Dear Enemy by Jean Webster Read Free Book Online

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    I invited him to dinner, with a warning about the pressed veal; but he said no, thanks, that I needed a change. So we went to Brantwood Inn and had broiled lobster. I had positively forgotten that the creatures were edible.
    This morning at seven o'clock I was wakened by the furious ringing of the telephone bell. It was Gordon at the station, about to resume his journey to Washington. He was in quite a contrite mood about the asylum, and apologized largely for refusing to look at my children. It was not that he didn't like orphans, he said; it was just that he didn't like them in juxtaposition to me. And to prove his good intentions, he would send them a bag of peanuts.
    I feel as fresh and revivified after my little fling as though I'd had a real vacation. There's no doubt about it, an hour or so of exciting talk is more of a tonic to me than a pint of iron and strychnine pills.
    You owe me two letters, dear Madam. Pay them TOUT DE SUITE, or I lay down my pen forever.
    Yours, as usual,
    S. McB.
    Tuesday, 5 P.M. My dear Enemy:
    I am told that during my absence this afternoon you paid us a call and dug up a scandal. You claim that the children under Miss Snaith are not receiving their due in the matter of cod- liver oil.
    I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been carried out, but you must know that it is a difficult matter to introduce that abominably smelling stuff into the inside of a squirming child. And poor Miss Snaith is a very much overworked person. She has ten more children to care for than should rightly fall into the lot of any single woman, and until we find her another assistant, she has very little time for the fancy touches you demand.
    Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to abuse. When you feel in a fighting mood, I wish you would expend your belligerence upon me. I don't mind it; quite the contrary. But that poor lady has retired to her room in a state of hysterics, leaving nine babies to be tucked into bed by whomever it may concern.
    If you have any powders that would be settling to her nerves, please send them back by Sadie Kate.
    Yours truly,
    S. McBRIDE.
    Wednesday Morning. Dear Dr. MacRae:
    I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; I am simply asking that you come to me with all complaints, and not stir up my staff in any such volcanic fashion as that of yesterday.
    I endeavor to carry out all of your orders--of a medical nature--with scrupulous care. In the present case there seems to have been some negligence; I don't know what did become of those fourteen unadministered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have made such a fuss about, but I shall investigate.
    And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in the summary fashion you demand. She may be, in certain respects, inefficient; but she is kind to the children, and with supervision will answer temporarily.
    Yours truly,
    S. McBRIDE.
    Thursday. Dear Enemy:
    SOYEZ TRANQUILLE. I have issued orders, and in the future the children shall receive all of the cod-liver oil that by rights is theirs. A wilfu' man maun hae his way.
    S. McB.
    March 22. Dear Judy:
    Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past few days-- since the great Cod-Liver Oil War has been raging. The first skirmish occurred on Tuesday, and I unfortunately missed it, having accompanied four of my children on a shopping trip to the village. I returned to find the asylum teeming with hysterics. Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit.
    Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod-liver oil and the other for spinach, neither popular in our nursery. Some time ago--before I came, in fact--he had ordered cod-liver oil for all {aenemic} of the{ }--Heavens! there's that word again! {aneamic} --children, and had given instructions as to its application to Miss Snaith. Yesterday, in his suspicious Scotch fashion, he began nosing about to find out why the poor little rats weren't fattening up as fast as he thought they ought, and he un earthed a