We had entirely forgotten the episode until this afternoon, when the
expressman drove up to the door with a present for the John Grier
Home from the chemical laboratories of Wilton J. Leverett. It was a
barrel--well, anyway, a good sized keg--full of liquid green soap!
Did I tell you that the seeds for our garden came from Washington?
A polite present from Gordon Hallock and the U. S. Government. As an
example of what the past regime did not accomplish, Martin Schladerwitz,
who has spent three years on this pseudo farm, knew no more than to dig
a grave two feet deep and bury his lettuce seeds!
Oh, you can't imagine the number of fields in which we need making over;
but of course you, of all people, can imagine. Little by little I am
getting my eyes wide open, and things that just looked funny to me at
first, now--oh dear! It's very disillusionizing. Every funny thing that
comes up seems to have a little tragedy wrapped inside it.
Just at present we are paying anxious attention to our manners--not
orphan asylum manners, but dancing school manners. There is to be
nothing Uriah Heepish about our attitude toward the world. The little
girls make curtseys when they shake hands, and the boys remove caps and
rise when a lady stands, and push in chairs at the table. (Tommy Woolsey
shot Sadie Kate into her soup yesterday, to the glee of all observers
except Sadie, who is an independent young damsel and doesn't care for
these useless masculine attentions.) At first the boys were inclined to
jeer, but after observing the politeness of their hero, Percy de Forest
Witherspoon, they have come up to the mark like little gentlemen.
Punch is paying a call this morning. For the last half-hour, while I
have been busily scratching away to you, he has been established in the
window seat, quietly and undestructively engaged with colored pencils.
Betsy, EN PASSANT, just dropped a kiss upon his nose.
"Aw, gwan!" said Punch, blushing quite pink, and wiping off the caress
with a fine show of masculine indifference. But I notice he has resumed
work upon his red-and-green landscape with heightened ardor and an
attempt at whistling. We'll succeed yet in conquering that young man's
temper.
Tuesday.
The doctor is in a very grumbly mood today. He called just as the
children were marching in to dinner, whereupon he marched, too, and
sampled their food, and, oh, my dear! the potatoes were scorched! And
such a clishmaclaver as that man made! It is the first time the potatoes
ever have been scorched, and you know that scorching sometimes happens
in the best of families. But you would think from Sandy's language that
the cook had scorched them on purpose, in accordance with my orders.