Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy (31 page)

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, passed to a review of the general subject of woman's suffrage. I gathered that he is not in favor of the movement. I let him argue himself quiet, then I handed him a check for his wages, and told him to vacate the tenant house by twelve o'clock next Wednesday.

Sterry says he'll be danged if he will. (Excuse so many
dangeds.
It is the creature's only adjective.) He was engaged to work for this institution by the president of the board of trustees, and he will not move from that house until the president of the board of trustees tells him to go. I don't think poor Sterry realizes that since his arrival a new president has come to the throne.

Alors
you have the story. I make no threats, but Sterry or McBride—take your choice, dear sir.

I am also about to write to the head of the Massachusetts Agricultural College,
²⁴
at Amherst, asking him to recommend a good, practical man with a nice, efficient, cheerful wife, who will take the entire care of our modest domain of seventeen acres, and who will be a man with the right personality to place over our boys.

If we get the farming end of this institution into running shape, it ought to furnish not only beans and onions for the table, but education for our hands and brains.

I remain, sir,
Yours most truly,
S. MCBRIDE,
Superintendent of the
John Grier Home.

P.S. I think that Sterry will probably come back some night and throw rocks through the windows. Shall I have them insured?

 

 

You disappeared so quickly this afternoon that I had no chance to thank you, but the echoes of that discharge penetrated as far as my library. Also, I have viewed the debris. What on earth did you do to poor Sterry? Watching the purposeful set of your shoulders as you strode toward the carriage-house, I was filled with sudden compunction. I did not want the man murdered, merely reasoned with. I am afraid you were a little harsh.

However, your technic seems to have been effective. Report says that he has telephoned for a moving-wagon and that Mrs. Sterry is even now on her hands and knees ripping up the parlor carpet.

For this relief much thanks.

SALLIE MCBRIDE.

 

April 26.

Your vigorous telegram was, after all, not needed. Dr. Robin MacRae, who is a grand
pawky
mon when it comes to a fight, accomplished the business with beautiful directness. I was so bubbling with rage that immediately after writing to you I called up the doctor on the telephone, and rehearsed the whole business over again. Now, our Sandy, whatever his failings (and he has them), does have an uncommon supply of common sense. He knows how useful those gardens are going to be, and how worse than useless Sterry was. Also says he, “The superintendent's authority must be upheld.” (That, incidentally, is beautiful, coming from him.) But anyway, those were his words. And he hung up the receiver, cranked up his car, and flew up here at lawless speed. He marched straight to Sterry, impelled by a fine Scotch rage, and he discharged the man with such vigor and precision, that the carriage-house window was shattered to fragments.

Since this morning at eleven, when Sterry's wagon-load of furniture rumbled out of the gates, a sweet peace has reigned over the J. G. H. A man from the village is helping us out while we hopefully await the farmer of our dreams.

I am sorry to have troubled you with our troubles. Tell Judy that she owes me a letter, and won't hear from me until she has paid it.

Your ob'd't servant,
S. MCBRIDE.

 

 

 

In my letter of yesterday to Jervis I forgotted (Punch's word) to convey to you our thanks for three tin bath-tubs. The sky-blue tub with poppies on the side adds a particularly bright note to the nursery. I do love presents for the babies that are too big to be swallowed.

You will be pleased to hear that our manual training is well under way. The carpenter-benches are being installed in the old primary room, and until our school-house gets its new addition, our primary class is meeting on the front porch, in accordance with Miss Matthews' able suggestion.

The girls' sewing-classes are also in progress. A circle of benches under the copper beech-tree accommodates the hand sewers, while the big girls take turns at our three machines. Just as soon as they gain some proficiency we will begin the glorious work of redressing the institution. I know you think I'm slow, but it's really a task to accomplish one hundred and eighty new frocks. And the girls will appreciate them so much more if they do the work themselves.

I may also report that our hygiene system has risen to a high level. Dr. MacRae has introduced morning and evening exercises, and a glass of milk and a game of tag in the middle of school hours. He has instituted a physiology class, and has separated the children into small groups, so that they may come to his house, where he has a manikin that comes apart and shows all its messy insides. They can now rattle off scientific truths about their little digestions as fluently as Mother-Goose rhymes. We are really becoming too intelligent for recognition. You would never guess that we were orphans to hear us talk; we are quite like Boston children.

2 P.M.

O Judy, such a calamity! Do you remember several weeks ago I told you about placing out a nice little girl in a nice family home where I hoped she would be adopted? It was a kind Christian family living in a pleasant country village, the foster-father a deacon in the church. Hattie was a sweet, obedient, housewifely little body, and it looked as though we had exactly fitted them to each other. My dear, she was returned this morning for
stealing.
Scandal piled on scandal:
she had stolen a communion-cup from church!

