J. F. Bretland--an
+automobile of expensive foreign design rolled up to the steps of
+this imposing chateau.  A square-shouldered, square-jawed
+personage, with a chopped-off mustache and a manner that inclines
+one to hurry, presented himself three minutes later at my library
+door.  He greeted me briskly as "Miss McKosh."  I gently
+corrected him, and he changed to "Miss McKim."  I indicated my
+most soothing armchair, and invited him to take some light
+refreshment after his journey.  He accepted a glass of water (I
+admire a temperate parent), and evinced an impatient desire to be
+done with the business.  So I rang the bell and ordered the
+little Sophie to be brought down.
+
+"Hold on, Miss McGee!" said he to me.  "I'd rather see her in
+her own environment.  I will go with you to the playroom or
+corral or wherever you keep your youngsters."
+
+So I led him to the nursery, where thirteen or fourteen mites
+in gingham rompers were tumbling about on mattresses on the
+floor.  Sophie, alone in the glory of feminine petticoats, was
+ensconced in the blue-ginghamed arms of a very bored orphan.  She
+was squirming and fighting to get down, and her feminine
+petticoats were tightly wound about her neck.  I took her in my
+arms, smoothed her clothes, wiped her nose, and invited her to
+look at the gentleman.
+
+That child's whole future hung upon five minutes of
+sunniness, and instead of a single smile, she WHINED!
+
+Mr. Bretland shook her hand in a very gingerly fashion and
+chirruped to her as you might to a pup.  Sophie took not the
+slightest notice of him, but turned her back, and buried her face
+in my neck.  He shrugged his shoulders, supposed that they could
+take her on trial.  She might suit his wife; he himself didn't
+want one, anyway.  And we turned to go out.
+
+Then who should come toddling straight across his path but
+that little sunbeam Allegra!  Exactly in front of him she
+staggered, threw her arms about like a windmill, and plumped down
+on all fours.  He hopped aside with great agility to avoid
+stepping on her, and then picked her up and set her on her feet. 
+She clasped her arms about his leg, and looked up at him with a
+gurgling laugh.
+
+"Daddy!  Frow baby up!"
+
+He is the first man, barring the doctor, whom the child has
+seen for weeks, and evidently he resembles somewhat her almost
+forgotten father.
+
+J. F. Bretland picked her up and tossed her in the air as
+handily as though it were a daily occurrence, while she
+ecstatically shrieked her delight.  Then when he showed signs of
+lowering her, she grasped him by an ear and a nose, and drummed a
+tattoo on his stomach with both feet.  No one could ever accuse
+Allegra of lacking vitality!
+
+J. F. disentangled himself from her endearments, and emerged,
+rumpled as to hair, but with a firm-set jaw.  He set her on her
+feet, but retained her little doubled-up fist.
+
+"This is the kid for me," he said.  "I don't believe I need
+to look any further."
+
+I explained that we couldn't separate little Allegra from 
+her brothers; but the more I objected, the stubborner his
+jaw became.  We went back to the library, and argued about it for
+half an hour.
+
+He liked her heredity, he liked her looks, he liked her
+spirit, he liked HER.  If he was going to have a daughter foisted
+on him, he wanted one with some ginger.  He'd be hanged if he'd
+take that other whimpering little thing.  It wasn't natural.  But
+if I gave him Allegra, he would bring her up as his own child,
+and see that she was provided for for the rest of her life.  Did
+I have any right to cut her out from all that just for a lot of
+sentimental nonsense?  The family was already broken up; the best
+I could do for them now was to provide for them individually.
+"Take all three," said I, quite brazenly.
+
+But, no, he couldn't consider that; his wife was an invalid,
+and one child was all that she could manage.
+
+Well, I was in a dreadful quandary.  It seemed such a chance
+for the child, and yet it did seem so cruel to separate her from
+those two adoring little brothers.  I knew that if the Bretlands
+adopted her legally, they would do their best to break all ties
+with the past, and the child was still so tiny she would forget
+her brothers as quickly as she had her father.
+
+Then I thought about you, Judy, and of how bitter you have
+always been because, when that family wanted to adopt you, the
+asylum wouldn't let you go.  You have always said that you might
+have had a home, too, like other children, but that Mrs. Lippett
+stole it away from you.  Was I perhaps stealing little Allegra's
+home from her?  With the two boys it would be different; they
+could be educated and turned out to shift for themselves.  But to
+a girl a home like this would mean everything.  Ever since baby
+Allegra came to us, she has seemed to me just such another child
+as baby Judy must have been.  She has ability and spirit.  We
+must somehow furnish her with opportunity.  She, too, deserves
+her share of the world's beauty and good--as much as nature has
+fitted her to appreciate.  And could any asylum ever give
+her that?  I stood and thought and thought while Mr. Bretland
+impatiently paced the floor.
+
+"You have those boys down and let me talk to them," Mr.
+Bretland insisted.  "If they have a spark of generosity, they'll
+be glad to let her go."
+
+I sent for them, but my heart was a solid lump of lead.  They
+were still missing their father; it seemed merciless to snatch
+away that darling baby sister, too.
+
+They came hand in hand, sturdy, fine little chaps, and stood
+solemnly at attention, with big, wondering eyes fixed on the
+strange gentleman.
+
+"Come here, boys.  I want to talk to you."  He took each by a
+hand.  "In the house I live in we haven't any little baby, so my
+wife and I decided to come here, where there are so many babies
+without fathers and mothers, and take one home to be ours.  She
+will have a beautiful house to live in, and lots of toys to play
+with, and she will be happy all her life--much happier than she
+could ever be here.  I know that you will be very glad to hear
+that I have chosen your little sister."
+
+"And won't we ever see her any more?" asked Clifford.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes."
+
+Clifford looked from me to Mr. Bretland, and two big tears
+began rolling down his cheeks.  He jerked his hand away and came
+and hurled himself into my arms.
+
+"Don't let him have her!  Please!  Please!  Send him away!"
+
+"Take them all!" I begged.
+
+But he's a hard man.
+
+"I didn't come for an entire asylum," said he, shortly.
+
+By this time Don was sobbing on the other side.  And then who
+should inject himself into the hubbub but Dr. MacRae, with baby
+Allegra in his arms!
+
+I introduced them, and explained.  Mr. Bretland reached for
+the baby, and Sandy held her tight.
+
+"Quite impossible," said Sandy, shortly.  "Miss McBride
+will tell you that it's one of the rules of this institution
+never to separate a family."
+
+"Miss McBride has already decided," said J. F. B., stiffly. 
+"We have fully discussed the question."
+
+"You must be mistaken," said Sandy, becoming his Scotchest,
+and turning to me.  "You surely had no intention of performing
+any such cruelty as this?"
+
+Here was the decision of Solomon all over again, with two of
+the stubbornest men that the good Lord ever made wresting poor
+little Allegra limb from limb.
+
+I despatched the three chicks back to the nursery and
+returned to the fray.  We argued loud and hotly, until finally J.
+F. B. echoed my own frequent query of the last five months:  "Who
+is the head of this asylum, the superintendent or the visiting
+physician?"
+
+I was furious with the doctor for placing me in such a
+position before that man, but I couldn't quarrel with him in
+public; so I had ultimately to tell Mr. Bretland with finality
+and flatness, that Allegra was out of the question.  Would he not
+reconsider Sophie?
+
+No, he'd be darned if he'd reconsider Sophie.  Allegra or
+nobody.  He hoped that I realized that I had weakly allowed the
+child's entire future to be ruined.  And with that parting shot
+he backed to the door.  "Miss MacRae, Dr. McBride, good
+afternoon."  He achieved two formal bows and withdrew.
+
+And the moment the door closed Sandy and I fought it out.  He
+said that any person who claimed to have any modern, humane views
+on the subject of child-care ought to be ashamed to have
+considered for even a moment the question of breaking up such a
+family.  And I accused him of keeping her for the purely selfish
+reason that he was fond of the child and didn't wish to lose her.
+
+(And that, I believe, is the truth.)  Oh, we had the battle of
+our career, and he finally took himself off with a stiffness and
+politeness that excelled J. F. B.'s.
+
+Between the two of them I feel as limp as though I'd been run
+through our new mangling machine.  And then Betsy came home, and
+reviled me for throwing away the choicest family we have ever
+discovered!
+
+So this is the end of our week of feverish activity; and both
+Sophie and Allegra are, after all, to be institution children. 
+Oh dear! oh dear!  Please remove Sandy from the staff, and send
+me, instead, a German, a Frenchman, a Chinaman, if you choose--
+anything but a Scotchman.
+
+                                   Yours wearily,
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+P.S.  I dare say that Sandy is also passing a busy evening in
+writing to have me removed.  I won't object if you wish to do it.
+I am tired of institutions.
+
+
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You are a captious, caviling, carping, crabbed, contentious,
+cantankerous chap.  Hoot mon! an' why shouldna I drap into Scotch
+gin I choose?  An' I with a Mac in my name.
+
+Of course the John Grier will be delighted to welcome you on
+Thursday next, not only for the donkey, but for your sweet sunny
+presence as well.  I was planning to write you a mile-long letter
+to make up for past deficiencies, but wha's the use?  I'll be
+seeing you the morn's morn, an' unco gude will be the sight o'
+you for sair een.
+
+Dinna fash yoursel, Laddie, because o'my language.  My
+forebears were from the Hielands.
+
+                                               McBRIDE.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+All's well with the John Grier--except for a broken tooth, a
+sprained wrist, a badly scratched knee, and one case of pinkeye. 
+Betsy and I are being polite, but cool, toward the doctor.  The
+annoying thing is that he is rather cool, too.  And he seems to
+be under the impression that the drop in temperature is all on
+his side.  He goes about his business in a scientific, impersonal
+way, entirely courteous, but somewhat detached.
+
+However, the doctor is not disturbing us very extensively at
+present.  We are about to receive a visit from a far more
+fascinating person than Sandy.  The House of Representatives
+again rests from its labors, and Gordon enjoys a vacation, two
+days of which he is planning to spend at the Brantwood Inn.
+
+I am delighted to hear that you have had enough seaside, and
+are considering our neighborhood for the rest of the summer. 
+There are several spacious estates to be had within a few miles
+of the John Grier, and it will be a nice change for Jervis to
+come home only at week ends.  After a pleasantly occupied
+absence, you will each have some new ideas to add to the common
+stock.
+
+I can't add any further philosophy just now on the subject of
+married life, having to refresh my memory on the Monroe Doctrine
+and one or two other political topics.
+
+I am looking eagerly forward to August and three months with
+you.
+
+                                           As ever,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+It's very forgiving of me to invite you to dinner after that
+volcanic explosion of last week.  However, please come.  You
+remember our philanthropic friend, Mr. Hallock, who sent us the
+peanuts and goldfish and other indigestible trifles?  He will be
+with us tonight, so this is your chance to turn the stream of his
+benevolence into more hygienic channels.
+
+We dine at seven.
+
+                                       As ever,
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You should have lived in the days when each man inhabited a
+separate cave on a separate mountain.
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                               Friday, 6:30.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Gordon is here, and a reformed man so far as his attitude toward
+my asylum goes.  He has discovered the world-old truth that the
+way to a mother's heart is through praise of her children, and he
+had nothing but praise for all 107 of mine.  Even in the case of
+Loretta Higgins he found something pleasant to say.  He thinks it
+nice that she isn't cross-eyed.
+
+He went shopping with me in the village this afternoon, and
+was very helpful about picking out hair-ribbons for a couple of
+dozen little girls.  He begged to choose Sadie Kate's himself,
+and after many hesitations he hit upon orange satin for one braid
+and emerald green for the other.
+
+While we were immersed in this business I became aware of a
+neighboring customer, ostensibly engaged with hooks and eyes, but
+straining every ear to listen to our nonsense.
+
+She was so dressed up in a picture hat, a spotted veil, a
+feather boa, and a NOUVEAU ART parasol that I never dreamed she
+was any acquaintance of mine till I happened to catch her eye
+with a familiar malicious gleam in it.  She bowed stiffly, and
+disapprovingly; and I nodded back.  Mrs. Maggie McGurk in her
+company clothes!
+
+That is a pleasanter expression than she really has.  Her
+smile is due to a slip of the pen.
+
+Poor Mrs. McGurk can't understand any possible intellectual
+interest in a man.  She suspects me of wanting to marry every
+single one that I meet.  At first she thought I wanted to snatch
+away her doctor; but now, after seeing me with Gordon, she
+considers me a bigamous monster who wants them both.
+
+Good-by; some guests approach.
+
+
+                                                   11:30 P.M.
+
+
+I have just been giving a dinner for Gordon, with Betsy and
+Mrs. Livermore and Mr. Witherspoon as guests.  I graciously
+included the doctor, but he curtly declined on the ground that he
+wasn't in a social mood.  Our Sandy does not let politeness
+interfere with truth!
+
+There is no doubt about it, Gordon is the most presentable
+man that ever breathed.  He is so good looking and easy and
+gracious and witty, and his manners are so impeccable--Oh, he
+would make a wonderfully decorative husband!  But after all, I
+suppose you do live with a husband.  You don't just show him off
+at dinners and teas.
+
+He was exceptionally nice tonight.  Betsy and Mrs. Livermore
+both fell in love with him--and I just a trifle.  He entertained
+us with a speech in his best public manner, apropos of Java's
+welfare.  We have been having a dreadful time finding a sleeping
+place for that monkey, and Gordon proved with incontestable logic
+that, since he was presented to us by Jimmie, and Jimmie is
+Percy's friend, he should sleep with Percy.  Gordon is a natural
+talker, and an audience affects him like champagne.  He can argue
+with us much emotional earnestness on the subject of a monkey as
+on the greatest hero that ever bled for his country.
+
+I felt tears coming to my eyes when he described Java's
+loneliness as he watched out the night in our furnace cellar, and
+pictured his brothers at play in the far-off tropical jungle.
+
+A man who can talk like that has a future before him.  I
+haven't a doubt but that I shall be voting for him for President
+in another twenty years.
+
+We all had a beautiful time, and entirely forgot--for a space
+of three hours--that 107 orphans slumbered about us.  Much as I
+love the little dears, it is pleasant to get away from them once
+in a while.
+
+My guests left at ten, and it must be midnight by now.  (This
+is the eighth day, and my clock has stopped again; Jane forgets
+to wind it as regularly as Friday comes around.)  However, I know
+it's late; and as a woman, it's my duty to try for beauty sleep,
+especially with an eligible young suitor at hand.
+
+I'll finish tomorrow.  Good night.
+
+
+                                                   Saturday.
+
+
+Gordon spent this morning playing with my asylum and planning
+some intelligent presents to be sent later.  He thinks that three
+neatly painted totem poles would add to the attractiveness of our
+Indian camps.  He is also going to make us a present of three
+dozen pink rompers for the babies.  Pink is a color that is very
+popular with the superintendent of this asylum, who is deadly
+tired of blue!  Our generous friend is likewise amusing himself
+with the idea of a couple of donkeys and saddles and a little red
+cart.  Isn't it nice that Gordon's father provided for him so
+amply, and that he is such a charitably inclined young man?  He
+is at present lunching with Percy at the hotel, and, I trust,
+imbibing fresh ideas in the field of philanthropy.
