I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been carried out, but you
must know that it is a difficult matter to introduce that abominably
smelling stuff into the inside of a squirming child. And poor Miss
Snaith is a very much overworked person. She has ten more children to
care for than should rightly fall into the lot of any single woman, and
until we find her another assistant, she has very little time for the
fancy touches you demand.
Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to abuse. When you feel in
a fighting mood, I wish you would expend your belligerence upon me. I
don't mind it; quite the contrary. But that poor lady has retired to her
room in a state of hysterics, leaving nine babies to be tucked into bed
by whomever it may concern.
If you have any powders that would be settling to her nerves, please
send them back by Sadie Kate.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
Wednesday Morning.
Dear Dr. MacRae:
I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; I am simply asking
that you come to me with all complaints, and not stir up my staff in any
such volcanic fashion as that of yesterday.
I endeavor to carry out all of your orders--of a medical nature--with
scrupulous care. In the present case there seems to have been
some negligence; I don't know what did become of those fourteen
unadministered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have made such a fuss
about, but I shall investigate.
And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in the summary
fashion you demand. She may be, in certain respects, inefficient;
but she is kind to the children, and with supervision will answer
temporarily.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
Thursday.
Dear Enemy:
SOYEZ TRANQUILLE. I have issued orders, and in the future the children
shall receive all of the cod-liver oil that by rights is theirs. A
wilfu' man maun hae his way.
S. McB.
March 22.
Dear Judy:
Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past few days--since the
great Cod-Liver Oil War has been raging. The first skirmish occurred on
Tuesday, and I unfortunately missed it, having accompanied four of
my children on a shopping trip to the village. I returned to find the
asylum teeming with hysterics. Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit.
Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod-liver oil and the other
for spinach, neither popular in our nursery. Some time ago--before I
came, in fact--he had ordered cod-liver oil for all {aenemic} of the{
}--Heavens! there's that word again! {aneamic} --children, and had given
instructions as to its application to Miss Snaith. Yesterday, in his
suspicious Scotch fashion, he began nosing about to find out why the
poor little rats weren't fattening up as fast as he thought they ought,
and he un earthed a hideous scandal. They haven't received a whiff of
cod-liver oil for three whole weeks! At that point he exploded, and all
was joy and excitement and hysterics.