We've got the sunniest youngster here you ever saw; his mother and
Aunt Ruth and Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as placid and
unexcitable as a cow.
Good-by, my dear. I am sorry this is not a more cheerful letter, though
at this moment nothing unpleasant seems to be happening. It's eleven
o'clock, and I have just stuck my head into the corridor, and all is
quiet except for two banging shutters and leaking eaves. I promised Jane
I would go to bed at ten. Good night, and joy be wi' ye baith!
SALLIE.
P.S. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I have to
be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a lingering attack
of grippe. In a burst of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets.
P.S. 2. We are having an epidemic of pinkeye.
May 16. Good morning, my dear Judy!
Three days of sunshine, and the J. G. H. is smiling.
I am getting my immediate troubles nicely settled. Those beastly
blankets have dried at last, and our camps have been made livable again.
They are floored with wooden slats and roofed with tar paper. (Mr.
Witherspoon calls them chicken coops.) We are digging a stone-lined
ditch to convey any further cloudbursts from the plateau on which they
stand to the cornfield below. The Indians have resumed savage life, and
their chief is back at his post.
The doctor and I have been giving Loretta Higgins's nerves our most
careful consideration. We think that this barrack life, with its
constant movement and stir, is too exciting, and we have decided that
the best plan will be to board her out in a private family, where she
will receive a great deal of individual attention.
The doctor, with his usual resourcefulness, has produced the family.
They live next door to him and are very nice people; I have just
returned from calling. The husband is foreman of the casting room at the
iron works, and the wife is a comfortable soul who shakes all over
when she laughs. They live mostly in their kitchen in order to keep the
parlor neat; but it is such a cheerful kitchen that I should like to
live in it myself. She has potted begonias in the window and a nice
purry tiger cat asleep on a braided rug in front of the stove. She bakes
on Saturday--cookies and gingerbread and doughnuts. I am planning to pay
my weekly call upon Loretta every Saturday morning at eleven o'clock.
Apparently I made as favorable an impression on Mrs. Wilson as she made
on me. After I had gone, she confided to the doctor that she liked me
because I was just as common as she was.