+
+Perhaps you think I haven't enjoyed this interruption to the
+monotony of institution life!  You can say all you please, my
+dear Mrs. Pendleton, about how well I am managing your asylum,
+but, just the same, it isn't natural for me to be so stationary. 
+I very frequently need a change.  That is why Gordon, with his
+bubbling optimism and boyish spirits, is so exhilarating
+especially as a contrast to too much doctor.
+
+
+                                               Sunday morning.
+
+
+I must tell you the end of Gordon's visit.  His intention had
+been to leave at four, but in an evil moment I begged him to stay
+over till 9:30, and yesterday afternoon he and Singapore and I
+took a long 'cross-country walk, far out of sight of the towers
+of this asylum, and stopped at a pretty little roadside inn,
+where we had a satisfying supper of ham and eggs and
+cabbage.  Sing stuffed so disgracefully that he has been languid
+ever since.
+
+The walk and all was fun, and a very grateful change from
+this monotonous life I lead.  It would have kept me pleasant and
+contented for weeks if something most unpleasant hadn't happened
+later.  We had a beautiful, sunny, carefree afternoon, and I'm
+sorry to have had it spoiled.  We came back very unromantically
+in the trolley car, and reached the J. G. H. before nine, just in
+good time for him to run on to the station and catch his train. 
+So I didn't ask him to come in, but politely wished him a
+pleasant journey at the porte-cochere.
+
+A car was standing at the side of the drive, in the shadow of
+the house.  I recognized it, and thought the doctor was inside
+with Mr. Witherspoon.  (They frequently spend their evenings
+together in the laboratory.)  Well, Gordon, at the moment of
+parting, was seized with an unfortunate impulse to ask me to
+abandon the management of this asylum, and take over the
+management of a private house instead.
+
+Did you ever know anything like the man?  He had the whole
+afternoon and miles of empty meadow in which to discuss the
+question, but instead he must choose our door mat!
+
+I don't know just what I did say.  I tried to turn it off
+lightly and hurry him to his train.  But he refused to be turned
+off lightly.  He braced himself against a post and insisted upon
+arguing it out.  I knew that he was missing his train, and that
+every window in this institution was open.  A man never has the
+slightest thought of possible overhearers.  It is always the
+woman who thinks of convention.
+
+Being in a nervous twitter to get rid of him, I suppose I was
+pretty abrupt and tactless.  He began to get angry, and then by
+some unlucky chance his eye fell on that car.  He recognized it,
+too, and, being in a savage mood, he began making fun of the
+doctor.  "Old Goggle-eyes" he called him, and "Scatchy," and oh,
+the awfullest lot of unmannerly, silly things!
+
+I was assuring him with convincing earnestness that I didn't
+care a rap about the doctor, that I thought he was just as funny
+and impossible as he could be, when suddenly the doctor rose out
+of his car and walked up to us.
+
+I could have evaporated from the earth very comfortably at
+that moment!
+
+Sandy was quite clearly angry, as well he might be, after the
+things he'd heard, but he was entirely cold and collected. 
+Gordon was hot, and bursting with imaginary wrongs.  I was aghast
+at this perfectly foolish and unnecessary muddle that had
+suddenly arisen out of nothing.  Sandy apologized to me with
+unimpeachable politeness for inadvertently overhearing, and then
+turned to Gordon and stiffly invited him to get into his car and
+ride to the station.
+
+I begged him not to go.  I didn't wish to be the cause of any
+silly quarrel between them.  But without paying the slightest
+attention to me, they climbed into the car, and whirled away,
+leaving me placidly standing on the door mat.
+
+I came in and went to bed, and lay awake for hours, expecting
+to hear--I don't know what kind of explosion.  It is now eleven
+o'clock, and the doctor hasn't appeared.  I don't know how on
+earth I shall meet him when he does.  I fancy I shall hide in the
+clothes closet.
+
+Did you ever know anything as unnecessary and stupid as this
+whole situation?  I suppose now I've quarreled with Gordon,--and
+I positively don't know over what,--and of course my relations
+with the doctor are going to be terribly awkward.  I said horrid
+things about him,--you know the silly way I talk,--things I
+didn't mean in the least.
+
+I wish it were yesterday at this time.  I would make Gordon
+go at four.
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+
+                                               Sunday afternoon.
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+That was a horrid, stupid, silly business last night.  But by
+this time you must know me well enough to realize that I never
+mean the foolish things I say.  My tongue has no slightest
+connection with my brain; it just runs along by itself.  I must
+seem to you very ungrateful for all the help you have given me in
+this unaccustomed work and for the patience you have
+(occasionally) shown.
+
+I do appreciate the fact that I could never have run this
+asylum by myself without your responsible presence in the
+background.  And though once in a while, as you yourself must
+acknowledge, you have been pretty impatient and bad tempered and
+difficult, still I have never held it up against you, and I
+really didn't mean any of the ill-mannered things I said last
+night.  Please forgive me for being rude.  I should hate very
+much to lose your friendship.  And we are friends, are we not?  I
+like to think so.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+Dear Judy:
+
+I am sure I haven't an idea whether or not the doctor and I have
+made up our differences.  I sent him a polite note of apology,
+which he received in abysmal silence.  He didn't come near us
+until this afternoon, and he hasn't by the blink of an eyelash
+referred to our unfortunate contretemps.  We talked exclusively
+about an ichthyol salve that will remove eczema from a baby's
+scalp; then, Sadie Kate being present, the conversation turned to
+cats.  It seems that the doctor's Maltese cat has four
+kittens, and Sadie Kate will not be silenced until she has seen
+them.  Before I knew what was happening I found myself making an
+engagement to take her to see those miserable kittens at four
+o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
+
+Whereupon the doctor, with an indifferently polite bow, took
+himself off.  And that apparently is the end.
+
+Your Sunday note arrives, and I am delighted to hear that you
+have taken the house.  It will be beautiful having you for a
+neighbor for so long.  Our improvements ought to march along,
+with you and the president at our elbow.  But it does seem as
+though, you ought to get out here before August 7.  Are you sure
+that city air is good for you just now?  I have never known so
+devoted a wife.
+
+My respects to the president.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                                   July 22.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Please listen to this!
+
+At four o'clock I took Sadie Kate to the doctor's house to
+look at those cats.  But Freddy Howland just twenty minutes
+before had fallen downstairs, so the doctor was at the Howland
+house occupying himself with Freddy's collarbone.  He had left
+word for us to sit down and wait, that he would be back shortly.
+
+Mrs. McGurk ushered us into the library; and then, not to
+leave us alone, came in herself on a pretense of polishing the
+brass.  I don't know what she thought we'd do!  Run off with the
+pelican perhaps.
+
+I settled down to an article about the Chinese situation in
+the Century, and Sadie Kate roamed about at large examining
+everything she found, like a curious little mongoose.
+
+She commenced with his stuffed flamingo and wanted to know
+what made it so tall and what made it so red.  Did it always eat
+frogs, and had it hurt its other foot?  She ticks off questions
+with the steady persistency of an eight-day clock.
+
+I buried myself in my article and left Mrs. McGurk to deal
+with Sadie.  Finally, after she had worked half-way around the
+room, she came to a portrait of a little girl occupying a leather
+frame in the center of the doctor's writing desk--a child with a
+queer elf-like beauty, resembling very strangely our little
+Allegra.  This photograph might have been a portrait of Allegra
+grown five years older.  I had noticed the picture the night we
+took supper with the doctor, and had meant to ask which of his
+little patients she was.  Happily I didn't!
+
+"Who's that?" said Sadie Kate, pouncing upon it.
+
+"It's the docthor's little gurrl."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Shure, she's far away wit' her gran'ma."
+
+"Where'd he get her?"
+
+"His wife give her to him."
+
+I emerged from my book with electric suddenness.
+
+"His wife!" I cried.
+
+The next instant I was furious with myself for having spoken,
+but I was so completely taken off my guard.  Mrs. McGurk
+straightened up and became volubly conversational at once.
+
+"And didn't he never tell you about his wife?  She went
+insane six years ago.  It got so it weren't safe to keep her in
+the house, and he had to put her away.  It near killed him.  I
+never seen a lady more beautiful than her.  I guess he didn't so
+much as smile for a year.  It's funny he never told you nothing,
+and you such a friend!"
+
+"Naturally it's not a subject he cares to talk about," said I
+dryly, and I asked her what kind of brass polish she used.
+
+Sadie Kate and I went out to the garage and hunted up the
+kittens ourselves; and we mercifully got away before the doctor
+came back.
+
+But will you tell me what this means?  Didn't Jervis know he
+was married?  It's the queerest thing I ever heard.  I do think,
+as the McGurk suggests, that Sandy might casually have dropped
+the information that he had a wife in an insane asylum.
+
+But of course it must be a terrible tragedy and I suppose he
+can't bring himself to talk about it.  I see now why he's so
+morbid over the question of heredity--I dare say he fears for the
+little girl.  When I think of all the jokes I've made on the
+subject, I'm aghast at how I must have hurt him, and angry with
+myself and angry with him.
+
+I feel as though I never wanted to see the man again.  Mercy!
+did you ever know such a muddle as we are getting ourselves into?
+
+                                           Yours,
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  Tom McCoomb has pushed Mamie Prout into the box of mortar
+that the masons use.  She's parboiled.  I've sent for the doctor.
+
+
+                                                   July 24.
+My dear Madam:
+
+I have a shocking scandal to report about the superintendent of
+the John Grier Home.  Don't let it get into the newspapers,
+please.  I can picture the spicy details of the investigation
+prior to her removal by the "Cruelty."
+
+I was sitting in the sunshine by my open window this morning
+reading a sweet book on the Froebel theory of child
+culture--never lose your temper, always speak kindly to the
+little ones.  Though they may appear bad, they are not so in
+reality.  It is either that they are not feeling well or have
+nothing interesting to do.  Never punish; simply deflect their
+attention.  I was entertaining a very loving, uplifted attitude
+toward all this young life about me when my attention was
+attracted by a group of little boys beneath the window.
+
+"Aw--John--don't hurt it!"
+
+"Let it go!"
+
+"Kill it quick!"
+
+And above their remonstrances rose the agonized squealing of
+some animal in pain.  I dropped Froebel and, running downstairs,
+burst upon them from the side door.  They saw me coming, and
+scattered right and left, revealing Johnnie Cobden engaged in
+torturing a mouse.  I will spare you the grisly details.  I
+called to one of the boys to come and drown the creature quick! 
+John I seized by the collar; and dragged him squirming and
+kicking in at the kitchen door.  He is a big, hulking boy of
+thirteen, and he fought like a little tiger, holding on to posts
+and doorjambs as we passed.  Ordinarily I doubt if I could have
+handled him, but that one sixteenth Irish that I possess was all
+on top, and I was fighting mad.  We burst into the kitchen, and I
+hastily looked about for a means of chastisement.  The pancake
+turner was the first utensil that met my eyes.  I seized it and
+beat that child with all my strength, until I had reduced him to
+a cowering, whimpering mendicant for mercy, instead of the
+fighting little bully he had been four minutes before.
+
+And then who should suddenly burst into the midst of this
+explosion but Dr. MacRae!  His face was blank with astonishment. 
+He strode over and took the pancake turner out of my hand and set
+the boy on his feet.  Johnnie got behind him and clung!  I was so
+angry that I really couldn't talk.  It was all I could do not to
+cry.
+
+"Come, we will take him up to the office," was all the doctor
+said.  And we marched out, Johnnie keeping as far from me as
+possible and limping conspicuously.  We left him in the outer
+office, and went into my library and shut the door.
+
+"What in the world has the child done?" he asked.
+
+At that I simply laid my head down on the table and began to
+cry!  I was utterly exhausted both emotionally and physically. 
+It had taken all the strength I possessed to make the pancake
+turner effective.
+
+I sobbed out all the bloody details, and he told me not to
+think about it; the mouse was dead now.  Then he got me some
+water to drink, and told me to keep on crying till I was tired;
+it would do me good.  I am not sure that he didn't pat me on the
+head!  Anyway, it was his best professional manner.  I have
+watched him administer the same treatment a dozen times to
+hysterical orphans.  And this was the first time in a week that
+we had spoken beyond the formality of "good morning"!
+
+Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up
+and laugh, intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of
+handkerchief, we began a review of Johnnie's case.  The boy has a
+morbid heredity, and may be slightly defective, says Sandy.  We
+must deal with the fact as we would with any other disease.  Even
+normal boys are often cruel.  A child's moral sense is
+undeveloped at thirteen.
+
+Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot water and
+resume my dignity.  Which I did.  And we had Johnnie in.  He
+stood--by preference--through the entire interview.  The doctor
+talked to him, oh, so sensibly and kindly and humanely!  John put
+up the plea that the mouse was a pest and ought to be killed. 
+The doctor replied that the welfare of the human race demanded
+the sacrifice of many animals for its own good, not for revenge,
+but that the sacrifice must be carried out with the least
+possible hurt to the animal.  He explained about the mouse's
+nervous system, and how the poor little creature hadno means
+of defense.  It was a cowardly thing to hurt it wantonly.  He
+told John to try to develop imagination enough to look at things
+from the other person's point of view, even if the other person
+was only a mouse.  Then he went to the bookcase and took down my
+copy of Burns, and told the boy what a great poet he was, and how
+all Scotchmen loved his memory.
+
+"And this is what he wrote about a mouse," said Sandy,
+turning to the "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, timorous beastie," which
+he read and explained to the lad as only a Scotchman could.
+
+Johnnie departed penitent, and Sandy redirected his
+professional attention to me.  He said I was tired and in need of
+a change.  Why not go to the Adirondacks for a week?  He and
+Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon would make themselves into a committee
+to run the asylum.
+
+You know, that's exactly what I was longing to do!  I need a
+shifting of ideas and some pine-scented air.  My family opened
+the camp last week, and think I'm awful not to join them.  They
+won't understand that when you accept a position like this you
+can't casually toss it aside whenever you feel like it.  But for
+a few days I can easily manage.  My asylum is wound up like an
+eight-day clock, and will run until a week from next Monday at 4
+P.M., when my train will return me.  Then I shall be comfortably
+settled again before you arrive, and with no errant fancies in my
+brain.
+
+Meanwhile Master John is in a happily chastened frame of mind
+and body.  And I rather suspect that Sandy's moralizing had the
+more force because it was preceded by my pancake turner!  But one
+thing I know--Suzanne Estelle is terrified whenever I step into
+her kitchen.  I casually picked up the potato-masher this morning
+while I was commenting upon last night's over-salty soup, and she
+ran to cover behind the woodshed door.
+
+Tomorrow at nine I set out on my travels, after preparing the
+way with five telegrams.  And, oh! you can't imagine how I'm
+looking forward to being a gay, carefree young thing again--to
+canoeing on the lake and tramping in the woods and dancing at the
+clubhouse.  I was in a state of delirium all night long at the
+prospect.  Really, I hadn't realized how mortally tired I had
+become of all this asylum scenery.
+
+"What you need," said Sandy to me, "is to get away for a
+little and sow some wild oats."
+
+That diagnosis was positively clairvoyant.  I can't think of
+anything in the world I'd rather do than sow a few wild oats. 
