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. (We broke two windows.) The boys played leapfrog up and down the hall, and jarred all the plaster in the building. We have cleaned energetically and furiously. All the woodwork has been washed, and all of the floors polished. But despite everything, we have a great deal of energy left, and we are getting to that point of nerves where we want to punch one another.
Sadie Kate has been acting like a little deil--do they have feminine deils? If not, Sadie Kate has originated the species. And this afternoon Loretta Higgins had--well, I don't know whether it was a sort of fit or just a temper. She lay down on the floor and howled for a solid hour, and when any one tried to approach her, she thrashed about like a little windmill and bit and kicked.
By the time the doctor came she had pretty well worn herself out. He picked her up, limp and drooping, and carried her to a cot in the hospital room; and after she was asleep he came down to my library and asked to look at the archives.
Loretta is thirteen; in the three years she has been here she has had five of these outbreaks, and has been punished good and hard for them. The child's ancestral record is simple: "Mother died of alcoholic dementia, Bloomingdale Asylum. Father unknown."
He studied the page long and frowningly and shook his head.
"With a heredity like that, is it right to punish the child for having a shattered nervous system?"
"It is not," said I, firmly. "We will mend her shattered nervous system."
"If we can."
"We'll feed her up on cod-liver oil and sunshine, and find a nice kind foster mother who will take pity on the poor little--"
But then my voice trailed off into nothing as I pictured Loretta's face, with her hollow eyes and big nose and open mouth and no chin and stringy hair and sticking-out ears. No foster mother in the world would love a child who looked like that.
"Why, oh, why," I wailed, "doesn't the good Lord send orphan children with blue eyes and curly hair and loving dispositions? I could place a million of that sort in kind homes, but no one wants Loretta."
"I'm afraid the good Lord doesn't have anything to do with bringing our Lorettas into the world. It is the devil who attends to them."
Poor Sandy! He gets awfully pessimistic about the future of the universe; but I don't wonder, with such a cheerless life as he leads. He looked today as though his own nervous system was shattered. He had been splashing about in the rain since five this morning, when he was called to a sick baby case. I made him sit down and have some tea, and we had a nice, cheerful talk on drunkenness and idiocy and epilepsy and insanity. He dislikes alcoholic parents, but he ties himself into a knot over insane parents.
Privately, I don't believe there's one thing in heredity, provided you snatch the babies away before their eyes are opened.
We've got the sunniest youngster here you ever saw; his mother and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as placid and unexcitable as a cow.
Good-by, my dear. I am sorry this is not a more cheerful letter, though at this moment nothing unpleasant seems to be happening. It's eleven o'clock, and I have just stuck my head into the corridor, and all is quiet except for two banging shutters and leaking eaves. I promised Jane I would go to bed at ten. Good night, and joy be wi' ye baith!
SALLIE.
P.S. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I have to be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a lingering attack of grippe. In a burst of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets. P.S. 2. We are having an epidemic of pinkeye.
May 16. Good morning, my
Sadie Kate has been acting like a little deil--do they have feminine deils? If not, Sadie Kate has originated the species. And this afternoon Loretta Higgins had--well, I don't know whether it was a sort of fit or just a temper. She lay down on the floor and howled for a solid hour, and when any one tried to approach her, she thrashed about like a little windmill and bit and kicked.
By the time the doctor came she had pretty well worn herself out. He picked her up, limp and drooping, and carried her to a cot in the hospital room; and after she was asleep he came down to my library and asked to look at the archives.
Loretta is thirteen; in the three years she has been here she has had five of these outbreaks, and has been punished good and hard for them. The child's ancestral record is simple: "Mother died of alcoholic dementia, Bloomingdale Asylum. Father unknown."
He studied the page long and frowningly and shook his head.
"With a heredity like that, is it right to punish the child for having a shattered nervous system?"
"It is not," said I, firmly. "We will mend her shattered nervous system."
"If we can."
"We'll feed her up on cod-liver oil and sunshine, and find a nice kind foster mother who will take pity on the poor little--"
But then my voice trailed off into nothing as I pictured Loretta's face, with her hollow eyes and big nose and open mouth and no chin and stringy hair and sticking-out ears. No foster mother in the world would love a child who looked like that.
"Why, oh, why," I wailed, "doesn't the good Lord send orphan children with blue eyes and curly hair and loving dispositions? I could place a million of that sort in kind homes, but no one wants Loretta."
"I'm afraid the good Lord doesn't have anything to do with bringing our Lorettas into the world. It is the devil who attends to them."
Poor Sandy! He gets awfully pessimistic about the future of the universe; but I don't wonder, with such a cheerless life as he leads. He looked today as though his own nervous system was shattered. He had been splashing about in the rain since five this morning, when he was called to a sick baby case. I made him sit down and have some tea, and we had a nice, cheerful talk on drunkenness and idiocy and epilepsy and insanity. He dislikes alcoholic parents, but he ties himself into a knot over insane parents.
Privately, I don't believe there's one thing in heredity, provided you snatch the babies away before their eyes are opened.
We've got the sunniest youngster here you ever saw; his mother and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as placid and unexcitable as a cow.
Good-by, my dear. I am sorry this is not a more cheerful letter, though at this moment nothing unpleasant seems to be happening. It's eleven o'clock, and I have just stuck my head into the corridor, and all is quiet except for two banging shutters and leaking eaves. I promised Jane I would go to bed at ten. Good night, and joy be wi' ye baith!
SALLIE.
P.S. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I have to be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a lingering attack of grippe. In a burst of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets. P.S. 2. We are having an epidemic of pinkeye.
May 16. Good morning, my
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