Dear Enemy Part 26

Friday.

Dear Enemy:

It's very forgiving of me to invite you to dinner after that volcanic explosion of last week. However, please come. You remember our philanthropic friend, Mr. Hallock, who sent us the peanuts and goldfish and other indigestible trifles? He will be with us tonight, so this is your chance to turn the stream of his benevolence into more hygienic channels.

We dine at seven.

As ever,

SALLIE McBRIDE.

Dear Enemy:

You should have lived in the days when each man inhabited a separate cave on a separate mountain.

S. McBRIDE.

Friday, 6:30.

Dear Judy:

Gordon is here, and a reformed man so far as his att.i.tude toward my asylum goes. He has discovered the world-old truth that the way to a mother's heart is through praise of her children, and he had nothing but praise for all 107 of mine. Even in the case of Loretta Higgins he found something pleasant to say. He thinks it nice that she isn't cross-eyed.

He went shopping with me in the village this afternoon, and was very helpful about picking out hair-ribbons for a couple of dozen little girls. He begged to choose Sadie Kate's himself, and after many hesitations he hit upon orange satin for one braid and emerald green for the other.

While we were immersed in this business I became aware of a neighboring customer, ostensibly engaged with hooks and eyes, but straining every ear to listen to our nonsense.

She was so dressed up in a picture hat, a spotted veil, a feather boa, and a NOUVEAU ART parasol that I never dreamed she was any acquaintance of mine till I happened to catch her eye with a familiar malicious gleam in it. She bowed stiffly, and disapprovingly; and I nodded back. Mrs.

Maggie McGurk in her company clothes!

That is a pleasanter expression than she really has. Her smile is due to a slip of the pen.

Poor Mrs. McGurk can't understand any possible intellectual interest in a man. She suspects me of wanting to marry every single one that I meet.

At first she thought I wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h away her doctor; but now, after seeing me with Gordon, she considers me a bigamous monster who wants them both.

Good-by; some guests approach.

11:30 P.M.

I have just been giving a dinner for Gordon, with Betsy and Mrs.

Livermore and Mr. Witherspoon as guests. I graciously included the doctor, but he curtly declined on the ground that he wasn't in a social mood. Our Sandy does not let politeness interfere with truth!

There is no doubt about it, Gordon is the most presentable man that ever breathed. He is so good looking and easy and gracious and witty, and his manners are so impeccable--Oh, he would make a wonderfully decorative husband! But after all, I suppose you do live with a husband. You don't just show him off at dinners and teas.

He was exceptionally nice tonight. Betsy and Mrs. Livermore both fell in love with him--and I just a trifle. He entertained us with a speech in his best public manner, apropos of Java's welfare. We have been having a dreadful time finding a sleeping place for that monkey, and Gordon proved with incontestable logic that, since he was presented to us by Jimmie, and Jimmie is Percy's friend, he should sleep with Percy. Gordon is a natural talker, and an audience affects him like champagne. He can argue with as much emotional earnestness on the subject of a monkey as on the greatest hero that ever bled for his country.

I felt tears coming to my eyes when he described Java's loneliness as he watched out the night in our furnace cellar, and pictured his brothers at play in the far-off tropical jungle.

A man who can talk like that has a future before him. I haven't a doubt but that I shall be voting for him for President in another twenty years.

We all had a beautiful time, and entirely forgot--for a s.p.a.ce of three hours--that 107 orphans slumbered about us. Much as I love the little dears, it is pleasant to get away from them once in a while.

My guests left at ten, and it must be midnight by now. (This is the eighth day, and my clock has stopped again; Jane forgets to wind it as regularly as Friday comes around.) However, I know it's late; and as a woman, it's my duty to try for beauty sleep, especially with an eligible young suitor at hand.

I'll finish tomorrow. Good night.

Sat.u.r.day.

Gordon spent this morning playing with my asylum and planning some intelligent presents to be sent later. He thinks that three neatly painted totem poles would add to the attractiveness of our Indian camps.

He is also going to make us a present of three dozen pink rompers for the babies. Pink is a color that is very popular with the superintendent of this asylum, who is deadly tired of blue! Our generous friend is likewise amusing himself with the idea of a couple of donkeys and saddles and a little red cart. Isn't it nice that Gordon's father provided for him so amply, and that he is such a charitably inclined young man? He is at present lunching with Percy at the hotel, and, I trust, imbibing fresh ideas in the field of philanthropy.

Perhaps you think I haven't enjoyed this interruption to the monotony of inst.i.tution life! You can say all you please, my dear Mrs. Pendleton, about how well I am managing your asylum, but, just the same, it isn't natural for me to be so stationary. I very frequently need a change.

That is why Gordon, with his bubbling optimism and boyish spirits, is so exhilarating especially as a contrast to too much doctor.

Sunday morning.

I must tell you the end of Gordon's visit. His intention had been to leave at four, but in an evil moment I begged him to stay over till 9:30, and yesterday afternoon he and Singapore and I took a long 'cross-country walk, far out of sight of the towers of this asylum, and stopped at a pretty little roadside inn, where we had a satisfying supper of ham and eggs and cabbage. Sing stuffed so disgracefully that he has been languid ever since.

The walk and all was fun, and a very grateful change from this monotonous life I lead. It would have kept me pleasant and contented for weeks if something most unpleasant hadn't happened later. We had a beautiful, sunny, carefree afternoon, and I'm sorry to have had it spoiled. We came back very unromantically in the trolley car, and reached the J. G. H. before nine, just in good time for him to run on to the station and catch his train. So I didn't ask him to come in, but politely wished him a pleasant journey at the porte-cochere.

A car was standing at the side of the drive, in the shadow of the house.

I recognized it, and thought the doctor was inside with Mr. Witherspoon.

(They frequently spend their evenings together in the laboratory.) Well, Gordon, at the moment of parting, was seized with an unfortunate impulse to ask me to abandon the management of this asylum, and take over the management of a private house instead.

Did you ever know anything like the man? He had the whole afternoon and miles of empty meadow in which to discuss the question, but instead he must choose our door mat!

I don't know just what I did say. I tried to turn it off lightly and hurry him to his train. But he refused to be turned off lightly. He braced himself against a post and insisted upon arguing it out. I knew that he was missing his train, and that every window in this inst.i.tution was open. A man never has the slightest thought of possible overhearers.

It is always the woman who thinks of convention.

Being in a nervous twitter to get rid of him, I suppose I was pretty abrupt and tactless. He began to get angry, and then by some unlucky chance his eye fell on that car. He recognized it, too, and, being in a savage mood, he began making fun of the doctor. "Old Goggle-eyes"

he called him, and "Scatchy," and oh, the awfullest lot of unmannerly, silly things!

I was a.s.suring him with convincing earnestness that I didn't care a rap about the doctor, that I thought he was just as funny and impossible as he could be, when suddenly the doctor rose out of his car and walked up to us.

I could have evaporated from the earth very comfortably at that moment!

Sandy was quite clearly angry, as well he might be, after the things he'd heard, but he was entirely cold and collected. Gordon was hot, and bursting with imaginary wrongs. I was aghast at this perfectly foolish and unnecessary muddle that had suddenly arisen out of nothing. Sandy apologized to me with unimpeachable politeness for inadvertently overhearing, and then turned to Gordon and stiffly invited him to get into his car and ride to the station.