+I'll come back with fresh energy, ready to welcome you and a busy
+summer.
+
+                                   As ever,
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  Jimmie and Gordon are both going to be up there.  How I
+wish you could join us!  A husband is very discommoding.
+
+
+                                           CAMP McBRIDE,
+
+                                                   July 29.
+Dear Judy:
+
+This is to tell you that the mountains are higher than usual, the
+woods greener, and the lake bluer.
+
+People seem late about coming up this year.  The Harrimans'
+camp is the only other one at our end of the lake that is open. 
+The clubhouse is very scantily supplied with dancing men, but we
+have as house guest an obliging young politician who likes to
+dance, so I am not discommoded by the general scarcity.
+
+The affairs of the nation and the rearing of orphans are
+alike delegated to the background while we paddle about among the
+lily pads of this delectable lake.  I look forward with
+reluctance to 7:56 next Monday morning, when I turn my back on
+the mountains.  The awful thing about a vacation is that the
+moment it begins your happiness is already clouded by its
+approaching end.
+
+I hear a voice on the veranda asking if Sallie is to be found
+within or without.
+
+
+ADDIO!
+
+                                                       S.
+
+
+                                                       August 3.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Back at the John Grier, reshouldering the burdens of the coming
+generation.  What should meet my eyes upon entering these grounds
+but John Cobden, of pancake turner memory, wearing a badge upon
+his sleeve.  I turned it to me and read "S. P. C. A." in letters
+of gold!  The doctor, during my absence, has formed a local
+branch of the Cruelty to Animals, and made Johnnie its president.
+
+I hear that yesterday he stopped the workmen on the
+foundation for the new farm cottage and scolded them severely for
+whipping their horses up the incline!  None of all this strikes
+any one but me as funny.
+
+There's a lot of news, but with you due in four days, why
+bother to write?  Just one delicious bit I am saving for the end.
+
+So hold your breath.  You are going to receive a thrill on page
+4.  You should hear Sadie Kate squeal!  Jane is cutting her hair.
+
+Instead of wearing it in two tight braids like this-- our
+little colleen will in the future look like this--
+
+
+"Them pigtails got on my nerves," says Jane.
+
+You can see how much more stylish and becoming the present
+coiffure is.  I think somebody will be wanting to adopt her. 
+Only Sadie Kate is such an independent, manly little creature;
+she is eminently fitted by nature to shift for herself.  I must
+save adopting parents for the helpless ones.
+
+You should see our new clothes!  I can't wait for this
+assemblage of rosebuds to burst upon you.  And you should have
+seen those blue ginghamed eyes brighten when the new frocks were
+actually given out--three for each girl, all different
+colors, and all perfectly private personal property, with
+the owner's indelible name inside the collar.  Mrs. Lippett's
+lazy system of having each child draw from the wash a promiscuous
+dress each week, was an insult to feminine nature.
+
+Sadie Kate is squealing like a baby pig.  I must go to see if
+Jane has by mistake clipped off an ear.
+
+
+Jane hasn't.  Sadie's excellent ears are still intact.  She
+is just squealing on principle; the way one does in a dentist's
+chair, under the belief that it is going to hurt the next
+instant.
+
+I really can't think of anything else to write except my
+news,--so here it is,--and I hope you'll like it.
+
+I am engaged to be married.
+
+                                   My love to you both.
+
+                                                       S. McB.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   November 15.
+Dear Judy:
+
+
+Betsy and I are just back from a GIRO in our new motor car.  It
+undoubtedly does add to the pleasure of institution life.  The
+car of its own accord turned up Long Ridge Road, and stopped
+before the gates of Shadywell.  The chains were up, and the
+shutters battened down, and the place looked closed and gloomy
+and rain-soaked.  It wore a sort of fall of the House of Usher
+air, and didn't in the least resemble the cheerful house that
+used to greet me hospitably of an afternoon.
+
+I hate to have our nice summer ended.  It seems as though a
+section of my life was shut away behind me, and the unknown
+future was pressing awfully close.  Positively, I'd like to
+postpone that wedding another six months, but I'm afraid poor
+Gordon would make too dreadful a fuss.  Don't think I'm getting
+wobbly, for I'm not.  It's just that somehow I need more time to
+think about it, and March is getting nearer every day.  I know
+absolutely that I'm doing the most sensible thing.  Everybody,
+man or woman, is the better for being nicely and appropriately
+and cheerfully married.  But oh dear! oh dear! I do hate
+upheavals, and this is going to be such a world-without-end
+upheaval!  Sometimes when the day's work is over, and I'm tired,
+I haven't the spirit to rise and meet it.
+
+And now especially since you've bought Shadywell, and are
+going to be here every summer, I resent having to leave.  Next
+year, when I'm far away, I'll be consumed with homesickness,
+thinking of all the busy, happy times at the John Grier, with you
+and Betsy and Percy and our grumbly Scotchman working away
+cheerfully without me.  How can anything ever make up to a mother
+for the loss of 107 children?
+
+I trust that Judy, junior, stood the journey into town
+without upsetting her usual poise.  I am sending her a bit
+giftie, made partly by myself and chiefly by Jane.  But two rows,
+I must inform you, were done by the doctor.  One only gradually
+plumbs the depths of Sandy's nature.  After a ten-months'
+acquaintance with the man, I discover that he knows how to knit,
+an accomplishment he picked up in his boyhood from an old
+shepherd on the Scotch moors.
+
+He dropped in three days ago and stayed for tea, really in
+almost his old friendly mood.  But he has since stiffened up
+again to the same man of granite we knew all summer.  I've given
+up trying to make him out.  I suppose, however, that any one
+might be expected to be a bit down with a wife in an insane
+asylum.  I wish he'd talk about it once.  It's awful having such
+a shadow hovering in the background of your thoughts and never
+coming out into plain sight.
+
+I know that this letter doesn't contain a word of the kind of
+news that you like to hear.  But it's that beastly twilight hour
+of a damp November day, and I'm in a beastly uncheerful mood. 
+I'm awfully afraid that I am developing into a temperamental
+person, and Heaven knows Gordon can supply all the temperament
+that one family needs!  I don't know where we'll land if I don't
+preserve my sensibly stolid, cheerful nature.
+
+Have you really decided to go South with Jervis?  I
+appreciate your feeling (to a slight extent) about not wanting to
+be separated from a husband; but it does seem sort of hazardous
+to me to move so young a daughter to the tropics.
+
+The children are playing blind man's buff in the lower
+corridor.  I think I'll have a romp with them, and try to be in a
+more affable mood before resuming my pen.
+
+                                   A BIENTOT!
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+P.S.  These November nights are pretty cold, and we are getting
+ready to move the camps indoors.  Our Indians are very pampered
+young savages at present, with a double supply of blankets and
+hot-water bottles.  I shall hate to see the camps go; they have
+done a lot for us.  Our lads will be as tough as Canadian
+trappers when they come in.
+
+
+                                                   November 20.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your motherly solicitude is sweet, but I didn't mean what I said.
+
+Of course it's perfectly safe to convey Judy, junior, to the
+temperately tropical lands that are washed by the Caribbean. 
+She'll thrive as long as you don't set her absolutely on top of
+the equator.  And your bungalow, shaded by palms and fanned
+by sea breezes, with an ice machine in the back yard and an
+English doctor across the bay, sounds made for the rearing of
+babies.
+
+My objections were all due to the selfish fact that I and the
+John Grier are going to be lonely without you this winter.  I
+really think it's entrancing to have a husband who engages in
+such picturesque pursuits as financing tropical railroads and
+developing asphalt lakes and rubber groves and mahogany forests. 
+I wish that Gordon would take to life in those picturesque
+countries; I'd be more thrilled by the romantic possibilities of
+the future.  Washington seems awfully commonplace compared with
+Honduras and Nicaragua and the islands of the Caribbean.
+
+I'll be down to wave good-by.
+
+                                           ADDIO!
+
+                                                       SALLIE.
+
+
+
+                                                   November 24.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Judy has gone back to town, and is sailing next week for Jamaica,
+where she is to make her headquarters while Jervis cruises about
+adjacent waters on these entertaining new ventures of his. 
+Couldn't you engage in traffic in the South Seas?  I think I'd
+feel pleasanter about leaving my asylum if you had something
+romantic and adventurous to offer instead.  And think how
+beautiful you'd be in those white linen clothes!  I really
+believe I might be able to stay in love with a man quite
+permanently if he always dressed in white.
+
+You can't imagine how I miss Judy.  Her absence leaves a
+dreadful hole in my afternoons.  Can't you run up for a week
+end soon?  I think the sight of you would be very cheering, and
+I'm feeling awfully down of late.  You know, my dear Gordon, I
+like you much better when you're right here before my eyes than
+when I merely think about you from a distance.  I believe you
+must have a sort of hypnotic influence.  Occasionally, after
+you've been away a long time, your spell wears a little thin. 
+But when I see you, it all comes back.  You've been away now a
+long, long time; so, please come fast and bewitch me over again!
+
+                                                       S.
+
+
+                                                   December 2.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Do you remember in college, when you and I used to plan our
+favorite futures, how we were forever turning our faces
+southward?  And now to think it has really come true, and you are
+there, coasting around those tropical isles!  Did you ever have
+such a thrill in the whole of your life, barring one or two
+connected with Jervis, as when you came up on deck in the early
+dawn and found yourself riding at anchor in the harbor of
+Kingston, with the water so blue and the palms so green and the
+beach so white?
+
+I remember when I first woke in that harbor.  I felt like a
+heroine of grand opera surrounded by untruly beautiful painted
+scenery.  Nothing in my four trips to Europe ever thrilled me
+like the queer sights and tastes and smells of those three warm
+weeks seven years ago.  And ever since, I've panted to get back. 
+When I stop to think about it, I can hardly bring myself to
+swallow our unexciting meals; I wish to be dining on curries and
+tamales and mangos.  Isn't it funny?  You'd think I must have a
+dash of Creole or Spanish or some warm blood in me
+somewhere, but I'm nothing on earth but a chilly mixture of
+English and Irish and Scotch.  Perhaps that is why I hear the
+South calling.  "The palm dreams of the pine, and the pine of the
+palm."
+
+After seeing you off, I turned back to New York with an awful
+wander-thirst gnawing at my vitals.  I, too, wanted to be
+starting off on my travels in a new blue hat and a new blue suit
+with a big bunch of violets in my hand.  For five minutes I would
+cheerfully have said good-by forever to poor dear Gordon in
+return for the wide world to wander in.  I suppose you are
+thinking they are not entirely incompatible--Gordon and the wide
+world--but I don't seem able to get your point of view about
+husbands.  I see marriage as a man must, a good, sensible
+workaday institution; but awfully curbing to one's liberty. 
+Somehow, after you're married forever, life has lost its feeling
+of adventure.  There aren't any romantic possibilities waiting to
+surprise you around each corner.
+
+The disgraceful truth is that one man doesn't seem quite
+enough for me.  I like the variety of sensation that you get only
+from a variety of men.  I'm afraid I've spent too flirtatious a
+youth, and it isn't easy for me to settle.
+
+I seem to have a very wandering pen.  To return:  I saw you
+off, and took the ferry back to New York with a horribly empty
+feeling.  After our intimate, gossipy three months together, it
+seems a terrible task to tell you my troubles in tones that will
+reach to the bottom of the continent.  My ferry slid right under
+the nose of your steamer, and I could see you and Jervis plainly
+leaning on the rail.  I waved frantically, but you never blinked
+an eyelash.  Your gaze was fixed in homesick contemplation upon
+the top of the Woolworth Building.
+
+Back in New York, I took myself to a department store to
+accomplish a few trifles in the way of shopping.  As I was
+entering through their revolving doors, who should be revolving
+in the other direction but Helen Brooks!  We had a terrible
+time meeting, as I tried to go back out, and she tried to come
+back in; I thought we should revolve eternally.  But we finally
+got together and shook hands, and she obligingly helped me choose
+fifteen dozen pairs of stockings and fifty caps and sweaters and
+two hundred union suits, and then we gossiped all the way up to
+Fifty-second Street, where we had luncheon at the Women's
+University Club.
+
+I always liked Helen.  She's not spectacular, but steady and
+dependable.  Will you ever forget the way she took hold of that
+senior pageant committee and whipped it into shape after Mildred
+had made such a mess of it?  How would she do here as a successor
+to me?  I am filled with jealousy at the thought of a successor,
+but I suppose I must face it.
+
+"When did you last see Judy Abbott?" was Helen's first
+question.
+
+"Fifteen minutes ago," said I.  "She has just set sail for
+the Spanish main with a husband and daughter and nurse and maid
+and valet and dog."
+
+"Has she a nice husband?"
+
+"None better."
+
+"And does she still like him?"
+
+"Never saw a happier marriage."
+
+It struck me that Helen looked a trifle bleak, and I suddenly
+remembered all that gossip that Marty Keene told us last summer;
+so I hastily changed the conversation to a perfectly safe subject
+like orphans.
+
+But later she told me the whole story herself in as detached
+and impersonal a way as though she were discussing the characters
+in a book.  She has been living alone in the city, hardly seeing
+any one, and she seemed low in spirits and glad to talk.  Poor
+Helen appears to have made an awful mess of her life.  I don't
+know any one who has covered so much ground in such a short
+space of time.  Since her graduation she has been married, has
+had a baby and lost him, divorced her husband, quarreled with her
+family, and come to the city to earn her own living.  She is
+reading manuscript for a publishing house.
+
+There seems to have been no reason for her divorce from the
+ordinary point of view; the marriage just simply didn't work. 
+They weren't friends.  If he had been a woman, she wouldn't have
+wasted half an hour talking with him.  If she had been a man, he
+would have said:  "Glad to see you.  How are you?" and gone on. 
+And yet they MARRIED.  Isn't it dreadful how blind this sex
+business can make people?
+
+She was brought up on the theory that a woman's only
+legitimate profession is homemaking.  When she finished college,
+she was naturally eager to start on her career, and Henry
+presented himself.  Her family scanned him closely, and found him
+perfect in every respect--good family, good morals, good
+financial position, good looking.  Helen was in love with him. 
+She had a big wedding and lots of new clothes and dozens of
+embroidered towels.  Everything looked propitious.
+
+But as they began to get acquainted, they didn't like the
+same books or jokes or people or amusements.  He was expansive
+and social and hilarious, and she wasn't.  First they bored, and
+then they irritated, each other.  Her orderliness made him
+impatient, and his disorderliness drove her wild.  She would
+spend a day getting closets and bureau drawers in order, and in
+five minutes he would stir them into chaos.  He would leave his
+clothes about for her to pick up, and his towels in a messy heap
+on the bathroom floor, and he never scrubbed out the tub.  And
+she, on her side, was awfully unresponsive and irritating,--she
+realized it fully,--she got to the point where she wouldn't laugh
+at his jokes.
+
+I suppose most old-fashioned, orthodox people would think it
+awful to break up a marriage on such innocent grounds.  It seemed
+so to me at first; but as she went on piling up detail on
+detail each trivial in itself, but making a mountainous total, I
+agreed with Helen that it was awful to keep it going.  It wasn't
+really a marriage; it was a mistake.
