Dear Enemy, Jean Webster [reading strategies book txt] 📗

doctor was at the Howland house occupying himself with Freddy's collarbone. He had left word for us to sit down and wait, that he would be back shortly.

Mrs. McGurk ushered us into the library; and then, not to leave us alone, came in herself on a pretense of polishing the brass. I don't know what she thought we'd do! Run off with the pelican perhaps.

I settled down to an article about the Chinese situation in the Century, and Sadie Kate roamed about at large examining everything she found, like a curious little mongoose.

She commenced with his stuffed flamingo and wanted to know what made it so tall and what made it so red. Did it always eat frogs, and had it hurt its other foot? She ticks off questions with the steady persistency of an eight-day clock.

I buried myself in my article and left Mrs. McGurk to deal with Sadie. Finally, after she had worked half-way around the room, she came to a portrait of a little girl occupying a leather frame in the center of the doctor's writing desk--a child with a queer elf-like beauty, resembling very strangely our little Allegra. This photograph might have been a portrait of Allegra grown five years older. I had noticed the picture the night we took supper with the doctor, and had meant to ask which of his little patients she was. Happily I didn't!

"Who's that?" said Sadie Kate, pouncing upon it.

"It's the docthor's little gurrl."

"Where is she?"

"Shure, she's far away wit' her gran'ma."

"Where'd he get her?"

"His wife give her to him."

I emerged from my book with electric suddenness.

"His wife!" I cried.

The next instant I was furious with myself for having spoken, but I was so completely taken off my guard. Mrs. McGurk straightened up and became volubly conversational at once.

"And didn't he never tell you about his wife? She went insane six years ago. It got so it weren't safe to keep her in the house, and he had to put her away. It near killed him. I never seen a lady more beautiful than her. I guess he didn't so much as smile for a year. It's funny he never told you nothing, and you such a friend!"

"Naturally it's not a subject he cares to talk about," said I dryly, and I asked her what kind of brass polish she used.

Sadie Kate and I went out to the garage and hunted up the kittens ourselves; and we mercifully got away before the doctor came back.

But will you tell me what this means? Didn't Jervis know he was married? It's the queerest thing I ever heard. I do think, as the McGurk suggests, that Sandy might casually have dropped the information that he had a wife in an insane asylum.

But of course it must be a terrible tragedy and I suppose he can't bring himself to talk about it. I see now why he's so morbid over the question of heredity--I dare say he fears for the little girl. When I think of all the jokes I've made on the subject, I'm aghast at how I must have hurt him, and angry with myself and angry with him.

I feel as though I never wanted to see the man again. Mercy! did you ever know such a muddle as we are getting ourselves into?

Yours, SALLIE.

P.S. Tom McCoomb has pushed Mamie Prout into the box of mortar that the masons use. She's parboiled. I've sent for the doctor.

July 24. My dear Madam:

I have a shocking scandal to report about the superintendent of the John Grier Home. Don't let it get into the newspapers, please. I can picture the spicy details of the investigation prior to her removal by the "Cruelty."

I was sitting in the sunshine by my open window this morning reading a sweet book on the Froebel theory of child culture--never lose your temper, always speak kindly to the little ones. Though they may appear bad, they are not so in reality. It is either that they are not feeling well or have nothing interesting to do. Never punish; simply deflect their attention. I was entertaining a very loving, uplifted attitude toward all this young life about me when my attention was attracted by a group of little boys beneath the window.

"Aw--John--don't hurt it!"

"Let it go!"

"Kill it quick!"

And above their remonstrances rose the agonized squealing of some animal in pain. I dropped Froebel and, running downstairs, burst upon them from the side door. They saw me coming, and scattered right and left, revealing Johnnie Cobden engaged in torturing a mouse. I will spare you the grisly details. I called to one of the boys to come and drown the creature quick! John I seized by the collar; and dragged him squirming and kicking in at the kitchen door. He is a big, hulking boy of thirteen, and he fought like a little tiger, holding on to posts and doorjambs as we passed. Ordinarily I doubt if I could have handled him, but that one sixteenth Irish that I possess was all on top, and I was fighting mad. We burst into the kitchen, and I hastily looked about for a means of chastisement. The pancake turner was the first utensil that met my eyes. I seized it and beat that child with all my strength, until I had reduced him to a cowering, whimpering mendicant for mercy, instead of the fighting little bully he had been four minutes before.

