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,