+
+So one morning at breakfast, when the subject of what they
+should do for the summer came up, she said quite casually that
+she thought she would go West and get a residence in some State
+where you could get a divorce for a respectable cause; and for
+the first time in months he agreed with her.
+
+You can imagine the outraged feelings of her Victorian
+family.  In all the seven generations of their sojourn in America
+they have never had anything like this to record in the family
+Bible.  It all comes from sending her to college and letting her
+read such dreadful modern people as Ellen Key and Bernard Shaw.
+
+"If he had only got drunk and dragged me about by the hair,"
+Helen wailed, "it would have been legitimate; but because we
+didn't actually throw things at each other, no one could see any
+reason for a divorce."
+
+The pathetic part of the whole business is that both she and
+Henry were admirably fitted to make some one else happy.  They
+just simply didn't match each other; and when two people don't
+match, all the ceremonies in the world can't marry them.
+
+                                           Saturday morning.
+
+
+I meant to get this letter off two days ago; and here I am
+with volumes written, but nothing mailed.
+
+We've just had one of those miserable deceiving nights--cold
+and frosty when you go to bed, and warm and lifeless when you
+wake in the dark, smothered under a mountain of blankets.  By the
+time I had removed my own extra covers and plumped up my pillow
+and settled comfortably, I thought of those fourteen bundled-up
+babies in the fresh-air nursery.  Their so-called night nurse
+sleeps like a top the whole night through.  (Her name is
+next on the list to be expunged.)  So I roused myself again, and
+made a little blanket removing tour, and by the time I had
+finished I was forever awake.  It is not often that I pass a NUIT
+BLANCHE; but when I do, I settle world problems.  Isn't it funny
+how much keener your mind is when you are lying awake in the
+dark?
+
+I began thinking about Helen Brooks, and I planned her whole
+life over again.  I don't know why her miserable story has taken
+such a hold over me.  It's a disheartening subject for an engaged
+girl to contemplate.  I keep saying to myself, what if Gordon and
+I, when we really get acquainted, should change our minds about
+liking each other?  The fear grips my heart and wrings it dry. 
+But I am marrying him for no reason in the world except
+affection.  I'm not particularly ambitious.  Neither his position
+nor his money ever tempted me in the least.  And certainly I am
+not doing it to find my life work, for in order to marry I am
+having to give up the work that I love.  I really do love this
+work.  I go about planning and planning their baby futures,
+feeling that I'm constructing the nation.  Whatever becomes of me
+in after life, I am sure I'll be the more capable for having had
+this tremendous experience.  And it IS a tremendous experience,
+the nearness to humanity that an asylum brings.  I am learning so
+many new things every day that when each Saturday night comes I
+look back on the Sallie of last Saturday night, amazed at her
+ignorance.
+
+You know I am developing a funny old characteristic; I am
+getting to hate change.  I don't like the prospect of having my
+life disrupted.  I used to love the excitement of volcanoes, but
+now a high level plateau is my choice in landscape.  I am very
+comfortable where I am.  My desk and closet and bureau drawers
+are organized to suit me; and, oh, I dread unspeakably the
+thought of the upheaval that is going to happen to me next year! 
+Please don't imagine that I don't care for Gordon quite as much
+as any man has a right to be cared for.  It isn't that  I
+like him any the less, but I am getting to like orphans the more.
+
+I just met our medical adviser a few minutes ago as he was
+emerging from the nursery--Allegra is the only person in the
+institution who is favored by his austere social attentions.  He
+paused in passing to make a polite comment upon the sudden change
+in the weather, and to express the hope that I would remember him
+to Mrs. Pendleton when I wrote.
+
+This is a miserable letter to send off on its travels, with
+scarcely a word of the kind of news that you like to hear.  But
+our bare little orphan asylum up in the hills must seem awfully
+far away from the palms and orange groves and lizards and
+tarantulas that you are enjoying.
+
+Have a good time, and don't forget the John Grier Home
+
+                           and
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                   December 11.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Your Jamaica letter is here, and I'm glad to learn that Judy,
+Junior, enjoys traveling.  Write me every detail about your
+house, and send some photographs, so I can see you in it.  What
+fun it must be to have a boat of your own that chugs about those
+entertaining seas!  Have you worn all of your eighteen white
+dresses yet?  And aren't you glad now that I made you wait about
+buying a Panama hat till you reached Kingston?
+
+We are running along here very much as usual without anything
+exciting to chronicle.  You remember little Maybelle Fuller,
+don't you--the chorus girl's daughter whom our doctor doesn't
+like?  We have placed her out.  I tried to make the woman take
+Hattie Heaphy instead,--the quiet little one who stole the
+communion cup,--but no, indeed!  Maybelle's eyelashes won the
+day.  After all, as poor Marie says, the chief thing is to be
+pretty.  All else in life depends on that.
+
+When I got home last week, after my dash to New York, I made
+a brief speech to the children.  I told them that I had just been
+seeing Aunt Judy off on a big ship, and I am embarrassed to have
+to report that the interest--at least on the part of the boys--
+immediately abandoned Aunt Judy and centered upon the ship.  How
+many tons of coal did she burn a day?  Was she long enough to
+reach from the carriage house to the Indian camp?  Were there any
+guns aboard, and if a privateer should attack her, could she hold
+her own?  In case of a mutiny, could the captain shoot down
+anybody he chose, and wouldn't he be hanged when he got to shore?
+
+I had ignominiously to call upon Sandy to finish my speech.  I
+realize that the best-equipped feminine mind in the world
+can't cope with the peculiar class of questions that originate in
+a thirteen-year boy's brain.
+
+As a result of their seafaring interest, the doctor conceived
+the idea of inviting seven of the oldest and most alert lads to
+spend the day with him in New York and see with their own eyes an
+oceanliner.  They rose at five yesterday morning, caught the 7:30
+train, and had the most wonderful adventure that has happened in
+all their seven lives.  They visited one of the big liners (Sandy
+knows the Scotch engineer), and were conducted from the bottom of
+the hold to the top of the crow's-nest, and then had luncheon on
+board.  And after luncheon they visited the aquarium and the top
+of the Singer Building, and took the subway uptown to spend an
+hour with the birds of America in their habitats.  Sandy with
+great difficulty pried them away from the Natural History Museum
+in time to catch the 6:15 train.  Dinner in the dining-car.  They
+inquired with great particularity how much it was costing, and
+when they heard that it was the same, no matter how much you ate,
+they drew deep breaths and settled quietly and steadily to the
+task of not allowing their host to be cheated.  The railroad made
+nothing on that party, and all the tables around stopped eating
+to stare.  One traveler asked the doctor if it was a boarding
+school he had in charge; so you can see how the manners and
+bearing of our lads have picked up.  I don't wish to boast, but
+no one would ever have asked such a question concerning seven of
+Mrs. Lippett's youngsters.  "Are they bound for a reformatory?"
+would have been the natural question after observing the table
+manners of her offspring.
+
+My little band tumbled in toward ten o'clock, excitedly
+babbling a mess of statistics about reciprocating compound
+engines and watertight bulkheads, devil-fish and sky-scrapers and
+birds of paradise.  I thought I should never get them to bed. 
+And, oh, but they had had a glorious day!  I do wish I could
+manage breaks in the routine oftener.  It gives them a new
+outlook on life and makes them more like normal children.  Wasn't
+it really nice of Sandy?  But you should have seen that man's
+behavior when I tried to thank him.  He waved me aside in the
+middle of a sentence, and growlingly asked Miss Snaith if she
+couldn't economize a little on carbolic acid.  The house smelt
+like a hospital.
+
+I must tell you that Punch is back with us again, entirely
+renovated as to manners.  I am looking for a family to adopt him.
+
+I had hoped those two intelligent spinsters would see their way
+to keeping him forever, but they want to travel, and they feel
+he's too consuming of their liberty.  I inclose a sketch in
+colored chalk of your steamer, which he has just completed. 
+There is some doubt as to the direction in which it is going; it
+looks as though it might progress backward and end in Brooklyn. 
+Owing to the loss of my blue pencil, our flag has had to adopt
+the Italian colors.
+
+The three figures on the bridge are you and Jervis and the
+baby.  I am pained to note that you carry your daughter by the
+back of her neck, as if she were a kitten.  That is not the way
+we handle babies in the J. G. H. nursery.  Please also note that
+the artist has given Jervis his full due in the matter of legs. 
+When I asked Punch what had become of the captain, he said that
+the captain was inside, putting coal on the fire.  Punch was
+terribly impressed, as well he might be, when he heard that your
+steamer burned three hundred wagonloads a day, and he naturally
+supposed that all hands had been piped to the stokehole.
+
+BOW! WOW!
+
+That's a bark from Sing.  I told him I was writing to you,
+and he responded instantly.
+
+We both send love.
+
+                                       Yours,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   Saturday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You were so terribly gruff last night when I tried to thank you
+for giving my boys such a wonderful day that I didn't have a
+chance to express half of the appreciation I felt.
+
+What on earth is the matter with you, Sandy?  You used to be
+a tolerably nice man--in spots, but these last three or four
+months you have only been nice to other people, never to me.  We
+have had from the first a long series of misunderstandings
+and foolish contretemps, but after each one we seemed to reach a
+solider basis of understanding, until I had thought our
+friendship was on a pretty firm foundation, capable of
+withstanding any reasonable shock.
+
+And then came that unfortunate evening last June when you
+overheard some foolish impolitenesses, which I did not in the
+slightest degree mean; and from then on you faded into the
+distance.  Really, I have felt terribly bad about it, and have
+wanted to apologize, but your manner has not been inviting of
+confidence.  It isn't that I have any excuse or explanation to
+offer; I haven't.  You know how foolish and silly I am on
+occasions, but you will just have to realize that though I'm
+flippant and foolish and trivial on top, I am pretty solid
+inside; and you've got to forgive the silly part.  The Pendletons
+knew that long ago, or they wouldn't have sent me up here.  I
+have tried hard to pull off an honest job, partly because I
+wanted to justify their judgment, partly because I was really
+interested in giving the poor little kiddies their share of
+happiness, but mostly, I actually believe, because I wanted to
+show you that your first derogatory opinion of me was ill
+founded.  Won't you please expunge that unfortunate fifteen
+minutes at the porte-cochere last June, and remember instead the
+fifteen hours I spent reading the Kallikak Family?
+
+I would like to feel that we're friends again.
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                       Sunday.
+
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I am in receipt of your calling card with an eleven-word answer
+to my letter on the back.  I didn't mean to annoy you by my
+attentions.  What you think and how you behave are really matters
+of extreme indifference to me.  Be just as impolite as you
+choose.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                                   December 14.
+Dear Judy:
+
+PLEASE pepper your letters with stamps, inside and out.  I have
+thirty collectors in the family.  Since you have taken to travel,
+every day about post time an eager group gathers at the gate,
+waiting to snatch any letters of foreign design, and by the time
+the letters reach me they are almost in shreds through the
+tenacity of rival snatchers.  Tell Jervis to send us some more of
+those purple pine trees from Honduras; likewise some green
+parrots from Guatemala.  I could use a pint of them!
+
+Isn't it wonderful to have got these apathetic little things
+so enthusiastic?  My children are getting to be almost like real
+children.  B dormitory started a pillow fight last night of its
+own accord; and though it was very wearing to our scant supply of
+linen, I stood by and beamed, and even tossed a pillow
+myself.
+
+Last Saturday those two desirable friends of Percy's spent
+the whole afternoon playing with my boys.  They brought up three
+rifles, and each man took the lead of a camp of Indians, and
+passed the afternoon in a bottle shooting contest, with a prize
+for the winning camp.  They brought the prize with them--an
+atrocious head of an Indian painted on leather.  Dreadful taste;
+but the men thought it lovely, so I admired it with all the ardor
+I could assume.
+
+When they had finished, I warmed them up with cookies and hot
+chocolate, and I really think the men enjoyed it as much as the
+boys; they undoubtedly enjoyed it more than I did.  I couldn't
+help being in a feminine twitter all the time the firing was
+going on for fear somebody would shoot somebody else.  But I know
+that I can't keep twenty-four Indians tied to my apron strings,
+and I never could find in the whole wide world three nicer men to
+take an interest in them.
+
+Just think of all that healthy, exuberant volunteer service
+going to waste under the asylum's nose!  I suppose the
+neighborhood is full of plenty more of it, and I am going to make
+it my business to dig it out.
+
+What I want most are about eight nice, pretty, sensible young
+women to come up here one night a week, and sit before the fire
+and tell stories while the chicks pop corn.  I do so want to
+contrive a little individual petting for my babies.  You see,
+Judy, I am remembering your own childhood, and am trying hard to
+fill in the gaps.
+
+The trustees' meeting last week went beautifully.  The new
+women are most helpful, and only the nice men came.  I am happy
+to announce that the Hon. Cy Wykoff is visiting his married
+daughter in Scranton.  I wish she would invite father to live
+with her permanently.
+
+
+                                                   Wednesday.
+
+
+I am in the most childish temper with the doctor, and for no
+very definite reason.  He keeps along his even, unemotional way
+without paying the slightest attention to anything or anybody.  I
+have swallowed more slights during these last few months than in
+the whole of my life before, and I'm developing the most
+shockingly revengeful nature.  I spend all my spare time planning
+situations in which he will be terribly hurt and in need of my
+help, and in which 1, with the utmost callousness, will
+shrug my shoulders and turn away.  I am growing into a person
+entirely foreign to the sweet, sunny young thing you used to
+know.
+
+
+                                                   Evening.
+
+
+Do you realize that I am an authority on the care of
+dependent children?  Tomorrow I and other authorities visit
+officially the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society's Orphan Asylum
+at Pleasantville.  (All that's its name!)  It's a terribly
+difficult and roundabout journey from this point, involving a
+daybreak start and two trains and an automobile.  But if I'm to
+be an authority, I must live up to the title.  I'm keen about
+looking over other institutions and gleaning as many ideas as
+possible against our own alterations next year.  And this
+Pleasantville asylum is an architectural model.
+
+I acknowledge now, upon sober reflection, that we were wise
+to postpone extensive building operations until next summer.  Of
+course I was disappointed, because it meant that I won't be the
+center of the ripping-up, and I do so love to be the center of
+ripping-ups!  But, anyway, you'll take my advice, even though I'm
+no longer an official head?  The two building details we did
+accomplish are very promising.  Our new laundry grows better and
+better; it has removed from us that steamy smell so dear to
+asylums.  The farmer's cottage will finally be ready for
+occupancy next week.  All it now lacks is a coat of paint and
+some doorknobs.
+
+But, oh dear! oh dear! another bubble has burst!  Mrs
+Turnfelt, for all her comfortable figure and sunny smile, hates
+to have children messing about.  They make her nervous.  And as
+for Turnfelt himself, though industrious and methodical and an
+excellent gardener, still, his mental processes are not quite
+what I had hoped for.  When he first came, I made him free of the
+library.  He began at the case nearest the door, which
+contains thirty-seven volumes of Pansy's works.  Finally,
+after he had spent four months on Pansy, I suggested a change,
+and sent him home with "Huckleberry Finn."  But he brought it
+back in a few days, and shook his head.  He says that after
+reading Pansy, anything else seems tame.  I am afraid I shall
+have to look about for some one a little more up-and-coming.  But
+at least, compared with Sterry, Turnfelt is a scholard!
