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,