ing a pet? Especially when they, of all
children, do so need something to love. I am going to manage pets for
them somehow, if I have to spend our new endowment for a menagerie.
Couldn't you bring back some baby alligators and a pelican? Anything
alive will be gratefully received.

This should by rights be my first "Trustees' Day." I am deeply grateful
to Jervis for arranging a simple business meeting in New York, as we
are not yet on dress parade up here; but we are hoping by the first
Wednesday in April to have something visible to show. If all of the
doctor's ideas, and a few of my own, get themselves materialized, our
trustees will open their eyes a bit when we show them about.

I have just made out a chart for next week's meals, and posted it in the
kitchen in the sight of an aggrieved cook. Variety is a word hitherto
not found in the lexicon of the J.G.H. You would never dream all of
the delightful surprises we are going to have: brown bread, corn pone,
graham muffins, samp, rice pudding with LOTS of raisins, thick vegetable
soup, macaroni Italian fashion, polenta cakes with molasses, apple
dumplings, gingerbread--oh, an endless list! After our biggest girls
have assisted in the manufacture of such appetizing dainties, they will
almost be capable of keeping future husbands in love with them.

Oh, dear me! Here I am babbling these silly nothings when I have some
real news up my sleeve. We have a new worker, a gem of a worker.

Do you remember Betsy Kindred, 1910? She led the glee club and was
president of dramatics. I remember her perfectly; she always had lovely
clothes. Well, if you please, she lives only twelve miles from here. I
ran across her by chance yesterday morning as she was motoring through
the village; or, rather, she just escaped running across me.

I never spoke to her in my life, but we greeted each other like the
oldest friends. It pays to have conspicuous hair; she recognized me
instantly. 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.