+
+And speaking of Sterry, he paid us a social call a few days
+ago, in quite a chastened frame of mind.  It seems that the "rich
+city feller" whose estate he has been managing no longer needs
+his services; and Sterry has graciously consented to return to us
+and let the children have gardens if they wish.  I kindly, but
+convincingly, declined his offer.
+
+
+                                                       Friday.
+
+
+I came back from Pleasantville last night with a heart full
+of envy.  Please, Mr. President, I want some gray stucco
+cottages, with Luca della Robbia figures baked into the front. 
+They have nearly 700 children there, and all sizable youngsters. 
+Of course that makes a very different problem from my hundred and
+seven, ranging from babyhood up.  But I borrowed from their
+superintendent several very fancy ideas.  I'm dividing my chicks
+into big and little sisters and brothers, each big one to have a
+little one to love and help and fight for.  Big sister Sadie Kate
+has to see that little sister Gladiola always has her hair neatly
+combed and her stockings pulled up and knows her lessons and gets
+a touch of petting and her share of candy--very pleasant for
+Gladiola, but especially developing for Sadie Kate.
+
+Also I am going to start among our older children a limited
+form of self-government such as we had in college.  That will
+help fit them to go out into the world and govern themselves when
+they get there.  This shoving children into the world at the
+age of sixteen seems terribly merciless.  Five of my children are
+ready to be shoved, but I can't bring myself to do it.  I keep
+remembering my own irresponsible silly young self, and wondering
+what would have happened to me had I been turned out to work at
+the age of sixteen!
+
+I must leave you now to write an interesting letter to my
+politician in Washington, and it's hard work.  What have I to say
+that will interest a politician?  I can't do anything any more
+but babble about babies, and he wouldn't care if every baby was
+swept from the face of the earth.  Oh, yes, he would, too!  I'm
+afraid I'm slandering him.  Babies--at least boy babies--grow
+into voters.
+
+                                       Good-by,
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+Dearest Judy:
+
+If you expect a cheerful letter from me the day, don't read this.
+
+The life of man is a wintry road.  Fog, snow, rain, slush,
+drizzle, cold--such weather! such weather!  And you in dear
+Jamaica with the sunshine and the orange blossoms!
+
+We've got whooping cough, and you can hear us whoop when you
+get off the train two miles away.  We don't know how we got it--
+just one of the pleasures of institution life.  Cook has left,--
+in the night,--what the Scotch call a "moonlight flitting."  I
+don't know how she got her trunk away, but it's gone.  The
+kitchen fire went with her.  The pipes are frozen.  The plumbers
+are here, and the kitchen floor is all ripped up. One of our
+horses has the spavin.  And, to crown all, our cheery,
+resourceful Percy is down, down, down in the depths of despair. 
+We have not been quite certain for three days past whether
+we could keep him from suicide.  The girl in Detroit,--I knew she
+was a heartless little minx,--without so much as going through
+the formality of sending back his ring, has gone and married
+herself to a man and a couple of automobiles and a yacht.  It is
+the best thing that could ever have happened to Percy, but it
+will be a long, long time before he realizes it.
+
+We have our twenty-four Indians back in the house with us.  I
+was sorry to have to bring them in, but the shacks were scarcely
+planned for winter quarters.  I have stowed them away very
+comfortably, however, thanks to the spacious iron verandas
+surrounding our new fire-escape.  It was a happy idea of Jervis's
+having them glassed in for sleeping porches.  The babies' sun
+parlor is a wonderful addition to our nursery.  We can fairly see
+the little tots bloom under the influence of that extra air and
+sunshine.
+
+With the return of the Indians to civilized life, Percy's
+occupation was ended, and he was supposed to remove himself to
+the hotel.  But he didn't want to remove himself.  He has got
+used to orphans, he says, and he would miss not seeing them
+about.  I think the truth is that he is feeling so miserable over
+his wrecked engagement that he is afraid to be alone.  He needs
+something to occupy every waking moment out of banking hours. 
+And goodness knows we're glad enough to keep him!  He has been
+wonderful with those youngsters, and they need a man's influence.
+
+But what on earth to do with the man?  As you discovered last
+summer, this spacious chateau does not contain a superabundance
+of guest rooms.  He has finally fitted himself into the doctor's
+laboratory, and the medicines have moved themselves to a closet
+down the hall.  He and the doctor fixed it up between them, and
+if they are willing to be mutually inconvenienced, I have no
+fault to find.
+
+Mercy!  I've just looked at the calendar, and it's the
+eighteenth, with Christmas only a week away.  However shall we
+finish all our plans in a week?  The chicks are making
+presents for one another, and something like a thousand
+secrets have been whispered in my ear.
+
+Snow last night.  The boys have spent the morning in the
+woods, gathering evergreens and drawing them home on sleds; and
+twenty girls are spending the afternoon in the laundry, winding
+wreaths for the windows.  I don't know how we are going to do our
+washing this week.  We were planning to keep the Christmas tree a
+secret, but fully fifty children have been boosted up to the
+carriage house window to take a peep at it, and I am afraid the
+news has spread among the remaining fifty.
+
+At your insistence, we have sedulously fostered the Santa
+Claus myth, but it doesn't meet with much credence.  "Why didn't
+he ever come before?" was Sadie Kate's skeptical question.  But
+Santa Claus is undoubtedly coming this time.  I asked the doctor,
+out of politeness, to play the chief role at our Christmas tree;
+and being certain ahead of time that he was going to refuse, I
+had already engaged Percy as an understudy.  But there is no
+counting on a Scotchman.  Sandy accepted with unprecedented
+graciousness, and I had privately to unengage Percy!
+
+
+                                                   Tuesday.
+
+
+Isn't it funny, the way some inconsequential people have of
+pouring out whatever happens to be churning about in their minds
+at the moment?  They seem to have no residue of small talk, and
+are never able to dismiss a crisis in order to discuss the
+weather.
+
+This is apropos of a call I received today.  A woman had come
+to deliver her sister's child--sister in a sanatorium for
+tuberculosis; we to keep the child until the mother is cured,
+though I fear, from what I hear, that will never be.  But,
+anyway, all the arrangements had been made, and the woman
+had merely to hand in the little girl and retire.  But having a
+couple of hours between trains, she intimated a desire to look
+about, so I showed her the kindergarten rooms and the little crib
+that Lily will occupy, and our yellow dining room, with its
+frieze of bunnies, in order that she might report as many
+cheerful details as possible to the poor mother.  After this, as
+she seemed tired, I socially asked her to walk into my parlor and
+have a cup of tea.  Doctor MacRae, being at hand and in a hungry
+mood (a rare state for him; he now condescends to a cup of tea
+with the officers of this institution about twice a month), came,
+too, and we had a little party.
+
+The woman seemed to feel that the burden of entertainment
+rested upon her, and by way of making conversation, she told us
+that her husband had fallen in love with the girl who sold
+tickets at a moving picture show (a painted, yellow-haired thing
+who chewed gum like a cow, was her description of the
+enchantress), and he spent all of his money on the girl, and
+never came home except when he was drunk.  Then he smashed the
+furniture something awful.  An easel, with her mother's picture
+on it, that she had had since before she was married, he had
+thrown down just for the pleasure of hearing it crash.  And
+finally she had just got too tired to live, so she drank a bottle
+of swamp root because somebody had told her it was poison if you
+took it all at once.  But it didn't kill her; it only made her
+sick.  And he came back, and said he would choke her if she ever
+tried that on him again; so she guessed he must still care
+something for her.  All this quite casually while she stirred her
+tea.
+
+I tried to think of something to say, but it was a social
+exigency that left me dumb.  But Sandy rose to the occasion like
+a gentleman.  He talked to her beautifully and sanely, and sent
+her away actually uplifted.  Our Sandy, when he tries, can
+be exceptionally nice, particularly to people who have no claim
+upon him.  I suppose it is a matter of professional etiquette--
+part of a doctor's business to heal the spirit as well as the
+body.  Most spirits appear to need it in this world.  My caller
+has left me needing it.  I have been wondering ever since what I
+should do if I married a man who deserted me for a chewing gum
+girl, and who came home and smashed the bric-a-brac.  I suppose,
+judging from the theaters this winter, that it is a thing that
+might happen to any one, particularly in the best society.
+
+You ought to be thankful you've got Jervis.  There is
+something awfully certain about a man like him.  The longer I
+live, the surer I am that character is the only thing that
+counts.  But how on earth can you ever tell?  Men are so good at
+talking!  Good-by, and a merry Christmas to Jervis and both
+Judies.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+P.S.  It would be a pleasant attention if you would answer my
+letters a little more promptly.
+
+
+                                           JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   December 29.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Sadie Kate has spent the week composing a Christmas letter to
+you, and it leaves nothing for me to tell.  Oh, we've had a
+wonderful time!  Besides all the presents and games and fancy
+things to eat, we have had hayrides and skating parties and candy
+pulls.  I don't know whether these pampered little orphans will
+ever settle down again into normal children.
+
+Many thanks for my six gifts.  I like them all, particularly
+the picture of Judy, junior; the tooth adds a pleasant touch
+to her smile.
+
+You'll be glad to hear that I've placed out Hattie Heaphy in
+a minister's family, and a dear family they are.  They never
+blinked an eyelash when I told them about the communion cup. 
+They've given her to themselves for a Christmas present, and she
+went off so happily, clinging to her new father's hand!
+
+I won't write more now, because fifty children are writing
+thank-you letters, and poor Aunt Judy will be buried beneath her
+mail when this week's steamer gets in.
+
+My love to the Pendletons.
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+P.S.  Singapore ends his love to Togo, and is sorry he bit him on
+the ear.
+
+
+                                           JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   December 30.
+
+O DEAR, Gordon, I have been reading the most upsetting book!
+
+I tried to talk some French the other day, and not making out
+very well, decided that I had better take my French in hand if I
+didn't want to lose it entirely.  That Scotch doctor of ours has
+mercifully abandoned my scientific education, so I have a little
+time at my own disposal.  By some unlucky chance I began with
+"Numa Roumestan," by Daudet.  It is a terribly disturbing book
+for a girl to read who is engaged to a politician.  Read it,
+Gordon dear, and assiduously train your character away from
+Numa's.  It's the story of a politician who is disquietingly
+fascinating (like you).  Who is adored by all who know him (like
+you).  Who has a most persuasive way of talking and makes
+wonderful speeches (again like you).  He is worshiped by
+everybody, and they all say to his wife, "What a happy life you
+must lead, knowing so intimately that wonderful man!"
+
+But he wasn't very wonderful when he came home to her--only
+when he had an audience and applause.  He would drink with every
+casual acquaintance, and be gay and bubbling and expansive; and
+then return morose and sullen and down.  "Joie de rue, douleur de
+maison," is the burden of the book.
+
+I read it till twelve last night, and honestly I didn't sleep
+for being scared.  I know you'll be angry, but really and truly,
+Gordon dear, there's just a touch too much truth in it for my
+entire amusement.  I didn't mean ever to refer again to that
+unhappy matter of August 20,--we talked it all out at the time,--
+but you know perfectly that you need a bit of watching.  And I
+don't like the idea.  I want to have a feeling of absolute
+confidence and stability about the man I marry.  I never could
+live in a state of anxious waiting for him to come home.
+
+Read "Numa" for yourself, and you'll see the woman's point of
+view.  I'm not patient or meek or long-suffering in any way, and
+I'm a little afraid of what I'm capable of doing if I have the
+provocation.  My heart has to be in a thing in order to make it
+work, and, oh, I do so want our marriage to work!
+
+Please forgive me for writing all this.  I don't mean that I
+really think you'll be a "joy of the street, and sorrow of the
+home."  It's just that I didn't sleep last night, and I feel sort
+of hollow behind the eyes.
+
+May the year that's coming bring good counsel and happiness
+and tranquillity to both of us!
+
+                                           As ever,
+
+                                                       S.
+
+                                                   January 1.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Something terribly sort of queer has happened, and positively I
+don't know whether it did happen or whether I dreamed it.  I'll
+tell you from the beginning, and I think it might be as well if
+you burned this letter; it's not quite proper for Jervis's eyes.
+
+You remember my telling you the case of Thomas Kehoe, whom we
+placed out last June?  He had an alcoholic heredity on both
+sides, and as a baby seems to have been fattened on beer instead
+of milk.  He entered the John Grier at the age of nine, and
+twice, according to his record in the Doomsday Book, he managed
+to get himself intoxicated, once on beer stolen from some
+workmen, and once (and thoroughly) on cooking brandy.  You can
+see with what misgivings we placed him out.  But we warned the
+family (hard-working temperate farming people) and hoped for the
+best.
+
+Yesterday the family telegraphed that they could keep him no
+longer.  Would I please meet him on the six o'clock train? 
+Turnfelt met the six o'clock train.  No boy.  I sent a night
+message telling of his non-arrival and asking for particulars.
+
+I stayed up later than usual last night putting my desk in
+order and--sort of making up my mind to face the New Year. 
+Toward twelve I suddenly realized that the hour was late and that
+I was very tired.  I had begun getting ready for bed when I was
+startled by a banging on the front door.  I stuck my head out of
+the window and demanded who was there.
+
+"Tommy Kehoe," said a very shaky voice.
+
+I went down and opened the door, and that lad, sixteen years
+old, tumbled in, dead drunk.  Thank Heaven!  Percy
+Witherspoon was within call, and not away off in the Indian camp.
+
+I roused him, and together we conveyed Thomas to our guest room,
+the only decently isolated spot in the building.  Then I
+telephoned for the doctor, who, I am afraid, had already had a
+long day.  He came, and we put in a pretty terrible night.  It
+developed afterward that the boy had brought along with his
+luggage a bottle of liniment belonging to his employer.  It was
+made half of alcohol and half of witch hazel; and Thomas had
+refreshed his journey with this!
+
+He was in such shape that positively I didn't think we'd pull
+him through--and I hoped we wouldn't.  If I were a physician, I'd
+let such cases gently slip away for the good of society; but you
+should have seen Sandy work!  That terrible lifesaving instinct
+of his was aroused, and he fought with every inch of energy he
+possessed.
+
+I made black coffee, and helped all I could, but the details
+were pretty messy, and I left the two men to deal with him alone
+and went back to my room.  But I didn't attempt to go to bed; I
+was afraid they might be wanting me again.  Toward four o'clock
+Sandy came to my library with word that the boy was asleep and
+that Percy had moved up a cot and would sleep in his room the
+rest of the night.  Poor Sandy looked sort of ashen and haggard
+and done with life.  As I looked at him, I thought about how
+desperately he worked to save others, and never saved himself,
+and about that dismal home of his, with never a touch of cheer,
+and the horrible tragedy in the background of his life.  All the
+rancor I've been saving up seemed to vanish, and a wave of
+sympathy swept over me.  I stretched my hand out to him; he
+stretched his out to me.  And suddenly--I don't know--something
+electric happened.  In another moment we were in each other's
+arms.  He loosened my hands, and put me down in the big armchair.
