The trustees' meeting last week went beautifully. The new women are most

helpful, and only the nice men came. I am happy to announce that the

Hon. Cy Wykoff is visiting his married daughter in Scranton. I wish she

would invite father to live with her permanently.

Wednesday.

I am in the most childish temper with the doctor, and for no very

definite reason. He keeps along his even, unemotional way without paying

the slightest attention to anything or anybody. I have swallowed more

slights during these last few months than in the whole of my life

before, and I'm developing the most shockingly revengeful nature. I

spend all my spare time planning situations in which he will be

terribly hurt and in need of my help, and in which 1, with the utmost

callousness, will shrug my shoulders and turn away. I am growing into

a person entirely foreign to the sweet, sunny young thing you used to

know.

Evening.

Do you realize that I am an authority on the care of dependent children?

Tomorrow I and other authorities visit officially the Hebrew Sheltering

Guardian Society's Orphan Asylum at Pleasantville. (All that's its

name!) It's a terribly difficult and roundabout journey from this point,

involving a daybreak start and two trains and an automobile. But if I'm

to be an authority, I must live up to the title. I'm keen about looking

over other institutions and gleaning as many ideas as possible against

our own alterations next year. And this Pleasantville asylum is an

architectural model.

I acknowledge now, upon sober reflection, that we were wise to postpone

extensive building operations until next summer. Of course I was

disappointed, because it meant that I won't be the center of the

ripping-up, and I do so love to be the center of ripping-ups! But,

anyway, you'll take my advice, even though I'm no longer an official

head? The two building details we did accomplish are very promising. Our

new laundry grows better and better; it has removed from us that steamy

smell so dear to asylums. The farmer's cottage will finally be ready

for occupancy next week. All it now lacks is a coat of paint and some

doorknobs.

But, oh dear! oh dear! another bubble has burst! Mrs Turnfelt, for all

her comfortable figure and sunny smile, hates to have children messing

about. They make her nervous. And as for Turnfelt himself, though

industrious and methodical and an excellent gardener, still, his mental

processes are not quite what I had hoped for. When he first came, I made

him free of the library. He began at the case nearest the door, which

contains thirty-seven volumes of Pansy's works. Finally, after he had

spent four months on Pansy, I suggested a change, and sent him home with

"Huckleberry Finn." But he brought it back in a few days, and shook his

head. He says that after reading Pansy, anything else seems tame. I

am afraid I shall have to look about for some one a little more

up-and-coming. But at least, compared with Sterry, Turnfelt is a

scholard!




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