Dear Enemy [52]
with laughter. The tragedy she has just emerged from has never touched her. But Don and Clifford, sturdy little lads of five and seven, are already solemn-eyed and frightened at the hardness of life.
Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who married an artist on a capital of enthusiasm and a few tubes of paint. His friends say that he had talent, but of course he had to throw it away to pay the milkman. They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety old studio, cooking behind screens, the babies sleeping on shelves.
But there seems to have been a very happy side to it--a great deal of love and many friends, all more or less poor, but artistic and congenial and high-thinking. The little lads, in their gentleness and fineness, show that phase of their upbringing. They have an air which many of my children, despite all the good manners I can pour into them, will forever lack.
The mother died in the hospital a few days after Allegra's birth, and the father struggled on for two years, caring for his brood and painting like mad--advertisements, anything--to keep a roof over their heads.
He died in St. Vincent's three weeks ago,--overwork, worry, pneumonia. His friends rallied about the babies, sold such of the studio fittings as had escaped pawning, paid off the debts, and looked about for the best asylum they could find. And, Heaven save them! they hit upon us!
Well, I kept the two artists for luncheon,--nice creatures in soft hats and Windsor ties, and looking pretty frayed themselves,--and then started them back to New York with the promise that I would give the little family my most parental attention.
So here they are, one little mite in the nursery, two in the kindergarten room, four big packing cases full of canvases in the cellar, and a trunk in the store room with the letters of their father and mother. And a look in their faces, an intangible spiritual SOMETHING, that is their heritage.
I can't get them out of my mind. All night long I was planning their future. The boys are easy. They have already been graduated from college, Mr. Pendleton assisting, and are pursuing honorable business careers. But Allegra I don't know about; I can't think what to wish for the child. Of course the normal thing to wish for any sweet little girl is that two kind foster parents will come along to take the place of the real parents that Fate has robbed her of. But in this case it would be cruel to steal her away from her brothers. Their love for the baby is pitiful. You see, they have brought her up. The only time I ever hear them laugh is when she has done something funny.
The poor little fellows miss their father horribly. I found Don, the five-year-old one, sobbing in his crib last night because he couldn't say good night to "daddy."
But Allegra is true to her name, the happiest young miss of three I have ever seen. The poor father managed well by her, and she, little ingrate, has already forgotten that she has lost him.
Whatever can I do with these little ones? I think and think and think about them. I can't place them out, and it does seem too awful to bring them up here; for as good as we are going to be when we get ourselves made over, still, after all, we are an institution, and our inmates are just little incubator chicks. They don't get the individual, fussy care that only an old hen can give.
There is a lot of interesting news that I might have been telling you, but my new little family has driven everything out of my mind.
Bairns are certain joy, but nae sma' care.
Yours ever,
SALLIE. P.S. Don't forget that you are coming to visit me next week.
P.S. II. The doctor, who is ordinarily so scientific and unsentimental, has fallen in love with Allegra. He didn't so much as glance at her tonsils; he simply picked her up in his arms and hugged her. Oh, she is a little witch! Whatever is to become of her?
June
Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who married an artist on a capital of enthusiasm and a few tubes of paint. His friends say that he had talent, but of course he had to throw it away to pay the milkman. They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety old studio, cooking behind screens, the babies sleeping on shelves.
But there seems to have been a very happy side to it--a great deal of love and many friends, all more or less poor, but artistic and congenial and high-thinking. The little lads, in their gentleness and fineness, show that phase of their upbringing. They have an air which many of my children, despite all the good manners I can pour into them, will forever lack.
The mother died in the hospital a few days after Allegra's birth, and the father struggled on for two years, caring for his brood and painting like mad--advertisements, anything--to keep a roof over their heads.
He died in St. Vincent's three weeks ago,--overwork, worry, pneumonia. His friends rallied about the babies, sold such of the studio fittings as had escaped pawning, paid off the debts, and looked about for the best asylum they could find. And, Heaven save them! they hit upon us!
Well, I kept the two artists for luncheon,--nice creatures in soft hats and Windsor ties, and looking pretty frayed themselves,--and then started them back to New York with the promise that I would give the little family my most parental attention.
So here they are, one little mite in the nursery, two in the kindergarten room, four big packing cases full of canvases in the cellar, and a trunk in the store room with the letters of their father and mother. And a look in their faces, an intangible spiritual SOMETHING, that is their heritage.
I can't get them out of my mind. All night long I was planning their future. The boys are easy. They have already been graduated from college, Mr. Pendleton assisting, and are pursuing honorable business careers. But Allegra I don't know about; I can't think what to wish for the child. Of course the normal thing to wish for any sweet little girl is that two kind foster parents will come along to take the place of the real parents that Fate has robbed her of. But in this case it would be cruel to steal her away from her brothers. Their love for the baby is pitiful. You see, they have brought her up. The only time I ever hear them laugh is when she has done something funny.
The poor little fellows miss their father horribly. I found Don, the five-year-old one, sobbing in his crib last night because he couldn't say good night to "daddy."
But Allegra is true to her name, the happiest young miss of three I have ever seen. The poor father managed well by her, and she, little ingrate, has already forgotten that she has lost him.
Whatever can I do with these little ones? I think and think and think about them. I can't place them out, and it does seem too awful to bring them up here; for as good as we are going to be when we get ourselves made over, still, after all, we are an institution, and our inmates are just little incubator chicks. They don't get the individual, fussy care that only an old hen can give.
There is a lot of interesting news that I might have been telling you, but my new little family has driven everything out of my mind.
Bairns are certain joy, but nae sma' care.
Yours ever,
SALLIE. P.S. Don't forget that you are coming to visit me next week.
P.S. II. The doctor, who is ordinarily so scientific and unsentimental, has fallen in love with Allegra. He didn't so much as glance at her tonsils; he simply picked her up in his arms and hugged her. Oh, she is a little witch! Whatever is to become of her?
June