Between her sobs and their accusations it took me half an hour to gather the truth. It seems that the church they attend is very modern and hygienic, like our doctor, and has introduced individual communion-cups. Poor little Hattie had never heard of communion in her life; in fact, she wasn't very used to church, Sunday-school having always sufficed for her simple religious needs. But in her new home she attended both, and one day, to her pleased surprise, they served refreshments. But they skipped her. She made no comment, however; she is used to being skipped. But as they were starting home she saw that the little silver cup had been casually left in the seat, and supposing that it was a souvenir that you could take if you wished, she put it into her pocket.

It came to light two days later as the most treasured ornament of her doll's-house. It seems that Hattie long ago saw a set of doll's-dishes in a toy-shop window, and has ever since dreamed of possessing a set of her own. The communion-cup was not quite the same, but it answered. Now, if our family had only had a little less religion and a little more sense, they would have returned the cup, perfectly unharmed, and have marched Hattie to the nearest toy-shop and bought her some dishes. But instead, they bundled the child and her belongings into the first train they could catch, and shoved her in at our front door, proclaiming loudly that she was a thief.

I am pleased to say that I gave that indignant deacon and his wife such a thorough scolding as I am sure they have never listened to from the pulpit; I borrowed some vigorous bits from Sandy's vocabulary, and sent them home quite humbled. As for poor little Hattie, here she is back again, after going out with such high hopes. It has an awfully bad moral effect on a child to be returned to the asylum in disgrace, especially when she wasn't aware of committing a crime. It gives her a feeling that the world is full of unknown pitfalls, and makes her afraid to take a step. I must bend all my energies now toward finding another set of parents for her, and ones that haven't grown so old and settled and good that they have entirely forgotten their own childhood.

 

 

 

Sunday.

I forgot to tell you that our new farmer is here, Turnfelt by name; and his wife is a love, yellow hair and dimples. If she were an orphan, I could place her in a minute. We can't let her go to waste. I have a beautiful plan of building an addition to the farmer's cottage, and establishing under her comfortable care a sort of brooding-house where we can place our new little chicks, to make sure they haven't anything contagious and to eliminate as much profanity as possible before turning them loose among our other perfect chicks.

How does this strike you? It is very necessary in an institution as full of noise and movement and stir as this to have some isolated spot where we can put cases needing individual attention. Some of our children have inherited nerves, and a period of quiet contemplation is indicated. Isn't my vocabulary professional and scientific? Daily intercourse with Dr. Robin MacRae is extremely educational.

Since Turnfelt came, you should see our pigs. They are so clean and pink and unnatural that they don't recognize one another any more as they pass.

Our potato-field is also unrecognizable. It has been divided with string and pegs into as many squares as a checker-board, and every child has staked out a claim. Seed catalogues form our only reading matter.

Noah has just returned from a trip to the village for the Sunday papers to amuse his leisure. Noah is a very cultivated person; he not only reads perfectly, but he wears tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles while he does it. He also brought from the post-office a letter from you, written Friday night. I am pained to note that you do not care for “Gösta Berling”
²⁵
and that Jervis doesn't. The only comment I can make is, “What a shocking lack of literary taste in the Pendleton family!”

Dr. MacRae has another doctor visiting him, a very melancholy gentleman who is at the head of a private psychopathic institution, and thinks there's no good in life. But I suppose this pessimistic view is natural if you eat three meals a day with a tableful of melancholics. He goes up and down the world looking for signs of degeneracy, and finds them everywhere. I expected, after half an hour's conversation, that he would ask to look down my throat to see if I had a cleft palate. Sandy's taste in friends seems to resemble his taste in literature.

Gracious! this is a letter!

Good-by.
SALLIE.

 

 

 

Thursday, May 2.

Such a bewildering whirl of events! The J. G. H. is breathless. Incidentally, I am on the way toward solving my problem of what to do with the children while the carpenters and plumbers and masons are here. Or, rather, my precious brother has solved it for me.

This afternoon I went over my linen supply, and made the shocking discovery that we have only sheets enough to change the children's beds every two weeks, which, it appears, is our shiftless custom. While I was still in the midst of my household gear, with a bunch of keys at my girdle, looking like the chatelaine of a medieval château, who should be ushered in but Jimmie?

Being extremely occupied, I dropped a slanting kiss on his nose, and sent him off to look over the place in charge of my two oldest urchins. They collected six friends and organized a base-ball game. Jimmie came back blown, but enthusiastic, and consented to prolong his visit over the week-end, though after the dinner I gave him he has decided to take his future meals at the hotel. As we sat with our coffee before the fire, I confided to him my anxiety as to what should be done with the chicks while their new brooder is building. You know Jimmie. In one half a minute his plan was formulated.

“Build an Adirondack camp on that little plateau up by the wood-lot. You can make three open shacks, each holding eight bunks, and move the twenty-four oldest boys out there for the summer. It won't cost two cents.”

“Yes,” I objected, “but it will cost more than two cents to engage a man to look after them.”

“Perfectly easy,” said Jimmie, grandly. “I'll find you a college fellow who'll be glad to come during the vacation for his board and a mere pittance, only you'll have to set up more filling board than you gave me to-night.”