Dear Enemy [38]
to this asylum, and I think it's about time they woke up to a realization of our presence.
Returning at teatime, I was waylaid in the hall by Dr. MacRae, who demanded some statistics from my office. I opened the door, and there sat Mamie Prout exactly where she had been left four hours before.
"Mamie darling!" I cried in horror. "You haven't been here all this time?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Mamie; "you told me to wait until you came back."
That poor patient little thing was fairly swaying with weariness, but she never uttered a whimper.
I will say for Sandy that he was SWEET. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her to my library, and petted her and caressed her back to smiles. Jane brought the sewing table and spread it before the fire, and while the doctor and I had tea, Mamie had her supper. I suppose, according to the theory of some educators, now, when she was thoroughly worn out and hungry, would have been the psychological moment to ply her with prunes. But you will be pleased to hear that I did nothing of the sort, and that the doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles. Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, embellished with strawberry jam from my private jar and peppermints from Sandy's pocket. We returned her to her mates happy and comforted, but still possessing that regrettable distaste for prunes.
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
Returning at teatime, I was waylaid in the hall by Dr. MacRae, who demanded some statistics from my office. I opened the door, and there sat Mamie Prout exactly where she had been left four hours before.
"Mamie darling!" I cried in horror. "You haven't been here all this time?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Mamie; "you told me to wait until you came back."
That poor patient little thing was fairly swaying with weariness, but she never uttered a whimper.
I will say for Sandy that he was SWEET. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her to my library, and petted her and caressed her back to smiles. Jane brought the sewing table and spread it before the fire, and while the doctor and I had tea, Mamie had her supper. I suppose, according to the theory of some educators, now, when she was thoroughly worn out and hungry, would have been the psychological moment to ply her with prunes. But you will be pleased to hear that I did nothing of the sort, and that the doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles. Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, embellished with strawberry jam from my private jar and peppermints from Sandy's pocket. We returned her to her mates happy and comforted, but still possessing that regrettable distaste for prunes.
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