And then who should suddenly burst into the midst of this explosion but Dr. MacRae! His face was blank with astonishment. He strode over and took the pancake turner out of my hand and set the boy on his feet. Johnnie got behind him and clung! I was so angry that I really couldn't talk. It was all I could do not to cry.

"Come, we will take him up to the office," was all the doctor said. And we marched out, Johnnie keeping as far from me as possible and limping conspicuously. We left him in the outer office, and went into my library and shut the door.

"What in the world has the child done?" he asked.

At that I simply laid my head down on the table and began to cry! I was utterly exhausted both emotionally and physically. It had taken all the strength I possessed to make the pancake turner effective.

I sobbed out all the bloody details, and he told me not to think about it; the mouse was dead now. Then he got me some water to drink, and told me to keep on crying till I was tired; it would do me good. I am not sure that he didn't pat me on the head! Anyway, it was his best professional manner. I have watched him administer the same treatment a dozen times to hysterical orphans. And this was the first time in a week that we had spoken beyond the formality of "good morning"!

Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up and laugh, intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of handkerchief, we began a review of Johnnie's case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the fact as we would with any other disease. Even normal boys are often cruel. A child's moral sense is undeveloped at thirteen.

Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot water and resume my dignity. Which I did. And we had Johnnie in. He stood--by preference--through the entire interview. The doctor talked to him, oh, so sensibly and kindly and humanely! John put up the plea that the mouse was a pest and ought to be killed. The doctor replied that the welfare of the human race demanded the sacrifice of many animals for its own good, not for revenge, but that the sacrifice must be carried out with the least possible hurt to the animal. He explained about the mouse's nervous system, and how the poor little creature had no means of defense. It was a cowardly thing to hurt it wantonly. He told John to try to develop imagination enough to look at things from the other person's point of view, even if the other person was only a mouse. Then he went to the bookcase and took down my copy of Burns, and told the boy what a great poet he was, and how all Scotchmen loved his memory.

"And this is what he wrote about a mouse," said Sandy, turning to the "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, timorous beastie," which he read and explained to the lad as only a Scotchman could.

Johnnie departed penitent, and Sandy redirected his professional attention to me. He said I was tired and in need of a change. Why not go to the Adirondacks for a week? He and Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon would make themselves into a committee to run the asylum.

You know, that's exactly what I was longing to do! I need a shifting of ideas and some pine-scented air. My family opened the camp last week, and think I'm awful not to join them. They won't understand that when you accept a position like this you can't casually toss it aside whenever you feel like it. But for a few days I can easily manage. My asylum is wound up like an eight-day clock, and will run until a week from next Monday at 4 P.M., when my train will return me. Then I shall be comfortably settled again before you arrive, and with no errant fancies in my brain.

Meanwhile Master John is in a happily chastened frame of mind and body. And I rather suspect that Sandy's moralizing had the more force because it was preceded by my pancake turner! But one thing I know--Suzanne Estelle is terrified whenever I step into her kitchen. I casually picked up the potato-masher this morning while I was commenting upon last night's over-salty soup, and she ran to cover behind the woodshed door.

Tomorrow at nine I set out on my travels, after preparing the way with five telegrams. And, oh! you can't imagine how I'm looking forward to being a gay, carefree young thing again--to canoeing on the lake and tramping in the woods and dancing at the clubhouse. I was in a state of delirium all night long at the prospect. Really, I hadn't realized how mortally tired I had become of all this asylum scenery.

"What you need," said Sandy to me, "is to get away for a little and sow some wild oats."

That diagnosis was positively clairvoyant. I can't think of anything in the world I'd rather do than sow a few wild oats. I'll come back with fresh energy, ready to welcome you and a busy summer.

As ever,

SALLIE.

P.S. Jimmie and Gordon are both going to be up there. How I wish you could join us! A husband is very discommoding.

CAMP McBRIDE,

July 29.

Dear Judy:

This is to tell you that the mountains are higher than usual, the woods greener, and the lake bluer.

People seem late about coming up this year. The Harrimans' camp is the only other one at our end of the lake that is open. The clubhouse is very scantily supplied with dancing men, but we have as house guest an obliging young politician who likes to dance, so I am not discommoded by the general scarcity.

The affairs of the