Dear Enemy

I'm yours, as ever,

SALLIE.

April 24.

Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.:

This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent you ten minutes

ago. Fifty words not being enough to convey any idea of my emotions, I

herewith add a thousand.

As you will know by the time you receive this, I have discharged the

farmer, and he has refused to be discharged. Being twice the size of me,

I can't lug him to the gate and chuck him out. He wants a notification

from the president of the board of trustees written in vigorous language

on official paper in typewriting. So, dear president of the board of

trustees, kindly supply all of this at your earliest convenience.

Here follows the history of the case:

The winter season still being with us when I arrived and farming

activities at a low ebb, I have heretofore paid little attention to

Robert Sterry except to note on two occasions that his pigpens needed

cleaning; but today I sent for him to come and consult with me in regard

to spring planting.

Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at ease in my office with

his hat upon his head. I suggested as tactfully as might be that he

remove it, an entirely necessary request, as little orphan boys were

in and out on errands, and "hats off in the house" is our first rule in

masculine deportment.

Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened himself to be against

whatever I might desire.

I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that the diet of the

John Grier Home in the year to come is to consist less exclusively of

potatoes. At which our farmer grunted in the manner of the Hon. Cyrus

Wykoff, only it was a less ethereal and gentlemanly grunt than a trustee

permits himself. I enumerated corn and beans and onions and peas and

tomatoes and beets and carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes.

Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was good enough for him,

he guessed they was good enough for charity children.

I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre potato field was to

be plowed and fertilized, and laid out into sixty individual gardens,

the boys assisting in the work.

At that Sterry exploded. The two-acre field was the most fertile and

valuable piece of earth on the whole place. He guessed if I was to break

that up into play gardens for the children to mess about in, I'd be

hearing about it pretty danged quick from the board of trustees. That

field was fitted for potatoes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was

going to continue to raise them just as long as he had anything to say

about it.