Jean Webster
Dear Enemy
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DEAR ENEMY
DEAR ENEMY
STONE
GATE, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS,December
27.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.And
you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? My dear
Judy,—likewise my dear Jervis,—I see through you! I know exactly
the kind of family conference that has been held about the Pendleton
fireside."Isn't
it a pity that Sallie hasn't amounted to more since she left college?
She ought to be doing something useful instead of frittering her time
away in the petty social life of Worcester. Also [Jervis speaks] she
is getting interested in that confounded young Hallock, too
good-looking and fascinating and erratic; I never did like
politicians. We must deflect her mind with some uplifting and
absorbing occupation until the danger is past. Ha! I have it! We will
put her in charge of the John Grier Home." Oh, I can hear him as
clearly as if I were there! On the occasion of my last visit in your
delectable household Jervis and I had a very solemn conversation in
regard to (1) marriage, (2) the low ideals of politicians, (3) the
frivolous, useless lives that society women lead.Please
tell your moral husband that I took his words deeply to heart, and
that ever since my return to Worcester I have been spending one
afternoon a week reading poetry with the inmates of the Female
Inebriate Asylum. My life is not so purposeless as it appears.Also
let me assure you that the politician is not dangerously imminent;
and that, anyway, he is a very desirable politician, even though his
views on tariff and single tax and trade-unionism do not exactly
coincide with Jervis's.