Jean Webster

“ She was the prize child of the institution, obedient and polite, with curly hair and affectionate ways, exactly the little girl that every family needs. When a couple of adopting parents are choosing a daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though I were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a little thing turns the balance! The child smiles, and a loving home is hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever. ”

“ I dress well, I'm spectacular, I would be an ideal hostess in a politician's household—and that's why he likes me.
Anyway, I suddenly saw with awful distinctness that if I kept on I'd be in a few years where Helen Brooks is. She's a far better model of married life for me to contemplate just this moment than you, dear Judy. I think that such a spectacle as you and Jervis is a menace to society. You look so happy and peaceful and companionable that you induce a defenseless onlooker to rush off and snap up the first man she meets—and he's always the wrong man. ”

“ Dear Judy:
Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money? Me—I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is this the raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo. ”

“ The life of man is a wintry road. Fog, snow, rain, slush, drizzle, cold—such weather! such weather! And you in dear Jamaica with the sunshine and the orange blossoms!
We've got whooping cough, and you can hear us whoop when you get off the train two miles away. We don't know how we got it—just one of the pleasures of institution life. Cook has left,—in the night,—what the Scotch call a "moonlight flitting." I don't know how she got her trunk away, but it's gone. The kitchen fire went with her. The pipes are frozen. The plumbers are here, and the kitchen floor is all ripped up. ”

“ You doctored the whole house, then stalked past my library with your nose in the air, while I was waiting tea with a plate of Scotch scones sitting on the trivet, ordered expressly for you as a peace-offering.
If you are really hurt, I will read the Kallikak book; but I must tell you that you are working me to death. It takes almost all of my energy to be an effective superintendent, and this university extension course that you are conducting I find wearing. You remember how indignant you were one day last week because I confessed to having stayed up until one o'clock the night before? ”

“ THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
Wednesday.
Dear Gordon:
Your roses and your letter cheered me for an entire morning, and it's the first time I've approached cheerfulness since the fourteenth of February, when I waved good-by to Worcester.
Words can't tell you how monotonously oppressive the daily round of institution life gets to be. The only glimmer in the whole dull affair is the fact that Betsy Kindred spends four days a week with us. Betsy and I were in college together, and we do occasionally find something funny to laugh about. ”

“ Percy de Forest Witherspoon has returned to the hotel to wait until the sun comes out.
After being cooped up for four days with no exercise to speak of, the children's badness is breaking out in red spots, like the measles. Betsy and I have thought of every form of active and innocent occupation that could be carried on in such a congested quarter as this: blind man's buff and pillow fights and hide-and-go-seek, gymnastics in the dining room, and bean-bags in the school room. ”

“ Dear Judy:
Sandy is back after a ten-days' absence,—no explanations,—and plunged deep into gloom. He resents our amiable efforts to cheer him up, and will have nothing to do with any of us except baby Allegra. He took her to his house for supper tonight and never brought her back until half-past seven, a scandalous hour for a young miss of three. I don't know what to make of our doctor; he grows more incomprehensible every day. ”

“ I can't make it seem true that you, my dear, wonderful Judy, were actually brought up in this institution, and know from the bitter inside what these little tots need. Sometimes the tragedy of your childhood fills me with an anger that makes me want to roll up my sleeves and fight the whole world and force it into making itself over into a place more fit for children to live in. That Scotch-Irish ancestry of mine seems to have deposited a tremendous amount of FIGHT in my character. ”

“ Punch has accepted their invitation to spend the summer.
The dressmaking is still going on. You should hear the machines whir and the tongues clatter in the sewing room. Our most cowed, apathetic, spiritless little orphan cheers up and takes an interest in life when she hears that she is to possess three perfectly private dresses of her own, and each a different color, chosen by herself. And you should see how it encourages their sewing ability. Even the little ten-year-olds are bursting into seamstresses. ”

“ Dear Judy:
Your motherly solicitude is sweet, but I didn't mean what I said.
Of course it's perfectly safe to convey Judy, junior, to the temperately tropical lands that are washed by the Caribbean. She'll thrive as long as you don't set her absolutely on top of the equator. And your bungalow, shaded by palms and fanned by sea breezes, with an ice machine in the back yard and an English doctor across the bay, sounds made for the rearing of babies. ”