+
+"My God! Sallie, do you think I'm made of iron?" he said and
+walked out.  I went to sleep in the chair, and when I woke the
+sun was shining in my eyes and Jane was standing over me in
+amazed consternation.
+
+This morning at eleven he came back, looked me coldly in the
+eye without so much as the flicker of an eyelash, and told me
+that Thomas was to have hot milk every two hours and that the
+spots in Maggie Peters's throat must be watched.
+
+Here we are back on our old standing, and positively I don't
+know but what I dreamed that one minute in the night!
+
+But it would be a piquant situation, wouldn't it, if Sandy
+and I should discover that we were falling in love with each
+other, he with a perfectly good wife in the insane asylum and I
+with an outraged fiance in Washington?  I don't know but what the
+wisest thing for me to do is to resign at once and take myself
+home, where I can placidly settle down to a few months of
+embroidering "S McB" on table-cloths, like any other respectable
+engaged girl.
+
+I repeat very firmly that this letter isn't for Jervis's
+consumption.  Tear it into little pieces and scatter them in the
+Caribbean.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+
+
+                                                   January 3.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+You are right to be annoyed.  I know I'm not a satisfactory love
+letter writer.  I have only to glance at the published
+correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning to
+realize that the warmth of my style is not up to standard.  But
+you know already--you have known a long time--that I am not a
+very emotional person.  I suppose I might write a lot of such
+things as:  "Every waking moment you are in my thoughts." 
+"My dear boy, I only live when you are near."  But it wouldn't be
+absolutely true.  You don't fill all my thoughts; 107 orphans do
+that.  And I really am quite comfortably alive whether you are
+here or not.  I have to be natural.  You surely don't want me to
+pretend more desolation than I feel.  But I do love to see you,--
+you know that perfectly,--and I am disappointed when you can't
+come.  I fully appreciate all your charming qualities, but, my
+dear boy, I CAN'T be sentimental on paper.  I am always thinking
+about the hotel chambermaid who reads the letters you casually
+leave on your bureau.  You needn't expostulate that you carry
+them next your heart, for I know perfectly well that you don't.
+
+Forgive me for that last letter if it hurt your feelings. 
+Since I came to this asylum I am extremely touchy on the subject
+of drink.  You would be, too, if you had seen what I have seen. 
+Several of my chicks are the sad result of alcoholic parents, and
+they are never going to have a fair chance all their lives.  You
+can't look about a place like this without "aye keeping up a
+terrible thinking."
+
+You are right, I am afraid, about its being a woman's trick
+to make a great show of forgiving a man, and then never letting
+him hear the end of it.  Well, Gordon, I positively don't know
+what the word "forgiving" means.  It can't include "forgetting,"
+for that is a physiological process, and does not result from an
+act of the will.  We all have a collection of memories that we
+would happily lose, but somehow those are just the ones that
+insist upon sticking.  If "forgiving" means promising never to
+speak of a thing again, I can doubtless manage that.  But it
+isn't always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory inside
+you.  It grows and grows, and runs all through you like a poison.
+
+Oh dear!  I really didn't mean to be saying all this.  I try
+to be the cheerful, carefree (and somewhat light-headed) Sallie
+you like best; but I've come in touch with a great deal of
+REALNESS during this last year, and I'm afraid I've grown into a
+very different person from the girl you fell in love with.  I'm
+no longer a gay young thing playing with life.  I know it pretty
+thoroughly now, and that means that I can't be always laughing.
+
+I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,--as bad as
+the last, and maybe worse,--but if you knew what we've just been
+through!  A boy--sixteen--of unspeakable heredity has nearly
+poisoned himself with a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch
+hazel.  We have been working three days over him, and are just
+sure now that he is going to recuperate sufficiently to do it
+again!  "It's a gude warld, but they're ill that's in 't."
+
+Please excuse that Scotch--it slipped out.  Please excuse
+everything.
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                   January 11.
+Dear Judy:
+
+I hope my two cablegrams didn't give you too terrible a shock.  I
+would have waited to let the first news come by letter, with a
+chance for details, but I was so afraid you might hear it in some
+indirect way.  The whole thing is dreadful enough, but no lives
+were lost, and only one serious accident.  We can't help
+shuddering at the thought of how much worse it might have been,
+with over a hundred sleeping children in this firetrap of a
+building.  That new fire escape was absolutely useless.  The wind
+was blowing toward it, and the flames simply enveloped it. We
+saved them all by the center stairs--but I'll begin at the
+beginning, and tell the whole story.
+
+It had rained all day Friday, thanks to a merciful
+Providence, and the roofs were thoroughly soaked.  Toward
+night it began to freeze, and the rain turned to sleet.  By ten
+o'clock, when I went to bed the wind was blowing a terrible gale
+from the northwest, and everything loose about the building was
+banging and rattling.  About two o'clock I suddenly started wide
+awake, with a bright light in my eyes.  I jumped out of bed and
+ran to the window.  The carriage house was a mass of flames, and
+a shower of sparks was sweeping over our eastern wing.  I ran to
+the bathroom and leaned out of the window.  I could see that the
+roof over the nursery was already blazing in half a dozen
+places.
+
+Well, my dear, my heart just simply didn't beat for as much
+as a minute.  I thought of those seventeen babies up under that
+roof, and I couldn't swallow.  I finally managed to get my
+shaking knees to work again, and I dashed back to the hall,
+grabbing my automobile coat as I ran.
+
+I drummed on Betsy's and Miss Matthews' and Miss Snaith's
+doors, just as Mr. Witherspoon, who had also been wakened by the
+light, came tumbling upstairs three steps at a time, struggling
+into an overcoat as he ran.
+
+"Get all the children down to the dining room, babies first,"
+I gasped.  "I'll turn in the alarm."
+
+He dashed on up to the third floor while I ran to the
+telephone--and oh, I thought I'd never get Central!  She was
+sound asleep.
+
+"The John Grier Home is burning!  Turn in the fire alarm and
+rouse the village.  Give me 505," I said.
+
+In one second I had the doctor.  Maybe I wasn't glad to hear
+his cool, unexcited voice!
+
+"We're on fire!" I cried.  "Come quick, and bring all the men
+you can!"
+
+"I'll be there in fifteen minutes.  Fill the bathtubs with
+water and put in blankets."  And he hung up.
+
+I dashed back to the hall.  Betsy was ringing our fire bell,
+and Percy had already routed out his Indian tribes in dormitories
+B and C.
+
+Our first thought was not to stop the fire, but to get the
+children to a place of safety.  We began in G, and went from crib
+to crib, snatching a baby and a blanket, and rushing them to the
+door, and handing them out to the Indians, who lugged them
+downstairs.  Both G and F were full of smoke, and the children so
+dead asleep that we couldn't rouse them to a walking state.
+
+Many times during the next hour did I thank Providence--and
+Percy Witherspoon--for those vociferous fire drills we have
+suffered weekly.  The twenty-four oldest boys, under his
+direction, never lost their heads for a second.  They divided
+into four tribes, and sprang to their posts like little soldiers.
+
+Two tribes helped in the work of clearing the dormitories and
+keeping the terrified children in order.  One tribe worked the
+hose from the cupola tank until the firemen came, and the rest
+devoted themselves to salvage.  They spread sheets on the floor,
+dumped the contents of lockers and bureau drawers into them, and
+bundled them down the stairs.  All of the extra clothes were
+saved except those the children had actually been wearing the day
+before, and most of the staff's things.  But clothes, bedding--
+everything belonging to G and F went.  The rooms were too full of
+smoke to make it safe to enter after we had got out the last
+child.
+
+By the time the doctor arrived with Luellen and two neighbors
+he had picked up, we were marching the last dormitory down to the
+kitchen, the most remote corner from the fire.  The poor chicks
+were mainly barefooted and wrapped in blankets.  We told them to
+bring their clothes when we wakened them, but in their fright
+they thought only of getting out.
+
+By this time the halls were so full of smoke we could
+scarcely breathe.  It looked as though the whole building would
+go, though the wind was blowing away from my west wing.
+
+Another automobile full of retainers from Knowltop came up
+almost immediately, and they all fell to fighting the fire.  The
+regular fire department didn't come for ten minutes after that. 
+You see, they have only horses, and we are three miles out, and
+the roads pretty bad.  It was a dreadful night, cold and sleety,
+and such a wind blowing that you could scarcely stand up.  The
+men climbed out on the roof, and worked in their stocking feet to
+keep from slipping off.  They beat out the sparks with wet
+blankets, and chopped, and squirted that tankful of water, and
+behaved like heroes.
+
+The doctor meanwhile took charge of the children.  Our
+first thought was to get them away to a place of safety, for if
+the whole building should go, we couldn't march them out of doors
+into that awful wind, with only their night clothes and blankets
+for protection.  By this time several more automobiles full of
+men had come, and we requisitioned the cars.
+
+Knowltop had providentially been opened for the week end in
+order to entertain a house party in honor of the old gentleman's
+sixty-seventh birthday.  He was one of the first to arrive, and
+he put his entire place at our disposal.  It was the nearest
+refuge, and we accepted it instantaneously.  We bundled our
+twenty littlest tots into cars, and ran them down to the house. 
+The guests, who were excitedly dressing in order to come to the
+fire, received the chicks and tucked them away into their own
+beds.  This pretty well filled up all the available house room,
+but Mr. Reimer (Mr. Knowltop's family name) has just built a big
+new stucco barn, with a garage hitched to it, all nicely heated,
+and ready for us.
+
+After the babies were disposed of in the house, those helpful
+guests got to work and fixed the barn to receive the next older
+kiddies.  They covered the floor with hay, and spread blankets
+and carriage robes over it, and bedded down thirty of the
+children in rows like little calves.  Miss Matthews and a nurse
+went with them, administered hot milk all around, and within half
+an hour the tots were sleeping as peacefully as in their little
+cribs.
+
+But meanwhile we at the house were having sensations.  The
+doctor's first question upon arrival had been:
+
+"You've counted the children?  You know they're all here?"
+
+"We've made certain that every dormitory was empty before we
+left it," I replied.
+
+You see, they couldn't be counted in that confusion.  Twenty
+or so of the boys were still in the dormitories, working under
+Percy Witherspoon to save clothing and furniture, and the older
+girls were sorting over bushels of shoes and trying to fit
+them to the little ones, who were running about underfoot and
+wailing dismally.
+
+Well, after we had loaded and despatched about seven car
+loads of children, the doctor suddenly called out:
+
+"Where's Allegra?"
+
+There was a horrified silence.  No one had seen her.  And
+then Miss Snaith stood up and SHRIEKED.  Betsy took her by the
+shoulders, and shook her into coherence.
+
+It seems that she had thought Allegra was coming down with a
+cough, and in order to get her out of the cold, had moved her
+crib from the fresh air nursery into the store room--and then
+forgotten it.
+
+Well, my dear, you know where the store room is!  We simply
+stared at one another with white faces.  By this time the whole
+east wing was gutted and the third-floor stairs in flames.  There
+didn't seem a chance that the child was still alive.  The doctor
+was the first to move.  He snatched up a wet blanket that was
+lying in a soppy pile on the floor of the hall and sprang for the
+stairs.  We yelled to him to come back.  It simply looked like
+suicide; but he kept on, and disappeared into the smoke.  I
+dashed outside and shouted to the firemen on the roof.  The store
+room window was too little for a man to go through, and they
+hadn't opened it for fear of creating a draft.
+
+I can't describe what happened in the next agonizing ten
+minutes.  The third-floor stairs fell in with a crash and a burst
+of flame about five seconds after the doctor passed over them. 
+We had given him up for lost when a shout went up from the crowd
+on the lawn, and he appeared for an instant at one of those
+dormer windows in the attic, and called for the firemen to put up
+a ladder.  Then he disappeared, and it seemed to us that they'd
+never get that ladder in place; but they finally did, and two men
+went up.  The opening of the window had created a draft, and they
+were almost overpowered by the volume of smoke that burst out at
+the top.  After an eternity the doctor appeared again with a
+white bundle in his arms.  He passed it out to the men, and then
+he staggered back and dropped out of sight!
+
+I don't know what happened for the next few minutes; I turned
+away and shut my eyes.  Somehow or other they got him out and
+halfway down the ladder, and then they let him slip.  You see, he
+was unconscious from all the smoke he'd swallowed, and the ladder
+was slippery with ice and terribly wobbly.  Anyway, when I looked
+again he was lying in a heap on the ground, with the crowd all
+running, and somebody yelling to give him air.  They thought at
+first he was dead.  But Dr. Metcalf from the village examined
+him, and said his leg was broken, and two ribs, and that aside
+from that he seemed whole.  He was still unconscious when they
+put him on two of the baby mattresses that had been thrown out of
+the windows and laid him in the wagon that brought the ladders
+and started him home.
+
+And the rest of us, left behind, kept right on with the work
+as though nothing had happened.  The queer thing about a calamity
+like this is that there is so much to be done on every side that
+you don't have a moment to think, and you don't get any of your
+values straightened out until afterward.  The doctor, without a
+moment's hesitation, had risked his life to save Allegra.  It was
+the bravest thing I ever saw, and yet the whole business occupied
+only fifteen minutes out of that dreadful night.  At the time, it
+was just an incident.
+
+And he saved Allegra.  She came out of that blanket with
+rumpled hair and a look of pleased surprise at the new game of
+peek-a-boo.  She was smiling!  The child's escape was little
+short of a miracle.  The fire had started within three feet of
+her wall, but owing to the direction of the wind, it had worked
+away from her.  If Miss Snaith had believed a little more in
+fresh air and had left the window open, the fire would have eaten
+back.  But fortunately Miss Snaith does not believe in fresh
+air, and no such thing happened.  If Allegra had gone, I never
+should have forgiven myself for not letting the Bretlands take
+her, and I know that Sandy wouldn't.
+
+Despite all the loss, I can't be anything but happy when I
+think of the two horrible tragedies that have been averted.  For
+seven minutes, while the doctor was penned in that blazing third
+floor, I lived through the agony of believing them both gone, and
+I start awake in the night trembling with horror.
+
+But I'll try to tell you the rest.  The firemen and the
+volunteers--particularly the chauffeur and stablemen from
+Knowltop--worked all night in an absolute frenzy.  Our newest
+negro cook, who is a heroine in her own right, went out and
+started the laundry fire and made up a boilerful of coffee.  It
+was her own idea.  The non-combatants served it to the firemen
+when they relieved one another for a few minutes' rest, and it
+helped.
+
+We got the remainder of the children off to various
+hospitable houses, except the older boys, who worked all night as
+well as any one.  It was absolutely inspiring to see the way this
+entire township turned out and helped.  People who haven't
+appeared to know that the asylum existed came in the middle of
+the night and put their whole houses at our disposal.  They took
+the children in, gave them hot baths and hot soup, and tucked
+them into bed.  And so far as I can make out, not one of my one
+hundred and seven chicks is any the worse for hopping about on
+drenched floors in their bare feet, not even the whooping cough
+cases.
+
+It was broad daylight before the fire was sufficiently under
+control to let us know just what we had saved.  I will report
+that my wing is entirely intact, though a little smoky, and the
+main corridor is pretty nearly all right up to the center
+staircase; after that everything is charred and drenched.  The
+east wing is a blackened, roofless shell.  Your hated Ward F,
+dear Judy, is gone forever.  I wish that you could obliterate it
+from your mind as absolutely as it is obliterated from the
+earth.  Both in substance and in spirit the old John Grier
+is done for.
