We have been waiting for a week for a fine windy afternoon, and this is
it. My children are enjoying "kite-day," a leaf taken from Japan. All
of the big-enough boys and most of the girls are spread over "Knowltop"
(that high, rocky sheep pasture which joins us on the east) flying kites
made by themselves.
I had a dreadful time coaxing the crusty old gentleman who owns the
estate into granting permission. He doesn't like orphans, he says,
and if he once lets them get a start in his grounds, the place will
be infested with them forever. You would think, to hear him talk, that
orphans were a pernicious kind of beetle.
But after half an hour's persuasive talking on my part, he grudgingly
made us free of his sheep pasture for two hours, provided we didn't step
foot into the cow pasture over the lane, and came home promptly when our
time was up. To insure the sanctity of his cow pasture, Mr. Knowltop has
sent his gardener and chauffeur and two grooms to patrol its boundaries
while the flying is on. The children are still at it, and are having a
wonderful adventure racing over that windy height and getting tangled up
in one another's strings. When they come panting back they are to have a
surprise in the shape of ginger cookies and lemonade.
These pitiful little youngsters with their old faces! It's a difficult
task to make them young, but I believe I'm accomplishing it. And it
really is fun to feel you're doing something positive for the good of
the world. If I don't fight hard against it, you'll be accomplishing
your purpose of turning me into a useful person. The social excitements
of Worcester almost seem tame before the engrossing interest of 113
live, warm, wriggling little orphans.
Yours with love,
SALLIE.
P.S. I believe, to be accurate, that it's 107 children I possess this
afternoon.
Dear Judy:
This being Sunday and a beautiful blossoming day, with a warm wind
blowing, I sat at my window with the "Hygiene of the Nervous System"
(Sandy's latest contribution to my mental needs) open in my lap, and
my eyes on the prospect without. "Thank Heaven!" thought I, "that this
institution was so commandingly placed that at least we can look out
over the cast-iron wall which shuts us in."
I was feeling very cooped-up and imprisoned and like an orphan myself;
so I decided that my own nervous system required fresh air and exercise
and adventure. Straight before me ran that white ribbon of road that
dips into the valley and up over the hills on the other side. Ever since
I came I have longed to follow it to the top and find out what lies
beyond those hills. Poor Judy! I dare say that very same longing
enveloped your childhood. If any one of my little chicks ever stands by
the window and looks across the valley to the hills and asks, "What's
over there?" I shall telephone for a motor car.