You are right, I am afraid, about its being a woman's trick to make a
great show of forgiving a man, and then never letting him hear the end
of it. Well, Gordon, I positively don't know what the word "forgiving"
means. It can't include "forgetting," for that is a physiological
process, and does not result from an act of the will. We all have a
collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are
just the ones that insist upon sticking. If "forgiving" means promising
never to speak of a thing again, I can doubtless manage that. But it
isn't always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory inside you. It
grows and grows, and runs all through you like a poison.
Oh dear! I really didn't mean to be saying all this. I try to be the
cheerful, carefree (and somewhat light-headed) Sallie you like best; but
I've come in touch with a great deal of REALNESS during this last year,
and I'm afraid I've grown into a very different person from the girl you
fell in love with. I'm no longer a gay young thing playing with life.
I know it pretty thoroughly now, and that means that I can't be always
laughing.
I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,--as bad as the last,
and maybe worse,--but if you knew what we've just been through! A
boy--sixteen--of unspeakable heredity has nearly poisoned himself with
a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch hazel. We have been working
three days over him, and are just sure now that he is going to
recuperate sufficiently to do it again! "It's a gude warld, but they're
ill that's in 't."
Please excuse that Scotch--it slipped out. Please excuse everything.
SALLIE.
January 11.
Dear Judy:
I hope my two cablegrams didn't give you too terrible a shock. I would
have waited to let the first news come by letter, with a chance for
details, but I was so afraid you might hear it in some indirect way.
The whole thing is dreadful enough, but no lives were lost, and only one
serious accident. We can't help shuddering at the thought of how much
worse it might have been, with over a hundred sleeping children in this
firetrap of a building. That new fire escape was absolutely useless. The
wind was blowing toward it, and the flames simply enveloped it. We saved
them all by the center stairs--but I'll begin at the beginning, and tell
the whole story.
It had rained all day Friday, thanks to a merciful Providence, and the
roofs were thoroughly soaked. Toward night it began to freeze, and the
rain turned to sleet. By ten o'clock, when I went to bed the wind was
blowing a terrible gale from the northwest, and everything loose about
the building was banging and rattling. About two o'clock I suddenly
started wide awake, with a bright light in my eyes. I jumped out of bed
and ran to the window. The carriage house was a mass of flames, and
a shower of sparks was sweeping over our eastern wing. I ran to the
bathroom and leaned out of the window. I could see that the roof over
the nursery was already blazing in half a dozen places.