Part 8 (2/2)
”Be funny.”--I told about Sadie Kate and a few other cherubs that you don't know.
”Keep it concrete and fitted to the intelligence of your audience.”--I watched the Hon. Cy, and never said a thing that he couldn't understand.
”Flatter your hearers.”--I hinted delicately that all of these new reforms were due to the wisdom and initiative of our peerless trustees.
”Give it a high moral tone, with a dash of pathos.”--I dwelt upon the parentless condition of these little wards of Society. And it was very affecting--my enemy wiped away a tear!
Then I fed them up on chocolate and whipped cream and lemonade and tartar sandwiches, and sent them home, expansive and beaming, but without any appet.i.te for dinner.
I dwell thus at length upon our triumph, in order to create in you a happy frame of mind, before pa.s.sing to the higeous calamity that so nearly wrecked the occasion.
”Now follows the dim horror of my tale, And I feel I'm growing gradually pale, For, even at this day, Though its smell has pa.s.sed away, When I venture to remember it, I quail!”
You never heard of our little Tammas Kehoe, did you? I simply haven't featured Tammas because he requires so much ink and time and vocabulary.
He's a spirited lad, and he follows his dad, a mighty hunter of old--that sounds like more Bab Ballads, but it isn't; I made it up as I went along.
We can't break Tammas of his inherited predatory instincts. He shoots the chickens with bows and arrows and la.s.soes the pigs and plays bull-fight with the cows--and oh, is very destructive! But his crowning villainy occurred an hour before the trustees' meeting, when we wanted to be so clean and sweet and engaging.
It seems that he had stolen the rat trap from the oat bin, and had set it up in the wood lot, and yesterday morning was so fortunate as to catch a fine big skunk.
Singapore was the first to report the discovery. He returned to the house and rolled on the rugs in a frenzy of remorse over his part of the business. While our attention was occupied with Sing, Tammas was busily skinning his prey in the seclusion of the woodshed. He b.u.t.toned the pelt inside his jacket, conveyed it by a devious route through the length of this building, and concealed it under his bed where he thought it wouldn't be found.
Then he went--per schedule--to the bas.e.m.e.nt to help freeze the ice-cream for our guests. You notice that we omitted ice-cream from the menu.
In the short time that remained we created all the counter-irritation that was possible. Noah (negro furnace man) started smudge fires at intervals about the grounds. Cook waved a shovelful of burning coffee through the house. Betsy sprinkled the corridors with ammonia. Miss Snaith daintily treated the rugs with violet water. I sent an emergency call to the doctor who came and mixed a gigantic solution of chlorid of lime. But still, above and beneath and through every other odor, the unlaid ghost of Tammas's victim cried for vengeance.
The first business that came up at the meeting, was whether we should dig a hole and bury, not only Tammas, but the whole main building. You can see with what finesse I carried off the shocking event, when I tell you that the Hon. Cy went home chuckling over a funny story, instead of grumbling at the new superintendent's inability to manage boys.
We've our ain bit weird to dree!
As ever,
S. McBRIDE.
THE JOHN GRIER HOME,
Friday, likewise Sat.u.r.day.
Dear Judy:
Singapore is still living in the carriage house, and receiving a daily carbolic-scented bath from Tammas Kehoe. I am hoping that some day, in the distant future, my darling will be fit to return.
You will be pleased to hear that I have inst.i.tuted a new method of spending your money. We are henceforth to buy a part of our shoes and drygoods and drug store comestibles from local shops, at not quite such low prices as the wholesale jobbers give, but still at a discount, and the education that is being thrown in is worth the difference. The reason is this: I have made the discovery that half of my children know nothing of money or its purchasing power. They think that shoes and corn meal and red-flannel petticoats and mutton stew and gingham s.h.i.+rts just float down from the blue sky.
Last week I dropped a new green dollar bill out of my purse, and an eight-year-old urchin picked it up and asked if he could keep that picture of a bird. (American eagle in the center.) That child had never seen a bill in his life! I began an investigation, and discovered that dozens of children in this asylum have never bought anything or have ever seen anybody buy anything. And we are planning to turn them out at sixteen into a world governed entirely by the purchasing power of dollars and cents! Good heavens! just think of it! They are not to lead sheltered lives with somebody eternally looking after them; they have got to know how to get the very most they can out of every penny they can manage to earn.
I pondered the question all one night, at intervals, and went to the village at nine o'clock the next morning. I held conferences with seven storekeepers; found four open-minded and helpful, two doubtful, and one actively stupid. I have started with the four--drygoods, groceries, shoes, and stationery. In return for somewhat large orders from us, they are to turn themselves and their clerks into teachers for my children, who are to go to the stores, inspect the stocks, and do their own purchasing with real money.
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