Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy (42 page)

Did you ever know anything like the man? He had 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 institution 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 assuring 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.

I begged him not to go. I didn't wish to be the cause of any silly quarrel between them. But without paying the slightest attention to me, they climbed into the car, and whirled away, leaving me placidly standing on the door-mat.

I came in and went to bed, and lay awake for hours, expecting to hear—I don't know what kind of explosion. It is now eleven o'clock, and the doctor hasn't appeared. I don't know how on earth I shall meet him when he does. I fancy I shall hide in the clothes-closet.

Did you ever know anything as unnecessary and stupid as this whole situation? I suppose now I've quarreled with Gordon, —and I positively don't know over what,—and of course my relations with the doctor are going to be terribly awkward. I said horrid things about him,—you know the silly way I talk,—things I didn't mean in the least.

I wish it were yesterday at this time. I would make Gordon go at four.

SALLIE.

 

 

Sunday afternoon.

That was a horrid, stupid, silly business last night. But by this time you must know me well enough to realize that I never mean the foolish things I say. My tongue has no slightest connection with my brain; it just runs along by itself. I must seem to you very ungrateful for all the help you have given me in this unaccustomed work and for the patience you have (occasionally) shown.

I do appreciate the fact that I could never have run this asylum by myself without your responsible presence in the background ; and though once in a while, as you yourself must acknowledge, you have been pretty impatient and bad tempered and difficult, still I have never held it against you, and I really didn't mean any of the ill-mannered things I said last night. Please forgive me for being rude. I should hate very much to lose your friendship. And we are friends, are we not? I like to think so.

S. MCB.

 

I am sure I haven't an idea whether or not the doctor and I have made up our differences. I sent him a polite note of apology, which he received in abysmal silence. He didn't come near us until this afternoon, and he hasn't by the blink of an eyelash referred to our unfortunate contretemps. We talked exclusively about an ichthyol salve that will remove eczema from a baby's scalp; then, Sadie Kate being present, the conversation turned to cats. It seems that the doctor's Maltese cat has four kittens, and Sadie Kate will not be silenced until she has seen them. Before I knew what was happening I found myself making an engagement to take her to see those miserable kittens at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon.

Whereupon the doctor, with an indifferently polite bow, took himself off. And that apparently is the end.

Your Sunday note arrives, and I am delighted to hear that you have taken the house. It will be beautiful having you for a neighbor for so long. Our improvements ought to march along, with you and the president at our elbow. But it does seem as though you ought to get out here before August 7. Are you sure the city air is good for you just now? I have never known so devoted a wife.

My respects to the president.

S. MCB.

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 22.

Please listen to this!

At four o'clock I took Sadie Kate to the doctor's house to look at those cats. But Freddy Howland just twenty minutes before had fallen down-stairs, so the doctor was at the Howland house occupying himself with Freddy's collar-bone. 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,
³⁹
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 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.

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
⁴⁰
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 door-jambs 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 eye. 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,
⁴¹
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, tim'rous 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.