Dear Enemy (12 page)

Did you ever know anything more appalling than this soul- crushing unreasoning obedience which Mrs. Lippett so insistently fostered? It's the orphan asylum attitude toward life, and somehow I must crush it out. Initiative, responsibility, curiosity, inventiveness, fight--oh dear! I wish the doctor had a serum for injecting all these useful virtues into an orphan's circulation.

LATER.

I wish you'd come back to New York. I've appointed you press agent for this institution, and we need some of your floweriest writing immediately. There are seven tots here crying to be adopted, and it's your business to advertise them.

Little Gertrude is cross-eyed, but dear and affectionate and generous. Can't you write her up so persuasively that some loving family will be willing to take her even if she isn't beautiful? Her eyes can be operated on when she's older; but if it were a cross disposition she had, no surgeon in the world could remove that. The child knows there is something missing, though she has never seen a live parent in her life. She holds up her arms persuasively to every person who passes. Put in all the pathos you are capable of, and see if you can't fetch her a mother and father.

Maybe you can get one of the New York papers to run a Sunday feature article about a lot of different children. I'll send some photographs. You remember what a lot of responses that "Smiling Joe" picture brought for the Sea Breeze people? I can furnish equally taking portraits of Laughing Lou and Gurgling Gertrude and Kicking Karl if you will just add the literary touch.

And do find me some sports who are not afraid of heredity. This wanting every child to come from one of the first families of Virginia is getting tiresome.

Yours, as usual,

SALLIE.

Friday. My dear, dear Judy:

Such an upheaval! I've discharged the cook and the housekeeper, and in delicate language conveyed the impression to our grammar teacher that she needn't come back next year. But, oh, if I could only discharge the Honorable Cy!

I must tell you what happened this morning. Our trustee, who has had a dangerous illness, is now dangerously well again, and dropped in to pay a neighborly call. Punch was occupying a rug on my library floor, virtuously engaged with building blocks. I am separating him from the other kindergarten children, and trying the Montessori method of a private rug and no nervous distraction. I was flattering myself that it was working well; his vocabulary of late has become almost prudish.

After half an hour's desultory visit, the Hon. Cy rose to go. As the door closed behind him (I am at least thankful the child waited for that), Punch raised his appealing brown eyes to mine and murmured, with a confiding smile:

"Gee! ain't he got de hell of a mug?"

If you know a kind Christian family where I can place out a sweet little five-year boy, please communicate at once with

S. McBRIDE,

Sup't John Grier Home.

Dear Pendletons:

I've never known anything like you two snails. You've only just reached Washington, and I have had my suitcase packed for days, ready to spend a rejuvenating week end CHEZ VOUS. Please hurry! I've languished in this asylum atmosphere as long as humanely possible. I shall gasp and die if I don't get a change.

Yours,

on the point of suffocation,

S. McB.

P.S. Drop a card to Gordon Hallock, telling him you are there. He will be charmed to put himself and the Capitol at your disposal. I know that Jervis doesn't like him, but Jervis ought to get over his baseless prejudices against politicians. Who knows? I may be entering politics myself some day.

My dear Judy:

We do receive the most amazing presents from our friends and benefactors. Listen to this. Last week Mr. Wilton J. Leverett (I quote from his card) ran over a broken bottle outside our gate, and came in to visit the institution while his chauffeur was mending the tire. Betsy showed him about. He took an intelligent interest in everything he saw, particularly our new camps. That is an exhibit which appeals to men. He ended by removing his coat, and playing baseball with two tribes of Indians. After an hour and a half he suddenly looked at his watch, begged for a glass of water, and bowed himself off.

We had entirely forgotten the episode until this afternoon, when the expressman drove up to the door with a present for the John Grier Home from the chemical laboratories of Wilton J. Leverett. It was a barrel--well, anyway, a good sized keg--full of liquid green soap!

Did I tell you that the seeds for our garden came from Washington? A polite present from Gordon Hallock and the U. S. Government. As an example of what the past regime did not accomplish, Martin Schladerwitz, who has spent three years on this pseudo farm, knew no more than to dig a grave two feet deep and bury his lettuce seeds!

Oh, you can't imagine the number of fields in which we need making over; but of course you, of all people, can imagine. Little by little I am getting my eyes wide open, and things that just looked funny to me at first, now--oh dear! It's very disillusionizing. Every funny thing that comes up seems to have a little tragedy wrapped inside it.

