Dear Enemy

Oh, I forgot to say that I stole ten minutes from my accounts this

morning to install a new cook. Our Sallie Washington-Johnston, who

cooked fit for the angels had a dreadful, dreadful temper and terrorized

poor Noah, our super-excellent furnace man, to the point of giving

notice. We couldn't spare Noah. He's more useful to the institution than

its superintendent, and so Sallie Washington-Johnston is no more.

When I asked the new cook her name, she replied, "Ma name is Suzanne

Estelle, but ma friends call me Pet." Pet cooked the dinner tonight,

but I must say that she lacks Sallie's delicate touch. I am awfully

disappointed that you didn't visit us while Sallie was still here. You

would have taken away an exalted opinion of my housekeeping.

Drowsiness overcame me at that point, and it's now two days later.

Poor neglected Gordon! It has just occurred to me that you never got

thanked for the modeling clay which came two weeks ago, and it was

such an unusually intelligent present that I should have telegraphed my

appreciation. When I opened the box and saw all that nice messy putty

stuff, I sat down on the spot and created a statue of Singapore. The

children love it; and it is very good to have the handicraft side of

their training encouraged.

After a careful study of American history, I have determined that

nothing is so valuable to a future president as an early obligatory

unescapable performance of CHORES.

Therefore I have divided the daily work of this institution into a

hundred parcels, and the children rotate weekly through a succession of

unaccustomed tasks. Of course they do everything badly, for just as they

learn how, they progress to something new. It would be infinitely easier

for us to follow Mrs. Lippett's immoral custom of keeping each child

sentenced for life to a well-learned routine; but when the temptation

assails me, I recall the dreary picture of Florence Henty, who polished

the brass doorknobs of this institution for seven years--and I sternly

shove the children on.

I get angry every time I think of Mrs Lippett. She had exactly the

point of view of a Tammany politician--no slightest sense of service to

society. Her only interest in the John Grier Home was to get a living

out of it.

Wednesday.

What new branch of learning do you think I have introduced into my

asylum? Table manners!

I never had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble to teach children

how to eat and drink. Their favorite method is to put their mouths down

to their mugs and lap their milk like kittens. Good manners are not

merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe.

They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have

got to learn them.