Dear Enemy

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pathetic list of our needs.
But Gordon Hallock has learned the way to a mother's heart. I was so
pleasant about the peanuts and menagerie that now he sends a present of
some sort every few days, and I spend my entire time composing
thank-you letters that aren't exact copies of the ones I've sent before. Last
week we received a dozen big scarlet balls. The nursery is FULL of them;
Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 69
you kick them before you as you walk. And yesterday there arrived a
half-bushel of frogs and ducks and fishes to float in the bathtubs.
Send, O best of trustees, the tubs in which to float them!
I am, as usual,
S. McBRIDE.
Tuesday. My dear Judy:
Spring must be lurking about somewhere; the birds are arriving from the
South. Isn't it time you followed their example?
Society note from the BIRD O' PASSAGE NEWS:
"Mr. and Mrs. First Robin have returned from a trip to Florida. It is hoped
that Mr. and Mrs. Jervis Pendleton will arrive shortly."
Even up here in our dilatory Dutchess County the breeze smells green. It
makes you want to be out and away, roaming the hills, or else down on
your knees grubbing in the dirt. Isn't it funny what farmering instincts the
budding spring awakens in even the most urban souls?
I have spent the morning making plans for little private gardens for every
child over nine. The big potato field is doomed. That is the only feasible
spot for sixty-two private gardens. It is near enough to be watched from the
north windows, and yet far enough away, so that their messing will not
injure our highly prized landscape lawn. Also the earth is rich, and they
have some chance of success. I don't want the poor little chicks to scratch
all summer, and then not turn up any treasure in the end. In order to furnish
an incentive, I shall announce that the institution will buy their produce and
pay in real money, though I foresee we shall be buried under a mountain of
radishes.
Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 70
I do so want to develop self-reliance and initiative in these children, two
sturdy qualities in which they are conspicuously lacking (with the
exception of Sadie Kate and a few other bad ones). Children who have
spirit enough to be bad I consider very hopeful. It's those who are good just
from inertia that are discouraging.
The last few days have been spent mainly in charming the devil out of
Punch, an interesting task if I could devote my whole time to it. But with
one hundred and seven other little devils to charm away, my attention is
sorely deflected.
The awful thing about this life is that whatever I am doing, the other things
that I am not doing, but ought to be, keep tugging at my skirts. There is no
doubt but Punch's personal devil needs the whole attention of a whole
person,--preferably two persons,--so that they could spell each other and
get some rest.
Sadie Kate has just flown in from the nursery with news of a scarlet
goldfish (Gordon's gift) swallowed by one of our babies. Mercy! the
number of calamities that can occur in an orphan asylum!
9 P.M.
My children are in bed, and I've just had a thought. Wouldn't it be heavenly
if the hibernating system prevailed among the human young? There would
be some pleasure in running an asylum if one could just tuck the little
darlings into bed the first of October and keep them there until the
twenty-second of April.
I'm yours, as ever,
SALLIE.
April 24. Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.:
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This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent you ten minutes ago.
Fifty words not being enough to convey any idea of my emotions, I
herewith add a thousand.
As you will know by the time you receive this, I have discharged the
farmer, and he has refused to be discharged. Being twice the size of me, I
can't lug him to the gate and chuck him out. He wants a notification from
the president of the board of trustees written in vigorous language on
official paper in typewriting. So, dear president of the board of trustees,
kindly supply all of this at your earliest convenience.
Here follows the history of the case:
The winter season still being with us when I arrived and farming activities
at a low ebb, I have heretofore paid little attention to Robert Sterry except
to note on two occasions that his pigpens needed cleaning; but today I sent
for him to come and consult with me in regard to spring planting.
Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at ease in my office with his
hat upon his head. I suggested as tactfully as might be that he remove it, an
entirely necessary request, as little orphan boys were in and out on errands,
and "hats off in the house" is our first rule in masculine deportment.
Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened himself to be against
whatever I might desire.
I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that the diet of the John Grier
Home in the year to come is to consist less exclusively of potatoes. At
which our farmer grunted in the manner of the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff, only it
was a less ethereal and gentlemanly grunt than a trustee permits himself. I
enumerated corn and beans and onions and peas and tomatoes and beets
and carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes.
Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was good enough for him, he
guessed they was good enough for charity children.
Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 72
I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre potato field was to be
plowed and fertilized, and laid out into sixty individual gardens, the boys
assisting in the work.
At that Sterry exploded. The two-acre field was the most fertile and
valuable piece of earth on the whole place. He guessed if I was to break that
up into play gardens for the children to mess about in, I'd be hearing about
it pretty danged quick from the board of trustees. That field was fitted for
potatoes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was going to continue to raise
them just as long as he had anything to say about it.
"You have nothing whatever to say about it," I amiably replied. "I have
decided that the two-acre field is the best plot to use for the children's
gardens, and you and the potatoes will have to give way."
Whereupon he rose in a storm of bucolic wrath, and said he'd be gol darned
if he'd have a lot of these danged city brats interfering with his work.
I explained--very calmly for a red-haired person with Irish
forebears--that this place was run for the exclusive benefit of these
children; that the children were not here to be exploited for the benefit of
the place, a philosophy which he did not grasp, though my fancy city
language had a slightly dampening effect. I added that what I required in a
farmer was the ability and patience to instruct the boys in gardening and
simple outdoor work; that I wished a man of large sympathies whose
example would be an inspiring influence to these children of the city
streets.
Sterry, pacing about like a caged woodchuck, launched into a tirade about
silly Sunday-school notions, and, by a transition which I did not grasp, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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