+
+I must tell you something funny.  I never saw so many funny
+things in my life as happened through that night.  When everybody
+there was in extreme negligee, most of the men in pajamas and
+ulsters, and all of them without collars, the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff
+put in a tardy appearance, arrayed as for an afternoon tea.  He
+wore a pearl scarf pin and white spats!  But he really was
+extremely helpful.  He put his entire house at our disposal, and
+I turned over to him Miss Snaith in a state of hysterics; and her
+nerves so fully occupied him that he didn't get in our way the
+whole night through.
+
+I can't write any more details now; I've never been so rushed
+in the whole of my life.  I'll just assure you that there's no
+slightest reason for you to cut your trip short.  Five trustees
+were on the spot early Saturday morning, and we are all working
+like mad to get affairs into some semblance of order.  Our asylum
+at the present moment is scattered over the entire township; but
+don't be unduly anxious.  We know where all the children are. 
+None of them is permanently mislaid.  I didn't know that perfect
+strangers could be so kind.  My opinion of the human race has
+gone up.
+
+I haven't seen the doctor.  They telegraphed to New York for
+a surgeon, who set his leg.  The break was pretty bad, and will
+take time.  They don't think there are any internal injuries,
+though he is awfully battered up.  As soon as we are allowed to
+see him I will send more detailed particulars.  I really must
+stop if I am to catch tomorrow's steamer.
+
+Good-by.  Don't worry.  There are a dozen silver linings to
+this cloud that I'll write about tomorrow.
+
+                                                   SALLIE.
+
+
+Good heavens! here comes an automobile with J. F. Bretland in
+it!
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   January 14.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Listen to this! J. F. Bretland read about our fire in a New York
+paper (I will say that the metropolitan press made the most of
+details), and he posted up here in a twitter of anxiety.  His
+first question as he tumbled across our blackened threshold was,
+
+"Is Allegra safe?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"Thank God!" he cried, and dropped into a chair.  "This is no
+place for children," he said severely, "and I have come to take
+her home.  I want the boys, too," he added hastily before I had a
+chance to speak.  "My wife and I have talked it over, and we have
+decided that since we are going to the trouble of starting a
+nursery, we might as well run it for three as for one."
+
+I led him up to my library, where our little family has been
+domiciled since the fire, and ten minutes later, when I was
+called down to confer with the trustees, I left J. F. Bretland
+with his new daughter on his knee and a son leaning against each
+arm, the proudest father in the United States.
+
+So, you see, our fire has accomplished one thing: those three
+children are settled for life.  It is almost worth the loss.
+
+But I don't believe I told you how the fire started.  There
+are so many things I haven't told you that my arm aches at the
+thought of writing them all.  Sterry, we have since discovered,
+was spending the week end as our guest.  After a bibulous evening
+passed at "Jack's Place," he returned to our carriage house,
+climbed in through a window, lighted a candle, made himself
+comfortable, and dropped asleep.  He must have forgotten to put
+out the candle; anyway, the fire happened, and Sterry just
+escaped with his life.  He is now in the town hospital, bathed in
+sweet oil, and painfully regretting his share in our troubles.
+
+I am pleased to learn that our insurance was pretty adequate,
+so the money loss won't be so tremendous, after all.  As for
+other kinds of loss, there aren't any!  Actually, nothing but
+gain so far as I can make out, barring, of course, our poor
+smashed-up doctor.  Everybody has been wonderful; I didn't know
+that so much charity and kindness existed in the human race.  Did
+I ever say anything against trustees?  I take it back.  Four of
+them posted up from New York the morning after the fire, and all
+of the local people have been wonderful.  Even the Hon. Cy has
+been so occupied in remaking the morals of the five orphans
+quartered upon him that he hasn't caused any trouble at all.
+
+The fire occurred early Saturday morning, and Sunday the
+ministers in all the churches called for volunteers to accept in
+their houses one or two children as guests for three weeks, until
+the asylum could get its plant into working order again.
+
+It was inspiring to see the response.  Every child was
+disposed of within half an hour.  And consider what that means
+for the future: every one of those families is going to take a
+personal interest in this asylum from now on.  Also, consider
+what it means for the children.  They are finding out how a real
+family lives, and this is the first time that dozens of them have
+ever crossed the threshold of a private house.
+
+As for more permanent plans to take us through the winter,
+listen to all this.  The country club has a caddies' clubhouse
+which they don't use in winter and which they have politely put
+at our disposal.  It joins our land on the back, and we are
+fitting it up for fourteen children, with Miss Matthews in
+charge.  Our dining room and kitchen still being intact,
+they will come here for meals and school, returning home at
+night all the better for half a mile walk.  "The Pavilion on the
+Links" we are calling it.
+
+Then that nice motherly Mrs. Wilson, next door to the
+doctor's,--she who has been so efficient with our little
+Loretta,--has agreed to take in five more at four dollars a week
+each.  I am leaving with her some of the most promising older
+girls who have shown housekeeping instincts, and would like to
+learn cooking on a decently small scale.  Mrs. Wilson and her
+husband are such a wonderful couple, thrifty and industrious and
+simple and loving, I think it would do the girls good to observe
+them.  A training class in wifehood!
+
+I told you about the Knowltop people on the east of us, who
+took in forty-seven youngsters the night of the fire, and how
+their entire house party turned themselves into emergency
+nursemaids?  We relieved them of thirty-six the next day, but
+they still have eleven.  Did I ever call Mr. Knowltop a crusty
+old curmudgeon?  I take it back.  I beg his pardon.  He's a sweet
+lamb.  Now, in the time of our need, what do you think that
+blessed man has done?  He has fitted up an empty tenant house on
+the estate for our babies, has himself engaged an English trained
+baby nurse to take charge, and furnishes them with the superior
+milk from his own model dairy.  He says he has been wondering for
+years what to do with that milk.  He can't afford to sell it,
+because he loses four cents on every quart!
+
+The twelve older girls from dormitory A I am putting into the
+farmer's new cottage.  The poor Turnfelts, who had occupied it
+just two days, are being shoved on into the village.  But they
+wouldn't be any good in looking after the children, and I need
+their room.  Three or four of these girls have been returned from
+foster homes as intractable, and they require pretty efficient
+supervision.  So what do you think I've done?  Telegraphed to
+Helen Brooks to chuck the publishers and take charge of my girls
+instead.  You know she will be wonderful with them.  She
+accepted provisionally.  Poor Helen has had enough of this
+irrevocable contract business; she wants everything in life to be
+on trial!
+
+For the older boys something particularly nice has happened;
+we have received a gift of gratitude from J. F. Bretland.  He
+went down to thank the doctor for Allegra.  They had a long talk
+about the needs of the institution, and J. F. B. came back and
+gave me a check for $3000 to build the Indian camps on a
+substantial scale.  He and Percy and the village architect have
+drawn up plans, and in two weeks, we hope, the tribes will move
+into winter quarters.
+
+What does it matter if my one hundred and seven children have
+been burned out, since they live in such a kind-hearted world as
+this?
+
+                                                   Friday.
+
+
+I suppose you are wondering why I don't vouchsafe some
+details about the doctor's condition.  I can't give any first-
+hand information, since he won't see me.  However, he has seen
+everybody except me--Betsy, Allegra, Mrs. Livermore, Mr.
+Bretland, Percy, various trustees.  They all report that he is
+progressing as comfortably as could be expected with two broken
+ribs and a fractured fibula.  That, I believe, is the
+professional name of the particular leg bone he broke.  He
+doesn't like to have a fuss made over him, and he won't pose
+gracefully as a hero.  I myself, as grateful head of this
+institution, called on several different occasions to present my
+official thanks, but I was invariably met at the door with word
+that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed.  The first
+two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that--well, I know our
+doctor!  So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle
+her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I
+despatched her in charge of Betsy.
+
+I haven't an idea what is the matter with the man.  He was
+friendly enough last week, but now, if I want an opinion from
+him, I have to send Percy to extract it.  I do think that he
+might see me as the superintendent of the asylum, even if he
+doesn't wish our acquaintance to be on a personal basis.  There
+is no doubt about it, our Sandy is Scotch!
+
+
+LATER.
+
+
+It is going to require a fortune in stamps to get this letter
+to Jamaica, but I do want you to know all the news, and we have
+never had so many exhilarating things happen since 1876, when we
+were founded.  This fire has given us such a shock that we are
+going to be more alive for years to come.  I believe that every
+institution ought to be burned to the ground every twenty-five
+years in order to get rid of old-fashioned equipment and obsolete
+ideas.  I am superlatively glad now that we didn't spend Jervis's
+money last summer; it would have been intensively tragic to have
+had that burn.  I don't mind so much about John Grier's, since he
+made it in a patent medicine which, I hear, contained opium.
+
+As to the remnant of us that the fire left behind, it is
+already boarded up and covered with tar-paper, and we are living
+along quite comfortably in our portion of a house.  It affords
+sufficient room for the staff and the children's dining room and
+kitchen, and more permanent plans can be made later.
+
+Do you perceive what has happened to us?  The good Lord has
+heard my prayer, and the John Grier Home is a cottage
+institution!
+
+
+I am,
+
+                   The busiest person north of the equator,
+
+                                               S. McBRIDE.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                                                   January 16.
+Dear Gordon:
+
+Please, please behave yourself, and don't make things harder than
+they are.  It's absolutely out of the question for me to give up
+the asylum this instant.  You ought to realize that I can't
+abandon my chicks just when they are so terribly in need of me.
+Neither am I ready to drop this blasted philanthropy.  (You can
+see how your language looks in my handwriting!)
+
+You have no cause to worry.  I am not overworking.  I am
+enjoying it; never was so busy and happy in my life.  The papers
+made the fire out much more lurid than it really was.  That
+picture of me leaping from the roof with a baby under each arm
+was overdrawn.  One or two of the children have sore throats, and
+our poor doctor is in a plaster cast.  But we're all alive, thank
+Heaven! and are going to pull through without permanent scars.
+
+I can't write details now; I'm simply rushed to death.  And
+don't come--please!  Later, when things have settled just a
+little, you and I must have a talk about you and me, but I want
+time to think about it first.
+
+                                                       S.
+
+
+                                                   January 21.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Helen Brooks is taking hold of those fourteen fractious girls in
+a most masterly fashion.  The job is quite the toughest I had to
+offer, and she likes it.  I think she is going to be a valuable
+addition to our staff.
+
+And I forgot to tell you about Punch.  When the fire
+occurred, those two nice women who kept him all summer were on
+the point of catching a train for California--and they simply
+tucked him under their arms, along with their luggage, and
+carried him off.  So Punch spends the winter in Pasadena and I
+rather fancy he is theirs for good.  Do you wonder that I am in
+an exalted mood over all these happenings?
+
+LATER.
+
+
+Poor bereaved Percy has just been spending the evening with
+me, because I am supposed to understand his troubles.  Why must I
+be supposed to understand everybody's troubles?  It's awfully
+wearing to be pouring out sympathy from an empty heart.  The poor
+boy at present is pretty low, but I rather suspect--with Betsy's
+aid--that he will pull through.  He is just on the edge of
+falling in love with Betsy, but he doesn't know it.  He's in the
+stage now where he's sort of enjoying his troubles.  He feels
+himself a tragic hero, a man who has suffered deeply.  But I
+notice that when Betsy is about, he offers cheerful assistance in
+whatever work is toward.
+
+Gordon telegraphed today that he is coming tomorrow.  I am
+dreading the interview, for I know we are going to have an
+altercation.  He wrote the day after the fire and begged me
+to "chuck the asylum" and get married immediately, and now he's
+coming to argue it out.  I can't make him understand that a job
+involving the happiness of one hundred or so children can't be
+chucked with such charming insouciance.  I tried my best to keep
+him away, but, like the rest of his sex, he's stubborn.  Oh dear,
+I don't know what's ahead of us!  I wish I could glance into next
+year for a moment.
+
+The doctor is still in his plaster cast, but I hear is doing
+well, after a grumbly fashion.  He is able to sit up a little
+every day and to receive a carefully selected list of visitors. 
+Mrs. McGurk sorts them out at the door, and repudiates the ones
+she doesn't like.
+
+Good-by.  I'd write some more, but I'm so sleepy that my eyes
+are shutting on me.  (The idiom is Sadie Kate's.)  I must go to
+bed and get some sleep against the one hundred and seven troubles
+of tomorrow.
+
+With love to the Pendletons,
+
+                                                   S. McB.
+
+
+                                                   January 22.
+Dear Judy:
+
+This letter has nothing to do with the John Grier Home.  It's
+merely from Sallie McBride.
+
+Do you remember when we read Huxley's letters our senior
+year?  That book contained a phrase which has stuck in my memory
+ever since:  "There is always a Cape Horn in one's life that one
+either weathers or wrecks oneself on."  It's terribly true; and
+the trouble is that you can't always recognize your Cape Horn
+when you see it.  The sailing is sometimes pretty foggy, and
+you're wrecked before you know it.
+
+I've been realizing of late that I have reached the Cape
+Horn of my own life.  I entered upon my engagement to Gordon
+honestly and hopefully, but little by little I've grown doubtful
+of the outcome.  The girl he loves is not the ME I want to be. 
+It's the ME I've been trying to grow away from all this last
+year.  I'm not sure she ever really existed.  Gordon just
+imagined she did.  Anyway, she doesn't exist any more, and the
+only fair course both to him and to myself was to end it.
+
+We no longer have any interests in common; we are not
+friends.  He doesn't comprehend it; he thinks that I am making it
+up, that all I have to do is to take an interest in his life, and
+everything will turn out happily.  Of course I do take an
+interest when he's with me.  I talk about the things he wants to
+talk about, and he doesn't know that there's a whole part of me--
+the biggest part of me--that simply doesn't meet him at any
+point.  I pretend when I am with him.  I am not myself, and if we
+were to live together in constant daily intercourse, I'd have to
+keep on pretending all my life.  He wants me to watch his face
+and smile when he smiles and frown when he frowns.  He can't
+realize that I'm an individual just as much as he is.
+
+I have social accomplishments.  I dress well, I'm
+spectacular, I would be an ideal hostess in a politician's
+household--and that's why he likes me.
+
+Anyway, I suddenly saw with awful distinctness that if I kept
+on I'd be in a few years where Helen Brooks is.  She's a far
+better model of married life for me to contemplate just this
+moment than you, dear Judy.  I think that such a spectacle as you
+and Jervis is a menace to society.  You look so happy and
+peaceful and companionable that you induce a defenseless onlooker
+to rush off and snap up the first man she meets--and he's always
+the wrong man.
+
+Anyway, Gordon and I have quarreled definitely and finally. 
+I should rather have ended without a quarrel, but considering his
+temperament,--and mine, too, I must confess,--we had to go off in
+a big smoky explosion.  He came yesterday afternoon, after
+I'd written him not to come, and we went walking over Knowltop. 
+For three and a half hours we paced back and forth over that
+windy moor and discussed ourselves to the bottommost recesses of
+our beings.  No one can ever say the break came through
+misunderstanding each other!