Just at present we are paying anxious attention to our manners--not orphan asylum manners, but dancing school manners. There is to be nothing Uriah Heepish about our attitude toward the world. The little girls make curtseys when they shake hands, and the boys remove caps and rise when a lady stands, and push in chairs at the table. (Tommy Woolsey shot Sadie Kate into her soup yesterday, to the glee of all observers except Sadie, who is an independent young damsel and doesn't care for these useless masculine attentions.) At first the boys were inclined to jeer, but after observing the politeness of their hero, Percy de Forest Witherspoon, they have come up to the mark like little gentlemen.

Punch is paying a call this morning. For the last half-hour, while I have been busily scratching away to you, he has been established in the window seat, quietly and undestructively engaged with colored pencils. Betsy, EN PASSANT, just dropped a kiss upon his nose.

"Aw, gwan!" said Punch, blushing quite pink, and wiping off the caress with a fine show of masculine indifference. But I notice he has resumed work upon his red-and-green landscape with heightened ardor and an attempt at whistling. We'll succeed yet in conquering that young man's temper.

Tuesday.

The doctor is in a very grumbly mood today. He called just as the children were marching in to dinner, whereupon he marched, too, and sampled their food, and, oh, my dear! the potatoes were scorched! And such a clishmaclaver as that man made! It is the first time the potatoes ever have been scorched, and you know that scorching sometimes happens in the best of families. But you would think from Sandy's language that the cook had scorched them on purpose, in accordance with my orders.

As I have told you before, I could do very nicely without Sandy.

Wednesday.

Yesterday being a wonderful sunny day, Betsy and I turned our backs upon duty and motored to the very fancy home of some friends of hers, where we had tea in an Italian garden. Punch and Sadie Kate had been SUCH good children all day that at the last moment we telephoned for permission to include them, too.

"Yes, indeed, do bring the little dears," was the enthusiastic response.

But the choice of Punch and Sadie Kate was a mistake. We ought to have taken Mamie Prout, who has demonstrated her ability to sit. I shall spare you the details of our visit; the climax was reached when Punch went goldfishing in the bottom of the swimming pool. Our host pulled him out by an agitated leg, and the child returned to the asylum swathed in that gentleman's rose-colored bathrobe.

What do you think? Dr. Robin MacRae, in a contrite mood for having been so intensely disagreeable yesterday, has just invited Betsy and me to take supper in his olive-green house next Sunday evening at seven o'clock in order to look at some microscopic slides. The entertainment, I believe, is to consist of a scarlet-fever culture, some alcoholic tissue, and a tubercular gland. These social attentions bore him excessively; but he realizes that if he is to have free scope in applying his theories to the institution he must be a little polite to its superintendent.

I have just read this letter over, and I must admit that it skips lightly from topic to topic. But though it may not contain news of any great moment, I trust you will realize that its writing has consumed every vacant minute during the last three days. I am,

Most fully occupied,

SALLIE McBRIDE.

P.S. A blessed woman came this morning and said she would take a child for the summer--one of the sickest, weakest, neediest babies I could give her. She had just lost her husband, and wanted something HARD to do. Isn't that really very touching?

Saturday afternoon. Dear Judy and Jervis:

Brother Jimmie (we are very alliterative!), spurred on by sundry begging letters from me, has at last sent us a present; but he picked it out himself.

WE HAVE A MONKEY! His name is Java. The children no longer hear the school bell ring. On the day the creature came, this entire institution formed in line and filed past and shook his paw. Poor Sing's nose is out of joint. I have to PAY to have him washed.

Sadie Kate is developing into my private secretary. I have her answer the thank-you letters for the institution, and her literary style is making a hit among our benefactors. She invariably calls out a second gift. I had hitherto believed that the Kilcoyne family sprang from the wild west of Ireland, but I begin to suspect that their source was nearer Blarney Castle. You can see from the inclosed copy of the letter she sent to Jimmie what a persuasive pen the young person has. I trust that in this case at least, it will not bear the fruit that she suggests.

Dear Mr. Jimie

We thank you very much for the lovly monkey you give. We name him java because that's a warm iland across the ocian where he was born up in a nest like a bird only big the doctor told us.

The first day he come every boy and girl shook his hand and said good morning java his hand feels funny he holds so tite. I was afraid to touch him but now I let him sit on my shoulder and put his arms around my kneck if he wants to. He makes a funny noise that sounds like swering and gets mad when his tale is puled.

We love him dearly and we love you two.

The next time you have to give a present, please send an elifant. Well I guess Ill stop.

Yours truly,

SADIE KATE KILCOYNE.

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."