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Dear Enemy

Page 14

Oh, dear me! Here I am babbling these silly nothings when I have some

real news up my sleeve. We have a new worker, a gem of a worker.

Do you remember Betsy Kindred, 1910? She led the glee club and was

president of dramatics. I remember her perfectly; she always had lovely

clothes. Well, if you please, she lives only twelve miles from here. I

ran across her by chance yesterday morning as she was motoring through

the village; or, rather, she just escaped running across me.

I never spoke to her in my life, but we greeted each other like the

oldest friends. It pays to have conspicuous hair; she recognized me

instantly. I hopped upon the running board of her car and said:

"Betsy Kindred, 1910, you've got to come back to my orphan asylum and

help me catalogue my orphans."

And it astonished her so that she came. She's to be here four or five

days a week as temporary secretary, and somehow I must manage to keep

her permanently. She's the most useful person I ever saw. I am hoping

that orphans will become such a habit with her that she won't be able to

give them up. I think she might stay if we pay her a big enough salary.

She likes to be independent of her family, as do all of us in these

degenerate times.

In my growing zeal for cataloguing people, I should like to get our

doctor tabulated. If Jervis knows any gossip about him, write it to me,

please; the worse, the better. He called yesterday to lance a felon on

Sammy Speir's thumb, then ascended to my electric-blue parlor to

give instructions as to the dressing of thumbs. The duties of a

superintendent are manifold.

It was just teatime, so I casually asked him to stay, and he did! Not

for the pleasure of my society,--no, indeed,--but because Jane appeared

at the moment with a plate of toasted muffins. He hadn't had any

luncheon, it seems, and dinner was a long way ahead. Between muffins

(he ate the whole plateful) he saw fit to interrogate me as to my

preparedness for this position. Had I studied biology in college? How

far had I gone in chemistry? What did I know of sociology? Had I visited

that model institution at Hastings?

To all of which I responded affably and openly. Then I permitted myself

a question or two: just what sort of youthful training had been required

to produce such a model of logic, accuracy, dignity, and common sense

as I saw sitting before me? Through persistent prodding I elicited a

few forlorn facts, but all quite respectable. You'd think, from his

reticence, there'd been a hanging in the family. The MacRae PERE was

born in Scotland, and came to the States to occupy a chair at Johns

Hopkins; son Robin was shipped back to Auld Reekie for his education.

His grandmother was a M'Lachlan of Strathlachan (I am sure she sounds

respectable), and his vacations were spent in the Hielands a-chasing the

deer.

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