+
+It ended by Gordon's going, never to return.  As I stood
+there at the end and watched him drop out of sight over the brow
+of the hill, and realized that I was free and alone and my own
+master well, Judy, such a sense of joyous relief, of freedom,
+swept over me!  I can't tell you; I don't believe any happily
+married person could ever realize how wonderfully, beautifully
+ALONE I felt.  I wanted to throw my arms out and embrace the
+whole waiting world that belonged suddenly to me.  Oh, it is such
+a relief to have it settled!  I faced the truth the night of the
+fire when I saw the old John Grier go, and realized that a new
+John Grier would be built in its place and that I wouldn't be
+here to do it.  A horrible jealousy clutched at my heart.  I
+couldn't give it up, and during those agonizing moments while I
+thought we had lost our doctor, I realized what his life meant,
+and how much more significant than Gordon's.  And I knew then
+that I couldn't desert him.  I had to go on and carry out all of
+the plans we made together.
+
+I don't seem to be telling you anything but a mess of words,
+I am so full of such a mess of crowding emotions.  I want to talk
+and talk and talk myself into coherence.  But, anyway, I stood
+alone in the winter twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear
+cold air, and I felt beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free.
+
+And then I ran and leaped and skipped down the hill and across
+the pastures toward our iron confines, and I sang to myself.  Oh,
+it was a scandalous proceeding, when, according to all precedent,
+I should have gone trailing home with a broken wing.  I never
+gave one thought to poor Gordon, who was carrying a broken,
+bruised, betrayed heart to the railroad station.
+
+As I entered the house I was greeted by the joyous clatter of
+the children trooping to their supper.  They were suddenly MINE,
+and lately, as my doom became more and more imminent, they had
+seemed fading away into little strangers.  I seized the three
+nearest and hugged them hard.  I have suddenly found such new
+life and exuberance, I feel as though I had been released from
+prison and were free.  I feel,--oh, I'll stop,--I just want you
+to know the truth.  Don't show Jervis this letter, but tell him
+what's in it in a decently subdued and mournful fashion.
+
+It's midnight now, and I'm going to try to go to sleep.  It's
+wonderful not to be going to marry some one you don't want to
+marry.  I'm glad of all these children's needs, I'm glad of Helen
+Brooks, and, yes, of the fire, and everything that has made me
+see clearly.  There's never been a divorce in my family, and they
+would have hated it.
+
+I know I'm horribly egotistical and selfish; I ought to be
+thinking of poor Gordon's broken heart.  But really it would just
+be a pose if I pretended to be very sorrowful.  He'll find some
+one else with just as conspicuous hair as mine, who will make
+just as effective a hostess, and who won't be bothered by any of
+these damned modern ideas about public service and woman's
+mission and all the rest of the tomfoolery the modern generation
+of women is addicted to.  (I paraphrase, and soften our young
+man's heartbroken utterances.)
+
+Good-by, dear people.  How I wish I could stand with you on
+your beach and look across the blue, blue sea!  I salute the
+Spanish main.
+
+                                       ADDIO!
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+                                                   January 27.
+Dear Dr. MacRae:
+
+I wonder if this note will be so fortunate as to find you awake? 
+Perhaps you are not aware that I have called four times to offer
+thanks and consolation in my best bed-side manner?  I am touched
+by the news that Mrs. McGurk's time is entirely occupied in
+taking in flowers and jelly and chicken broth, donated by the
+adoring ladies of the parish to the ungracious hero in a plaster
+cast.  I know that you find a cap of homespun more comfortable
+than a halo, but I really do think that you might have regarded
+me in a different light from the hysterical ladies in question. 
+You and I used to be friends (intermittently), and though there
+are one or two details in our past intercourse that might better
+be expunged, still I don't see why we should let them upset our
+entire relationship.  Can't we be sensible and expunge them?
+
+The fire has brought out such a lot of unexpected kindliness
+and charity, I wish it might bring out a little from you.  You
+see, Sandy, I know you well.  You may pose to the world as being
+gruff and curt and ungracious and scientific and inhuman and
+S C O T C H, but you can't fool me.  My newly trained
+psychological eye has been upon you for ten months, and I have
+applied the Binet test.  You are really kind and sympathetic and
+wise and forgiving and big, so please be at home the next time I
+come to see you, and we will perform a surgical operation upon
+Time and amputate five months.
+
+Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran away, and what a
+nice time we had?  It is now the day after that.
+
+                                           SALLIE McBRIDE.
+
+P.S.  If I condescend to call upon you again, please condescend
+to see me, for I assure you I won't try more than once!  Also, I
+assure you that I won't drip tears on your counterpane or try to
+kiss your hand, as I hear one admiring lady did.
+
+
+                                       THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+                                                       Thursday.
+Dear Enemy:
+
+You see, I'm feeling very friendly toward you this moment.  When
+I call you "MacRae" I don't like you, and when I call you "Enemy"
+I do.
+
+Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an afterthought).  And
+it's a very creditable production for a left-handed man; I
+thought at first glance it was from Punch.
+
+You may expect me tomorrow at four, and mind you're awake! 
+I'm glad that you think we're friends.  Really, I feel that I've
+got back something quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid.
+
+                                                       S. McB.
+
+P.S.  Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has the
+toothache.  He sits and holds his cheek like a poor little
+kiddie.
+
+
+                                           Thursday, January 29.
+Dear Judy:
+
+Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages I dashed off
+to you last week.  Did you respect my command to destroy that
+letter?  I should not care to have it appear in my collected
+correspondence.  I know that my state of mind is disgraceful,
+shocking, scandalous, but one really can't help the way one
+feels.  It is usually considered a pleasant sensation to be
+engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the wonderful
+untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged!  I have
+had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at
+last I am settled.  No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood
+more thankfully than I.
+
+Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential.  It was
+sent from heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier.  We are
+already deep in plans for cottages.  I favor gray stucco, Betsy
+leans to brick, and Percy, half-timber.  I don't know what our
+poor doctor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof appears
+to be his taste.
+
+With ten different kitchens to practice in, won't our
+children learn how to cook!  I am already looking about for ten
+loving house mothers to put in charge.  I think, in fact, I'll
+search for eleven, in order to have one for Sandy.  He's as
+pathetically in need of a little mothering as any, of the chicks.
+
+It must be pretty dispiriting to come home every night to the
+ministrations of Mrs. McGur-rk.
+
+How I do not like that woman!  She has with complacent
+firmness told me four different times that the dochther was
+ashleep and not wantin' to be disturbed.  I haven't set eyes on
+him yet, and I have just about finished being polite. 
+However, I waive judgment until tomorrow at four, when I am
+to pay a short, unexciting call of half an hour.  He made the
+appointment himself, and if she tells me again that he is
+ashleep, I shall give her a gentle push and tip her over (she's
+very fat and unstable) and, planting a foot firmly on her
+stomach, pursue my way tranquilly in and up.  Luellen, formerly
+chauffeur, chambermaid, and gardener, is now also trained nurse. 
+I am eager to see how he looks in a white cap and apron.
+
+The mail has just come, with a letter from Mrs. Bretland,
+telling how happy they are to have the children.  She inclosed
+their first photograph--all packed in a governess cart, with
+Clifford proudly holding the reins, and a groom at the pony's
+head.  How is that for three late inmates of the John Grier Home?
+
+It's all very inspiring when I think of their futures, but a
+trifle sad when I remember their poor father, and how he worked
+himself to death for those three chicks who are going to forget
+him.  The Bretlands will do their best to accomplish that.  They
+are jealous of any outside influence and want to make the babies
+wholly theirs.  After all, I think the natural way is best--for
+each family to produce its own children, and keep them.
+
+                                                       Friday.
+
+
+I saw the doctor today.  He's a pathetic sight, consisting
+mostly of bandages.  Somehow or other we got our
+misunderstandings all made up.  Isn't it dreadful the way two
+human beings, both endowed with fair powers of speech, can manage
+to convey nothing of their psychological processes to each other?
+
+I haven't understood his mental attitude from the first, and he
+even yet doesn't understand mine.  This grim reticence that we
+Northern people struggle so hard to maintain!  I don't know after
+all but that the excitable Southern safety valve method is the
+best.
+
+But, Judy, such a dreadful thing--do you remember last year
+when he visited that psychopathic institution, and stayed ten
+days, and I made such a silly fuss about it?  Oh, my dear, the
+impossible things I do!  He went to attend his wife's funeral. 
+She died there in the institution.  Mrs. McGurk knew it all the
+time, and might have added it to the rest of her news, but she
+didn't.
+
+He told me all about her, very sweetly.  The poor man for
+years and years has undergone a terrible strain, and I fancy her
+death is a blessed relief.  He confesses that he knew at the time
+of his marriage that he ought not to marry her, he knew all about
+her nervous instability; but he thought, being a doctor, that he
+could overcome it, and she was beautiful!  He gave up his city
+practice and came to the country on her account.  And then after
+the little girl's birth she went all to pieces, and he had to
+"put her away," to use Mrs. McGurk's phrase.  The child is six
+now, a sweet, lovely little thing to look at, but, I judge from
+what he said, quite abnormal.  He has a trained nurse with her
+always.  Just think of all that tragedy looming over our poor
+patient good doctor, for he is patient, despite being the most
+impatient man that ever lived!
+
+Thank Jervis for his letter.  He's a dear man, and I'm glad
+to see him getting his deserts.  What fun we are going to have
+when you get back to Shadywell, and we lay our plans for a new
+John Grier!  I feel as though I had spent this past year
+learning, and am now just ready to begin.  We'll turn this into
+the nicest orphan asylum that ever lived.  I'm so absurdly happy
+at the prospect that I start in the morning with a spring, and go
+about my various businesses singing inside.
+
+The John Grier Home sends its blessing to the two best
+friends it ever had!
+
+                                       ADDIO!
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+                                   THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
+
+                   Saturday at half-past six in the morning!
+
+My dearest Enemy:
+
+"Some day soon something nice is going to happen."
+
+Weren't you surprised when you woke up this morning and
+remembered the truth?  I was!  I couldn't think for about two
+minutes what made me so happy.
+
+It's not light yet, but I'm wide awake and excited and having
+to write to you.  I shall despatch this note by the first to-be-
+trusted little orphan who appears, and it will go up on your
+breakfast tray along with your oatmeal.
+
+I shall follow VERY PROMPTLY at four o'clock this afternoon. 
+Do you think Mrs. McGurk will ever countenance the scandal if I
+stay two hours, and no orphan for a chaperon?
+
+It was in all good faith, Sandy, that I promised not to kiss
+your hand or drip tears on the counterpane, but I'm afraid I did
+both--or worse!  Positively, I didn't suspect how much I cared
+for you till I crossed the threshold and saw you propped up
+against the pillows, all covered with bandages, and your hair
+singed off.  You are a sight!  If I love you now, when fully one
+third of you is plaster of Paris and surgical dressing, you can
+imagine how I'm going to love you when it's all you!
+
+But my dear, dear Robin, what a foolish man you are!  How
+should I ever have dreamed all those months that you were caring
+for me when you acted so abominably S C O T C H?  With most men,
+behavior like yours would not be considered a mark of affection. 
+I wish you had just given me a glimmering of an idea of the
+truth, and maybe you would have saved us both a few heartaches.
+
+But we mustn't be looking back; we must look forward and be
+grateful.  The two happiest things in life are going to be ours,
+a FRIENDLY marriage and work that we love.
+
+Yesterday, after leaving you, I walked back to the asylum
+sort of dazed.  I wanted to get by myself and THINK, but instead
+of being by myself, I had to have Betsy and Percy and Mrs.
+Livermore for dinner (already invited) and then go down and talk
+to the children.  Friday night-social evening.  They had a lot of
+new records for the victrola, given by Mrs. Livermore, and I had
+to sit politely and listen to them.  And, my dear--you'll think
+this funny--the last thing they played was "John Anderson, my jo
+John," and suddenly I found myself crying!  I had to snatch up
+the earnest orphan and hug her hard, with my head buried in her
+shoulder, to keep them all from seeing.
+
+           John Anderson, my jo John,
+           We clamb the hill thegither,
+           And monie a canty day, John,
+           We've had wi' ane anither;
+           Now we maun totter down, John,
+           But hand in hand we'll go,
+           And sleep thegither at the foot,
+           John Anderson, my jo.
+
+I wonder, when we are old and bent and tottery, can you and I
+look back, with no regrets, on monie a canty day we've had wi'
+ane anither?  It's nice to look forward to, isn't it--a life of
+work and play and little daily adventures side by side with
+somebody you love?  I'm not afraid of the future any more.  I
+don't mind growing old with you, Sandy.  "Time is but the stream
+I go a-fishing in."
+
+The reason I've grown to love these orphans is because they
+need me so, and that's the reason--at least one of the reasons--
+I've grown to love you.  You're a pathetic figure of a man, my
+dear, and since you won't make yourself comfortable, you must be
+MADE comfortable.
+
+We'll build a house on the hillside just beyond the asylum--
+how does a yellow Italian villa strike you, or preferably a pink
+one?  Anyway, it won't be green.  And it won't have a mansard
+roof.  And we'll have a big cheerful living room, all fireplace
+and windows and view, and no McGURK.  Poor old thing! won't she
+be in a temper and cook you a dreadful dinner when she hears the
+news!  But we won't tell her for a long, long time--or anybody
+else.  It's too scandalous a proceeding right on top of my own
+broken engagement.  I wrote to Judy last night, and with
+unprecedented self-control I never let fall so much as a hint. 
+I'm growing Scotch mysel'!
+
+Perhaps I didn't tell you the exact truth, Sandy, when I said
+I hadn't known how much I cared.  I think it came to me the night
+the John Grier burned.  When you were up under that blazing roof,
+and for the half hour that followed, when we didn't know whether
+or not you would live, I can't tell you what agonies I went
+through.  It seemed to me, if you did go, that I would never get
+over it all my life; that somehow to have let the best friend I
+ever had pass away with a dreadful chasm of misunderstanding
+between us--well--I couldn't wait for the moment when I should be
+allowed to see you and talk out all that I have been shutting
+inside me for five months.  And then--you know that you gave
+strict orders to keep me out; and it hurt me dreadfully.  How
+should I suspect that you really wanted to see me more than any
+of the others, and that it was just that terrible Scotch moral
+sense that was holding you back?  You are a very good actor,
+Sandy.  But, my dear, if ever in our lives again we have the
+tiniest little cloud of a misunderstanding, let's promise not to
+shut it up inside ourselves, but to TALK.
+
+Last night, after they all got off,--early, I am pleased to
+say, since the chicks no longer live at home,--I came upstairs
+and finished my letter to Judy, and then I looked at the
+telephone and struggled with temptation.  I wanted to call up 505
+and say good night to you.  But I didn't dare.  I'm still quite
+respectably bashful!  So, as the next best thing to talking with
+you, I got out Burns and read him for an hour.  I dropped asleep
+with all those Scotch love songs running in my head, and here I
+am at daybreak writing them to you.
+
+Good-by, Robin lad, I lo'e you weel.
+
+                                               SALLIE.
+
+
+The end of Project Gutenberg Etext of "Dear Enemy"
+
+
+
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