Lots more news,--I could run into a second volume,--but I am going to
send this letter to town by Mr. Witherspoon, who, in a very high collar
and the blackest of evening clothes, is on the point of departure for a
barn dance at the country club. I told him to pick out the nicest girls
he danced with to come and tell stories to my children.
It is dreadful, the scheming person I am getting to be. All the time I
am talking to any one, I am silently thinking, "What use can you be to
my asylum?"
There is grave danger that this present superintendent will become so
interested in her job that she will never want to leave. I sometimes
picture her a white-haired old lady, propelled about the building in
a wheeled chair, but still tenaciously superintending her fourth
generation of orphans.
PLEASE discharge her before that day!
Yours,
SALLIE.
Friday.
Dear Judy:
Yesterday morning, without the slightest warning, a station hack drove
up to the door and disgorged upon the steps two men, two little boys, a
baby girl, a rocking horse, and a Teddy bear, and then drove off!
The men were artists, and the little ones were children of another
artist, dead three weeks ago. They had brought the mites to us because
they thought "John Grier" sounded solid and respectable, and not like a
public institution. It had never entered their unbusinesslike heads that
any formality is necessary about placing a child in an asylum.
I explained that we were full, but they seemed so stranded and aghast,
that I told them to sit down while I advised them what to do. So the
chicks were sent to the nursery, with a recommendation of bread and
milk, while I listened to their history. Those artists had a fatally
literary touch, or maybe it was just the sound of the baby girl's laugh,
but, anyway, before they had finished, the babes were ours.
Never have I seen a sunnier creature than the little Allegra (we don't
often get such fancy names or such fancy children). She is three years
old, is lisping funny baby talk and bubbling with laughter. The tragedy
she has just emerged from has never touched her. But Don and Clifford,
sturdy little lads of five and seven, are already solemn-eyed and
frightened at the hardness of life.
Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who married an artist on a
capital of enthusiasm and a few tubes of paint. His friends say that he
had talent, but of course he had to throw it away to pay the milkman.
They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety old studio, cooking
behind screens, the babies sleeping on shelves.