The trustees' meeting last week went beautifully. The new women are most
helpful, and only the nice men came. I am happy to announce that the
Hon. Cy Wykoff is visiting his married daughter in Scranton. I wish she
would invite father to live with her permanently.
Wednesday.
I am in the most childish temper with the doctor, and for no very
definite reason. He keeps along his even, unemotional way without paying
the slightest attention to anything or anybody. I have swallowed more
slights during these last few months than in the whole of my life
before, and I'm developing the most shockingly revengeful nature. I
spend all my spare time planning situations in which he will be
terribly hurt and in need of my help, and in which 1, with the utmost
callousness, will shrug my shoulders and turn away. I am growing into
a person entirely foreign to the sweet, sunny young thing you used to
know.
Evening.
Do you realize that I am an authority on the care of dependent children?
Tomorrow I and other authorities visit officially the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society's Orphan Asylum at Pleasantville. (All that's its
name!) It's a terribly difficult and roundabout journey from this point,
involving a daybreak start and two trains and an automobile. But if I'm
to be an authority, I must live up to the title. I'm keen about looking
over other institutions and gleaning as many ideas as possible against
our own alterations next year. And this Pleasantville asylum is an
architectural model.
I acknowledge now, upon sober reflection, that we were wise to postpone
extensive building operations until next summer. Of course I was
disappointed, because it meant that I won't be the center of the
ripping-up, and I do so love to be the center of ripping-ups! But,
anyway, you'll take my advice, even though I'm no longer an official
head? The two building details we did accomplish are very promising. Our
new laundry grows better and better; it has removed from us that steamy
smell so dear to asylums. The farmer's cottage will finally be ready
for occupancy next week. All it now lacks is a coat of paint and some
doorknobs.
But, oh dear! oh dear! another bubble has burst! Mrs Turnfelt, for all
her comfortable figure and sunny smile, hates to have children messing
about. They make her nervous. And as for Turnfelt himself, though
industrious and methodical and an excellent gardener, still, his mental
processes are not quite what I had hoped for. When he first came, I made
him free of the library. He began at the case nearest the door, which
contains thirty-seven volumes of Pansy's works. Finally, after he had
spent four months on Pansy, I suggested a change, and sent him home with
"Huckleberry Finn." But he brought it back in a few days, and shook his
head. He says that after reading Pansy, anything else seems tame. I
am afraid I shall have to look about for some one a little more
up-and-coming. But at least, compared with Sterry, Turnfelt is a
scholard!