“ There is no doubt about it—orphans in the mass do not appeal to me. I am beginning to be afraid that this famous mother instinct which we hear so much about was left out of my character. Children as children are dirty, spitty little things, and their noses all need wiping. Here and there I pick out a naughty, mischievous little one that awakens a flicker of interest; but for the most part they are just a composite blur of white face and blue check.
With one exception, though. Sadie Kate Kilcoyne emerged from the mass the first day, and bids fair to stay out for all time. ”

“ My dearest Judy:
You should see what your hundred dollars and Betsy Kindred did to that dining room!
It's a dazzling dream of yellow paint. Being a north room, she thought to brighten it; and she has. The walls are kalsomined buff, with a frieze of little molly cottontails skurrying around the top. All of the woodwork—tables and benches included—is a cheerful chrome yellow. Instead of tablecloths, which we can't afford, we have linen runners, with stenciled rabbits hopping along their length. ”

“ There are eleven of these chicks that I suspect a bit, and I am SURE of Loretta Higgins. I have been trying for a month to introduce one or two basic ideas into that child's brain, and now I know what the trouble is: her head is filled with a sort of soft cheesy substance instead of brain.
I came up here to make over this asylum in such little details as fresh air and food and clothes and sunshine, but, heavens! you can see what problems I am facing. I've got to make over society first, so that it won't send me sub-normal children to work with. ”

“ I had ignominiously to call upon Sandy to finish my speech. I realize that the best-equipped feminine mind in the world can't cope with the peculiar class of questions that originate in a thirteen-year boy's brain.
As a result of their seafaring interest, the doctor conceived the idea of inviting seven of the oldest and most alert lads to spend the day with him in New York and see with their own eyes an oceanliner. They rose at five yesterday morning, caught the 7:30 train, and had the most wonderful adventure that has happened in all their seven lives. ”

“ Next year, when I'm far away, I'll be consumed with homesickness, thinking of all the busy, happy times at the John Grier, with you and Betsy and Percy and our grumbly Scotchman working away cheerfully without me. How can anything ever make up to a mother for the loss of 107 children?
I trust that Judy, junior, stood the journey into town without upsetting her usual poise. I am sending her a bit giftie, made partly by myself and chiefly by Jane. But two rows, I must inform you, were done by the doctor. One only gradually plumbs the depths of Sandy's nature. ”

“ Feeling that this aristocratic neighborhood of country estates might contain valuable food for our asylum, I have of late been moving in the village social circles, and at a luncheon yesterday I dug out a beautiful and charming widow who wears delectable, flowing gowns that she designs herself. She confided to me that she would have loved to have been a dressmaker, if she had only been born with a needle in her mouth instead of a golden spoon. She says she never sees a pretty girl badly dressed but she longs to take her in hand and make her over. ”

“ It's nice to look forward to, isn't it—a life of work and play and little daily adventures side by side with somebody you love? I'm not afraid of the future any more. I don't mind growing old with you, Sandy. "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." ”

“ The more I look into the internal workings of an orphan asylum, the more I realize that the only type of asylum that can compete with a private family is one on the cottage system. So long as the family is the unit of society, children should be hardened early to family life. ”

“ After seeing you off, I turned back to New York with an awful wander-thirst gnawing at my vitals. I, too, wanted to be starting off on my travels in a new blue hat and a new blue suit with a big bunch of violets in my hand. For five minutes I would cheerfully have said good-by forever to poor dear Gordon in return for the wide world to wander in. I suppose you are thinking they are not entirely incompatible—Gordon and the wide world—but I don't seem able to get your point of view about husbands. I see marriage as a man must, a good, sensible workaday institution ”

“ Betsy and Mrs. Livermore both fell in love with him—and I just a trifle. He entertained us with a speech in his best public manner, apropos of Java's welfare. We have been having a dreadful time finding a sleeping place for that monkey, and Gordon proved with incontestable logic that, since he was presented to us by Jimmie, and Jimmie is Percy's friend, he should sleep with Percy. Gordon is a natural talker, and an audience affects him like champagne. He can argue with as much emotional earnestness on the subject of a monkey as on the greatest hero that ever bled for his country. ”

“ It will take years of sunshine and happiness and love to eradicate the dreadful memories that they have stored up in the far-back corners of their little brains. And there are so many children and so few of us that we can't hug them enough; we simply haven't arms or laps to go around.
MAIS PARLONS D'AUTRES CHOSES! Those awful questions of heredity and environment that the doctor broods over so constantly are getting into my blood, too; and it's a vicious habit. If a person is to be of any use in a place like this, she must see nothing but good in the world. ”

