Dear Enemy

John Anderson, my jo John,

We clamb the hill thegither,

And monie a canty day, John,

We've had wi' ane anither;

Now we maun totter down, John,

But hand in hand we'll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson, my jo.

I wonder, when we are old and bent and tottery, can you and I look back,

with no regrets, on monie a canty day we've had wi' ane anither? It's

nice to look forward to, isn't it--a life of work and play and little

daily adventures side by side with somebody you love? I'm not afraid of

the future any more. I don't mind growing old with you, Sandy. "Time is

but the stream I go a-fishing in."

The reason I've grown to love these orphans is because they need me so,

and that's the reason--at least one of the reasons--I've grown to love

you. You're a pathetic figure of a man, my dear, and since you won't

make yourself comfortable, you must be MADE comfortable.

We'll build a house on the hillside just beyond the asylum--how does a

yellow Italian villa strike you, or preferably a pink one? Anyway, it

won't be green. And it won't have a mansard roof. And we'll have a big

cheerful living room, all fireplace and windows and view, and no McGURK.

Poor old thing! won't she be in a temper and cook you a dreadful dinner

when she hears the news! But we won't tell her for a long, long time--or

anybody else. It's too scandalous a proceeding right on top of my own

broken engagement. I wrote to Judy last night, and with unprecedented

self-control I never let fall so much as a hint. I'm growing Scotch

mysel'!

Perhaps I didn't tell you the exact truth, Sandy, when I said I hadn't

known how much I cared. I think it came to me the night the John Grier

burned. When you were up under that blazing roof, and for the half hour

that followed, when we didn't know whether or not you would live, I

can't tell you what agonies I went through. It seemed to me, if you did

go, that I would never get over it all my life; that somehow to have

let the best friend I ever had pass away with a dreadful chasm of

misunderstanding between us--well--I couldn't wait for the moment when I

should be allowed to see you and talk out all that I have been shutting

inside me for five months. And then--you know that you gave strict

orders to keep me out; and it hurt me dreadfully. How should I suspect

that you really wanted to see me more than any of the others, and that

it was just that terrible Scotch moral sense that was holding you back?

You are a very good actor, Sandy. But, my dear, if ever in our lives

again we have the tiniest little cloud of a misunderstanding, let's

promise not to shut it up inside ourselves, but to TALK.