Chapter XI: Letters and Several Kinds of Fathers

From Page Allison to Miss Sue Lee, Washington, D.
C.

My dearest Cousin Sue:

You told me not to write to you until I had got
real settled and could give you some decided
opinions about the place and the people. I am
settled now and feel as though I had been born and
bred here. I just love it and am making loads and
loads of friends.

First thing I must tell you how right my clothes
are. It is splendid not to have to think about
them, but just to put them on and know that they
are suitable. Some of the girls here are great
dressers, in spite of the endeavors of the
directors to put them into a kind of uniform, but
I can't see that their fine clothes make them any
more popular than the others. Do you know, Cousin
Sue, I'd rather be popular than be president?

My roommates, the Tucker twins, are awfully
popular, but they don't care nearly so much about
it as I do. You see, they have been knowing lots
of people all their lives and I haven't. Sometimes
I am afraid I'll get kind of mealy-mouthed in my
anxiety to have people like me, and the only thing
that saves me from it is my hatred of fools and
snobs. I know I shouldn't hate fools because they
can't help it, but I think snobs ought to be
hated.

We have become acquainted with some boys from
Hill-Top, the academy on the other side of the
town. They are real nice and I find I am not at
all embarrassed with them. They are not a bit
beauy or lovery (the Tuckers and I would hate
that), but they are just boys and have got lots
more sense than I expected to find in the male
sex.

The Juniors here at Gresham are lots of them beau
crazy. They talk about boys from morning till
night. I do hope when I get to be a Junior I won't
go through that stage. Miss Sayre, a lovely girl
and too nice to me for anything, a pupil teacher
and at least nineteen, says she has never known
but one girl in her life who arrived at her age
without going through the stage of talking about
boys all the time, and she says that poor girl was
dumb and she took it out in making eyes. Dum and
Dee and I told her we'd cut out our tongues before
we'd make boys our sole topic of conversation, and
Miss Sayre just laughed and asked us if we would
gouge out our eyes, too.

I am doing very well in my studies, and working
awfully hard. You see, we have to spend a certain
time over our books and learn in spite of
ourselves. French is coming easy to me and I
believe it is because Father has drilled me so
thoroughly in Latin. I am getting on top of
Mathematics by the hardest kind of climbing. At
first I felt as though I'd have to remove
mountains ever to learn a thing, but now I realize
I don't have to remove mountains, but just climb
them; and certainly as you climb you get an
outlook that you never dreamed of.

Father writes very cheerfully but I am afraid he
is mighty lonesome. I feel very selfish to be off
here having such a good time when I know how hard
it is for him. I wish you would write him a nice
long letter. Your letters always do him good.

I like Miss Peyton, our principal, ever and ever
so much; she is so just. All of the teachers are
pretty nice, but I am not getting quite as much
from the English Literature teacher as I hoped I
would. She is a good teacher, I have no doubt, but
not interesting. I have the feeling that she likes
what the textbooks tell her to, and has no taste
of her own. Her knowledge of poetry, for instance,
stops with the age of Tennyson.

You know Father's extravagance and relaxation is
poetry, past, present and even future. He has been
reading poetry to me since before I could talk,
and a new poet is more interesting to him than a
new disease. He had never told me that poetry had
to arrive at a certain age, like veal or cheese,
before it was worthy to be taken in; and I brought
down the scorn and wrath of Miss Prince on my
devoted head and came mighty near getting enough
demerits to keep me in bounds a week, because I
asked her if she did not think Masefield's poem of
"The Dauber" had more atmosphere of the deep sea
in it than "The Ancient Mariner." She looked at me
very severely through her visible bi-focals and
said: "Miss Allison, this is a class in English
Literature; and matters foreign to the subject are
not to be discussed."

I rather miss the reading I have always done. We
study so hard there is no time to read, and the
library is one of these donated ones. It has sets
of Dickens and Scott in such fine print that you
can't keep your place, a few odd volumes of
Thackeray, Milton and Pope, and the rest of the
shelves are crowded with books that some generous
patron evidently has had no use for himself. They
are the kind of books that Father says are good
enough to keep the doors open with or to put under
a rocker when you don't want to rock.

There is a good encyclopedia and dictionary and
our textbooks are very complete. I believe it is
good for me to have to confine myself to the
textbooks for a while, but I shall be glad to be
at Bracken again and curl up on the sofa with the
dogs some dull old rainy day and read as long as I
can see.

Some day I hope you will know my friends. I have
told them all about you and they think you are
splendid. The Tucker twins are going to stay a few
days at Bracken during the holidays, and I am to
be with them for a week-end in Richmond. It will
be a more agreeable visit than the time I spent
with Cousin Park Garnett, I fancy. By the way,
Cousin Park sent me a present the other day. You
could never guess what it is: a black and purple
crocheted shoulder shawl! I'm real glad to have it
because we are going to have a dicker party and it
will be the very thing to contribute.

You don't know how much obliged I am to you for
the huge box of marshmallows. We have not opened
it yet, as we are saving up for a grand spread
that Dum and Dee and I are going to give. Good-by,
dear Cousin Sue.

