I'm yours, as ever,
SALLIE.
April 24.
Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.:
This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent you ten minutes
ago. Fifty words not being enough to convey any idea of my emotions, I
herewith add a thousand.
As you will know by the time you receive this, I have discharged the
farmer, and he has refused to be discharged. Being twice the size of me,
I can't lug him to the gate and chuck him out. He wants a notification
from the president of the board of trustees written in vigorous language
on official paper in typewriting. So, dear president of the board of
trustees, kindly supply all of this at your earliest convenience.
Here follows the history of the case:
The winter season still being with us when I arrived and farming
activities at a low ebb, I have heretofore paid little attention to
Robert Sterry except to note on two occasions that his pigpens needed
cleaning; but today I sent for him to come and consult with me in regard
to spring planting.
Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at ease in my office with
his hat upon his head. I suggested as tactfully as might be that he
remove it, an entirely necessary request, as little orphan boys were
in and out on errands, and "hats off in the house" is our first rule in
masculine deportment.
Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened himself to be against
whatever I might desire.
I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that the diet of the
John Grier Home in the year to come is to consist less exclusively of
potatoes. At which our farmer grunted in the manner of the Hon. Cyrus
Wykoff, only it was a less ethereal and gentlemanly grunt than a trustee
permits himself. I enumerated corn and beans and onions and peas and
tomatoes and beets and carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes.
Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was good enough for him,
he guessed they was good enough for charity children.
I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre potato field was to
be plowed and fertilized, and laid out into sixty individual gardens,
the boys assisting in the work.
At that Sterry exploded. The two-acre field was the most fertile and
valuable piece of earth on the whole place. He guessed if I was to break
that up into play gardens for the children to mess about in, I'd be
hearing about it pretty danged quick from the board of trustees. That
field was fitted for potatoes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was
going to continue to raise them just as long as he had anything to say
about it.