Dear Enemy

Meanwhile he is very grateful for something to eat, but oh, so funny in

his attempts at social grace! At first he would hold a cup of tea in

one hand, a plate of muffins in the other, and then search blankly for a

third hand to eat them with. Now he has solved the problem. He turns in

his toes and brings his knees together; then he folds his napkin into

a long, narrow wedge that fills the crack between them, thus forming a

very workable pseudo lap; after that he sits with tense muscles

until the tea is drunk. I suppose I ought to provide a table, but the

spectacle of Sandy with his toes turned in is the one gleam of amusement

that my day affords.

The postman is just driving in with, I trust, a letter from you. Letters

make a very interesting break in the monotony of asylum life. If you

wish to keep this superintendent contented, you'd better write often.

. . . . . . . .

Mail received and contents noted.

Kindly convey my thanks to Jervis for three alligators in a swamp.

He shows rare artistic taste in the selection of his post cards. Your

seven-page illustrated letter from Miami arrives at the same time. I

should have known Jervis from the palm tree perfectly, even without the

label, as the tree has so much the more hair of the two. Also, I have a

polite bread-and-butter letter from my nice young man in Washington,

and a book from him, likewise a box of candy. The bag of peanuts for the

kiddies he has shipped by express. Did you ever know such assiduity?

Jimmie favors me with the news that he is coming to visit me as soon

as father can spare him from the factory. The poor boy does hate that

factory so! It isn't that he is lazy; he just simply isn't interested in

overalls. But father can't understand such a lack of taste. Having built

up the factory, he of course has developed a passion for overalls,

which should have been inherited by his eldest son. I find it awfully

convenient to have been born a daughter; I am not asked to like

overalls, but am left free to follow any morbid career I may choose,

such as this.

To return to my mail: There arrives an advertisement from a wholesale

grocer, saying that he has exceptionally economical brands of oatmeal,

rice, flour, prunes, and dried apples that he packs specially for

prisons and charitable institutions. Sounds nutritious, doesn't it?

I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each of whom would like

to have a strong, husky boy of fourteen who is not afraid of work, their

object being to give him a good home. These good homes appear with great

frequency just as the spring planting is coming on. When we investigated

one of them last week, the village minister, in answer to our usual

question, "Does he own any property?" replied in a very guarded manner,

"I think he must own a corkscrew."