Dear Enemy
Page 14Oh, 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
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
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?
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.