Part 29

Dear Enemy:

Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at hand. I have never known anybody whose literary style resembled so exactly his spoken word.

And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you "Enemy"? I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you Enemy just as soon as you drop your absurd fashion of getting angry and abusive and insulting the moment any little thing goes wrong.

I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend four days in New York.

Yours truly,

S. McBRIDE.

CHEZ THE PENDLETONS, New York. My dear Enemy:

I trust that this note will find you in a more affable frame of mind than when I saw you last. I emphatically repeat that it was not due to the carelessness of the superintendent of our institution that those two new cases of measles crept in, but rather to the unfortunate anatomy of our old-fashioned building, which does not permit of the proper isolation of contagious cases.

As you did not deign to visit us yesterday morning before I left, I could not offer any parting suggestions. I therefore write to ask that you cast your critical eye upon Mamie Prout. She is covered all over with little red spots which may be measles, though I am hoping not. Mamie spots very easily.

I return to prison life next Monday at six o'clock.

Yours truly,

S. McBRIDE.

P.S. I trust you will pardon my mentioning it, but you are not the kind of doctor that I admire. I like them chubby and round and smiling.

THE JOHN GRIER HOME,

June 9.

Dear Judy:

You are an awful family for an impressionable young girl to visit. How can you expect me to come back and settle down contentedly to institution life after witnessing such a happy picture of domestic concord as the Pendleton household presents?

All the way back in the train, instead of occupying myself with two novels, four magazines, and one box of chocolates that your husband thoughtfully provided, I spent the time in a mental review of the young men of my acquaintance to see if I couldn't discover one as nice as Jervis. I did! (A little nicer, I think.) From this day on he is the marked-down victim, the destined prey.

I shall hate to give up the asylum after getting so excited over it, but unless you are willing to move it to the capital, I don't see any alternative.

The train was awfully late. We sat and smoked on a siding while two accommodations and a freight dashed past. I think we must have broken something, and had to tinker up our engine. The conductor was soothing, but uncommunicative.

It was 7:30 when I descended, the only passenger, at our insignificant station in the pitch darkness and RAIN, without an umbrella, and wearing that precious new hat. No Turnfelt to meet me; not even a station hack. To be sure, I hadn't telegraphed the exact time of my arrival, but, still, I did feel rather neglected. I had sort of vaguely expected all ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN to be drawn up by the platform, scattering flowers and singing songs of welcome. Just as I was telling the station man that I would watch his telegraph instrument while he ran across to the corner saloon and telephoned for a vehicle, there came whirling around the corner two big searchlights aimed straight at me. They stopped nine inches before running me down, and I heard Sandy's voice saying:

"Weel, weel, Miss Sallie McBride! I'm thinking it's ower time you came back to tak' the bit bairns off my hands."

That man had come three times to meet me on the off chance of the train's getting in some time. He tucked me and my new hat and bags and books and chocolates all in under his waterproof flap, and we splashed off. Really, I felt as if I was getting back home again, and quite sad at the thought of ever having to leave. Mentally, you see, I had already resigned and packed and gone. The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it a success.

It's astounding how much news can accrue in four days. Sandy just couldn't talk fast enough to tell me everything I wanted to hear. Among other items, I learned that Sadie Kate had spent two days in the infirmary, her malady being, according to the doctor's diagnosis, half a jar of gooseberry jam and Heaven knows how many doughnuts. Her work had been changed during my absence to dishwashing in the officers' pantry, and the juxtaposition of so many exotic luxuries was too much for her fragile virtue.

Also, our colored cook Sallie and our colored useful man Noah have entered upon a war of extermination. The original trouble was over a little matter of kindling, augmented by a pail of hot water that Sallie threw out of the window with, for a woman, unusual accuracy of aim. You can see what a rare character the head of an orphan asylum must have. She has to combine the qualities of a baby nurse and a police magistrate.

The doctor had told only the half when we reached the house, and as he had not yet dined, owing to meeting me three times, I begged him to accept the hospitality of the John Grier. I would get Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon, and we would hold an executive meeting, and settle all our neglected businesses.

Sandy accepted with flattering promptness. He likes to dine outside of the family vault.

But Betsy, I found, had dashed home to greet a visiting grandparent, and Percy was playing bridge in the village. It's seldom the young thing gets out of an evening, and I'm glad for him to have a little cheerful diversion.