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

dear Robin, what a foolish man you are! How should I ever have dreamed all those months that you were caring for me when you acted so abominably S C O T C H? With most men, behavior like yours would not be considered a mark of affection. I wish you had just given me a glimmering of an idea of the truth, and maybe you would have saved us both a few heartaches.

But we mustn't be looking back; we must look forward and be grateful. The two happiest things in life are going to be ours, a FRIENDLY marriage and work that we love.

Yesterday, after leaving you, I walked back to the asylum sort of dazed. I wanted to get by myself and THINK, but instead of being by myself, I had to have Betsy and Percy and Mrs. Livermore for dinner (already invited) and then go down and talk to the children. Friday night-social evening. They had a lot of new records for the victrola, given by Mrs. Livermore, and I had to sit politely and listen to them. And, my dear--you'll think this funny--the last thing they played was "John Anderson, my jo John," and suddenly I found myself crying! I had to snatch up the earnest orphan and hug her hard, with my head buried in her shoulder, to keep them all from seeing.

John Anderson, my jo John, We clamb the hill thegither, And monie a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither; Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo.

I wonder, when we are old and bent and tottery, can you and I look back, with no regrets, on monie a canty day we've had wi' ane anither? It's nice to look forward to, isn't it--a life of work and play and little daily adventures side by side with somebody you love? I'm not afraid of the future any more. I don't mind growing old with you, Sandy. "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."

The reason I've grown to love these orphans is because they need me so, and that's the reason--at least one of the reasons--I've grown to love you. You're a pathetic figure of a man, my dear, and since you won't make yourself comfortable, you must be MADE comfortable.

We'll build a house on the hillside just beyond the asylum--how does a yellow Italian villa strike you, or preferably a pink one? Anyway, it won't be green. And it won't have a mansard roof. And we'll have a big cheerful living room, all fireplace and windows and view, and no McGURK. Poor old thing! won't she be in a temper and cook you a dreadful dinner when she hears the news! But we won't tell her for a long, long time--or anybody else. It's too scandalous a proceeding right on top of my own broken engagement. I wrote to Judy last night, and with unprecedented self-control I never let fall so much as a hint. I'm growing Scotch mysel'!

Perhaps I didn't tell you the exact truth, Sandy, when I said I hadn't known how much I cared. I think it came to me the night the John Grier burned. When you were up under that blazing roof, and for the half hour that followed, when we didn't know whether or not you would live, I can't tell you what agonies I went through. It seemed to me, if you did go, that I would never get over it all my life; that somehow to have let the best friend I ever had pass away with a dreadful chasm of misunderstanding between us--well--I couldn't wait for the moment when I should be allowed to see you and talk out all that I have been shutting inside me for five months. And then--you know that you gave strict orders to keep me out; and it hurt me dreadfully. How should I suspect that you really wanted to see me more than any of the others, and that it was just that terrible Scotch moral sense that was holding you back? You are a very good actor, Sandy. But, my dear, if ever in our lives again we have the tiniest little cloud of a misunderstanding, let's promise not to shut it up inside ourselves, but to TALK.

Last night, after they all got off,--early, I am pleased to say, since the chicks no longer live at home,--I came upstairs and finished my letter to Judy, and then I looked at the telephone and struggled with temptation. I wanted to call up 505 and say good night to you. But I didn't dare. I'm still quite respectably bashful! So, as the next best thing to talking with you, I got out Burns and read him for an hour. I dropped asleep with all those Scotch love songs running in my head, and here I am at daybreak writing them to you.

Good-by, Robin lad, I lo'e you weel.

SALLIE.


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Publication Date: 09-02-2009

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