Dear Enemy

Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up and laugh,

intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of handkerchief, we began

a review of Johnnie's case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be

slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the fact as we would

with any other disease. Even normal boys are often cruel. A child's

moral sense is undeveloped at thirteen.

Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot water and resume

my dignity. Which I did. And we had Johnnie in. He stood--by

preference--through the entire interview. The doctor talked to him, oh,

so sensibly and kindly and humanely! John put up the plea that the mouse

was a pest and ought to be killed. The doctor replied that the welfare

of the human race demanded the sacrifice of many animals for its own

good, not for revenge, but that the sacrifice must be carried out with

the least possible hurt to the animal. He explained about the mouse's

nervous system, and how the poor little creature had no means of defense.

It was a cowardly thing to hurt it wantonly. He told John to try to

develop imagination enough to look at things from the other person's

point of view, even if the other person was only a mouse. Then he went

to the bookcase and took down my copy of Burns, and told the boy what a

great poet he was, and how all Scotchmen loved his memory.

"And this is what he wrote about a mouse," said Sandy, turning to the

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, timorous beastie," which he read and explained

to the lad as only a Scotchman could.

Johnnie departed penitent, and Sandy redirected his professional

attention to me. He said I was tired and in need of a change. Why not

go to the Adirondacks for a week? He and Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon would

make themselves into a committee to run the asylum.

You know, that's exactly what I was longing to do! I need a shifting of

ideas and some pine-scented air. My family opened the camp last week,

and think I'm awful not to join them. They won't understand that

when you accept a position like this you can't casually toss it aside

whenever you feel like it. But for a few days I can easily manage. My

asylum is wound up like an eight-day clock, and will run until a week

from next Monday at 4 P.M., when my train will return me. Then I shall

be comfortably settled again before you arrive, and with no errant

fancies in my brain.