Dear Enemy [92]
January 27. Dear Dr. MacRae:
I wonder if this note will be so fortunate as to find you awake? Perhaps you are not aware that I have called four times to offer thanks and consolation in my best bed-side manner? I am touched by the news that Mrs. McGurk's time is entirely occupied in taking in flowers and jelly and chicken broth, donated by the adoring ladies of the parish to the ungracious hero in a plaster cast. I know that you find a cap of homespun more comfortable than a halo, but I really do think that you might have regarded me in a different light from the hysterical ladies in question. You and I used to be friends (intermittently), and though there are one or two details in our past intercourse that might better be expunged, still I don't see why we should let them upset our entire relationship. Can't we be sensible and expunge them?
The fire has brought out such a lot of unexpected kindliness and charity, I wish it might bring out a little from you. You see, Sandy, I know you well. You may pose to the world as being gruff and curt and ungracious and scientific and inhuman and S C O T C H, but you can't fool me. My newly trained psychological eye has been upon you for ten months, and I have applied the Binet test. You are really kind and sympathetic and wise and forgiving and big, so please be at home the next time I come to see you, and we will perform a surgical operation upon Time and amputate five months.
Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran away, and what a nice time we had? It is now the day after that.
SALLIE McBRIDE.
P.S. If I condescend to call upon you again, please condescend to see me, for I assure you I won't try more than once! Also, I assure you that I won't drip tears on your counterpane or try to kiss your hand, as I hear one admiring lady did.
THE JOHN GRIER HOME, Thursday. Dear Enemy:
You see, I'm feeling very friendly toward you this moment. When I call you "MacRae" I don't like you, and when I call you "Enemy" I do.
Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an afterthought). And it's a very creditable production for a left-handed man; I thought at first glance it was from Punch.
You may expect me tomorrow at four, and mind you're awake! I'm glad that you think we're friends. Really, I feel that I've got back something quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid.
S. McB.
P.S. Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has the toothache. He sits and holds his cheek like a poor little kiddie.
Thursday, January 29. Dear Judy:
Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages I dashed off to you last week. Did you respect my command to destroy that letter? I should not care to have it appear in my collected correspondence. I know that my state of mind is disgraceful, shocking, scandalous, but one really can't help the way one feels. It is usually considered a pleasant sensation to be engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the wonderful untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged! I have had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at last I am settled. No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood more thankfully than I.
Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. It was sent from heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier. We are already deep in plans for cottages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy leans to brick, and Percy, half-timber. I don't know what our poor doctor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof appears to be his taste.
With ten different kitchens to practice in, won't our children learn how to cook! I am already looking about for ten loving house mothers to put in charge. I think, in fact, I'll search for eleven, in order to have one for Sandy. He's as pathetically in need of a little
I wonder if this note will be so fortunate as to find you awake? Perhaps you are not aware that I have called four times to offer thanks and consolation in my best bed-side manner? I am touched by the news that Mrs. McGurk's time is entirely occupied in taking in flowers and jelly and chicken broth, donated by the adoring ladies of the parish to the ungracious hero in a plaster cast. I know that you find a cap of homespun more comfortable than a halo, but I really do think that you might have regarded me in a different light from the hysterical ladies in question. You and I used to be friends (intermittently), and though there are one or two details in our past intercourse that might better be expunged, still I don't see why we should let them upset our entire relationship. Can't we be sensible and expunge them?
The fire has brought out such a lot of unexpected kindliness and charity, I wish it might bring out a little from you. You see, Sandy, I know you well. You may pose to the world as being gruff and curt and ungracious and scientific and inhuman and S C O T C H, but you can't fool me. My newly trained psychological eye has been upon you for ten months, and I have applied the Binet test. You are really kind and sympathetic and wise and forgiving and big, so please be at home the next time I come to see you, and we will perform a surgical operation upon Time and amputate five months.
Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran away, and what a nice time we had? It is now the day after that.
SALLIE McBRIDE.
P.S. If I condescend to call upon you again, please condescend to see me, for I assure you I won't try more than once! Also, I assure you that I won't drip tears on your counterpane or try to kiss your hand, as I hear one admiring lady did.
THE JOHN GRIER HOME, Thursday. Dear Enemy:
You see, I'm feeling very friendly toward you this moment. When I call you "MacRae" I don't like you, and when I call you "Enemy" I do.
Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an afterthought). And it's a very creditable production for a left-handed man; I thought at first glance it was from Punch.
You may expect me tomorrow at four, and mind you're awake! I'm glad that you think we're friends. Really, I feel that I've got back something quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid.
S. McB.
P.S. Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has the toothache. He sits and holds his cheek like a poor little kiddie.
Thursday, January 29. Dear Judy:
Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages I dashed off to you last week. Did you respect my command to destroy that letter? I should not care to have it appear in my collected correspondence. I know that my state of mind is disgraceful, shocking, scandalous, but one really can't help the way one feels. It is usually considered a pleasant sensation to be engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the wonderful untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged! I have had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at last I am settled. No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood more thankfully than I.
Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. It was sent from heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier. We are already deep in plans for cottages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy leans to brick, and Percy, half-timber. I don't know what our poor doctor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof appears to be his taste.
With ten different kitchens to practice in, won't our children learn how to cook! I am already looking about for ten loving house mothers to put in charge. I think, in fact, I'll search for eleven, in order to have one for Sandy. He's as pathetically in need of a little