Dear Enemy

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.