Dear Enemy

I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been carried out, but you

must know that it is a difficult matter to introduce that abominably

smelling stuff into the inside of a squirming child. And poor Miss

Snaith is a very much overworked person. She has ten more children to

care for than should rightly fall into the lot of any single woman, and

until we find her another assistant, she has very little time for the

fancy touches you demand.

Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to abuse. When you feel in

a fighting mood, I wish you would expend your belligerence upon me. I

don't mind it; quite the contrary. But that poor lady has retired to her

room in a state of hysterics, leaving nine babies to be tucked into bed

by whomever it may concern.

If you have any powders that would be settling to her nerves, please

send them back by Sadie Kate.

Yours truly,

S. McBRIDE.

Wednesday Morning.

Dear Dr. MacRae:

I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; I am simply asking

that you come to me with all complaints, and not stir up my staff in any

such volcanic fashion as that of yesterday.

I endeavor to carry out all of your orders--of a medical nature--with

scrupulous care. In the present case there seems to have been

some negligence; I don't know what did become of those fourteen

unadministered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have made such a fuss

about, but I shall investigate.

And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in the summary

fashion you demand. She may be, in certain respects, inefficient;

but she is kind to the children, and with supervision will answer

temporarily.

Yours truly,

S. McBRIDE.

Thursday.

Dear Enemy:

SOYEZ TRANQUILLE. I have issued orders, and in the future the children

shall receive all of the cod-liver oil that by rights is theirs. A

wilfu' man maun hae his way.

S. McB.

March 22.

Dear Judy:

Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past few days--since the

great Cod-Liver Oil War has been raging. The first skirmish occurred on

Tuesday, and I unfortunately missed it, having accompanied four of

my children on a shopping trip to the village. I returned to find the

asylum teeming with hysterics. Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit.

Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod-liver oil and the other

for spinach, neither popular in our nursery. Some time ago--before I

came, in fact--he had ordered cod-liver oil for all {aenemic} of the{

}--Heavens! there's that word again! {aneamic} --children, and had given

instructions as to its application to Miss Snaith. Yesterday, in his

suspicious Scotch fashion, he began nosing about to find out why the

poor little rats weren't fattening up as fast as he thought they ought,

and he un earthed a hideous scandal. They haven't received a whiff of

cod-liver oil for three whole weeks! At that point he exploded, and all

was joy and excitement and hysterics.