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.