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!




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