Betsy says that she had to send Sadie Kate to the laundry on an
improvised errand, as his language was not fit for orphan ears. By the
time I got home he had gone, and Miss Snaith had retired, weeping, to
her room, and the whereabouts of fourteen bottles of cod-liver oil was
still unexplained. He had accused her at the top of his voice of taking
them herself. Imagine Miss Snaith,--she who looks so innocent and
chinless and inoffensive--stealing cod-liver oil from these poor
helpless little orphans and guzzling it in private!
Her defense consisted in hysterical assertions that she loved the
children, and had done her duty as she saw it. She did not believe in
giving medicine to babies; she thought drugs bad for their poor little
stomachs. You can imagine Sandy! Oh, dear! oh, dear! To think I missed
it!
Well, the tempest raged for three days, and Sadie Kate nearly ran her
little legs off carrying peppery messages back and forth between us
and the doctor. It is only under stress that I communicate with him by
telephone, as he has an interfering old termagant of a housekeeper who
"listens in" on the down-stairs switch. I don't wish the scandalous
secrets of the John Grier spread abroad. The doctor demanded Miss
Snaith's instant dismissal, and I refused. Of course she is a vague,
unfocused, inefficient old thing, but she does love the children, and
with proper supervision is fairly useful.
At least, in the light of her exalted family connections, I can't
pack her off in disgrace like a drunken cook. I am hoping in time to
eliminate her by a process of delicate suggestion; perhaps I can make
her feel that her health requires a winter in California. And also, no
matter what the doctor wants, so positive and dictatorial is his manner
that just out of self-respect one must take the other side. When he
states that the world is round, I instantly assert it to be triangular.
Finally, after three pleasantly exhilarating days, the whole business
settled itself. An apology (a very dilute one) was extracted from him
for being so unkind to the poor lady, and full confession, with promises
for the future, was drawn from her. It seems that she couldn't bear
to make the little dears take the stuff, but, for obvious reasons, she
couldn't bear to cross Dr. MacRae, so she hid the last fourteen bottles
in a dark corner of the cellar. Just how she was planning to dispose of
her loot I don't know. Can you pawn cod-liver oil?
LATER.
Peace negotiations had just ended this afternoon, and Sandy had made a
dignified exit, when the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff was announced. Two enemies in
the course of an hour are really too much!