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.