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,