“ Since they are willing to work for us, there is no slightest use in our going to the expense of peddling our own babies. And I do want to place out as many as are available, for I firmly believe that a private home is the best thing for the child, provided, of course, that we are very fussy about the character of the homes we choose. I don't require rich foster parents, but I do require kind, loving, intelligent parents. This time I think Betsy has landed a gem of a family. ”

“ I hopped upon the running board of her car and said:
"Betsy Kindred, 1910, you've got to come back to my orphan asylum and help me catalogue my orphans."
And it astonished her so that she came. She's to be here four or five days a week as temporary secretary, and somehow I must manage to keep her permanently. She's the most useful person I ever saw. I am hoping that orphans will become such a habit with her that she won't be able to give them up. I think she might stay if we pay her a big enough salary. She likes to be independent of her family, as do all of us in these degenerate times. ”

“ Betsy and I walked as far as the baseball field in the course of the evening, and caught a glimpse of the orgies. The braves were squatting in a circle about a big fire, each decorated with a blanket from his bed and a rakish band of feathers. (Our chickens seem very scant as to tail, but I have asked no unpleasant questions.) The doctor, with a Navajo blanket about his shoulders, was executing a war dance, while Jimmie and Mr. Witherspoon beat on war drums—two of our copper kettles, now permanently dented. Fancy Sandy! It's the first youthful glimmer I have ever caught in the man. ”

“ Jane brought the sewing table and spread it before the fire, and while the doctor and I had tea, Mamie had her supper. I suppose, according to the theory of some educators, now, when she was thoroughly worn out and hungry, would have been the psychological moment to ply her with prunes. But you will be pleased to hear that I did nothing of the sort, and that the doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles. Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, embellished with strawberry jam from my private jar and peppermints from Sandy's pocket. ”

“ I am very comfortable where I am. My desk and closet and bureau drawers are organized to suit me; and, oh, I dread unspeakably the thought of the upheaval that is going to happen to me next year! Please don't imagine that I don't care for Gordon quite as much as any man has a right to be cared for. It isn't that I like him any the less, but I am getting to like orphans the more.
I just met our medical adviser a few minutes ago as he was emerging from the nursery—Allegra is the only person in the institution who is favored by his austere social attentions. ”

“ SALLIE. THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
February 24. Dear Judy:
You tell Jervis that I am not hasty at forming judgments. I have a sweet, sunny, unsuspicious nature, and I like everybody, almost. But no one could like that Scotch doctor. He NEVER smiles.
He paid me another visit this afternoon. I invited him to accommodate himself in one of Mrs. Lippett's electric-blue chairs, and then sat down opposite to enjoy the harmony. He was dressed in a mustard-colored homespun, with a dash of green and a glint of yellow in the weave, a "heather mixture" calculated to add life to a dull Scotch moor. ”

“ I haven't an idea what Betsy is doing; but she has a lot better taste than I, so there isn't much use in interfering.
It is such a heaven-sent relief to be able to leave something to somebody else, and be sure it will be carried out! With all due respect to the age and experience of the staff I found here, they are not very open to new ideas. As the John Grier Home was planned by its noble founder in 1875, so shall it be run today.
Incidentally, my dear Judy, your idea of a private dining room for the superintendent, which I, being a social soul, at first scorned, has been my salvation. ”

“ The reason I've grown to love these orphans is because they need me so, and that's the reason—at least one of the reasons—I've grown to love you. You're a pathetic figure of a man, my dear, and since you won't make yourself comfortable, you must be MADE comfortable.
We'll build a house on the hillside just beyond the asylum—how does a yellow Italian villa strike you, or preferably a pink one? Anyway, it won't be green. And it won't have a mansard roof. And we'll have a big cheerful living room, all fireplace and windows and view, and no McGURK. Poor old thing! ”

“ The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.
I am awfully worried as to how to feed Mr. Witherspoon. He looks as though he had a frightfully healthy appetite, and he looks as though he couldn't swallow his dinner unless he had on evening clothes. I've made Betsy send home for a trunkful of evening gowns in order to keep up our social standing. One thing is fortunate: he takes his luncheon at the hotel, and I hear their luncheons are very filling.
Tell Jervis I am sorry he is not with us to drive a nail for the camp. ”