Yours devotedly,
PAGE.

Mr. Jeffry Tucker to the Misses Virginia and
Caroline Tucker.

Richmond, Va.
November 28, 19--

My dearest Tweedles:

How am I ever to get through Thanksgiving without
you? Of course I'm going to the game to root for
Virginia, but I'll be mighty lonesome. I've been
invited to join several parties, but I believe
I'll take old Brindle and go by my lonely. The
only pleasure I take in Thanksgiving is that it is
just a little nearer to Christmas, when I'll have
my babies back with me for a delirious three
weeks.

I miss you so much that I can't remember what my
reason was for thinking it best for you to go to
boarding school. I must have had some good reason,
but it is swallowed up in misery over your
absence. Could it have been that you needed
training and to learn to control yourselves?
Foolish notion! When you come home you can fight
all over the shop if you've a mind; and sass your
pa until he crawls under the bed with Brindle; and
get late to your meals; and go around with holes
in your stockings; do anything, in fact, that your
fancy dictates. All I ask of you is to come home
the same old Tweedles, loving your poor, lonesome,
old Zebedee as much as ever.

I am delighted that you are making so many good
friends. There is nothing in all the world like
friends and the ones made in early years are worth
all the others put together.

Please remember me to Miss Page Allison and tell
her I saw her father the other day, and he was
looking mighty fit, considering he has not had her
to take care of him for so long. He had come up to
Richmond for a medical convention. I am glad you
are enjoying Miss Page so much. I liked her on
short acquaintance better than any friend you have
ever had. I am delighted that you have invited her
to spend some of the holidays with us. I asked Dr.
Allison if he could spare her to us for a few
days, and he said of course he could. You girls
seem to have a mutual admiration society. Miss
Page, according to Dr. Allison, is as enthusiastic
about my girls as my girls are about his girl.

I am intensely gratified that the three of you
have kept up with the poor scared child we met on
the train. Such a wholesome trio would be sure to
be good for the timid, miserable little thing. You
must ask her to come to see us in Richmond if you
have not already done so.

I am sending you a box of goodies for your
day-after-Thanksgiving spread. I am afraid some of
the things are contraband, but people who make
rules would not make them unless they expected
schoolgirls and their outrageous young fathers to
break them. I fancy I have concealed the true
nature of the contents of the box, and unless the
supervision is very thorough, it will pass muster
and the contraband articles find the way to their
destination--your little insides. Love to Jinny
Cox.

Good-by,
ZEBEDEE.

Dr. James Allison to Miss Page Allison.

Bracken, Sunday aft.

My dear little daughter:

I saw young Jeffry Tucker in Richmond last week
and what he had to tell me of my girl gratified me
greatly. I am not going to divulge to you what he
said, but you may know it was something pretty
nice.

I miss you very much, my dear Page, but poor old
Mammy Susan is worse off than I am because she is
at home all the time and I am off on my rounds,
and when I am at home, thank God, I have books. I
do not mean to say that books take the place of my
girl, but I mean I can bury myself in them and for
the time being be oblivious to everything else.

Sally Winn is still trying to die, poor woman. I
was called out in the wee small hours this morning
to help her cross the Styx. She has been more
determined than ever since Mrs. Purdy passed over.
She is very jealous and said this morning: "Betty
Purdy always was a pushing thing. She made out all
the time she didn't want to go but that's not so,
I know. She's been getting ahead of me all her
life. Pretended she married Purdy because he was
so bent on it that she had to. Everybody knows it
was just the other way, she was so bent on it,
Purdy had to." Of course you must have heard that
Mr. Purdy courted Sally first. I suggested that it
would be well if she tried to live and perhaps she
might console the widower; and do you know, I left
her with a much stronger pulse.

I hope your Thanksgiving will go off finely. I
cannot tell you how we long for you, my dear; but
Christmas will soon be here, and in the meantime I
am going to bury myself in a new book I got in
Richmond last week.

I am so glad for you to make these good friends
you write of. The Twins sound delightful. Tucker
is one of the best fellows I know. He is
ridiculously young to be the father of girls as
old as you. He is one of the cleverest newspaper
men in the South, so clever I wonder the South
keeps him. New York newspapers seem to suck in all
the bright men sooner or later.

I am so glad your friends will come to Bracken for
a visit with you during the holidays, and I will
of course let you go to them for a visit. I may
run up to the city at the same time. Cousin Park
Garnett has made me promise to stay with her the
first time I go to Richmond, so I am afraid the
trip will not be altogether hilarious for me.

The dogs send love to their mistress in yaps,
yowls and whines. Mammy says she hopes "you ain't
done wash all de meat off'n you in dem plumbin'
tubs."

With much love,
FATHER.

From Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore to Miss Annie de
Vere Pore.

Price's Landing, Va.

My dear Annie:

I am most gratified at the account you give of the
progress you are making in your studies. The
authenticity of your account is verified by the
report I have received from the principal of the
institution.

I am surprised and grieved that you should find
your wardrobe not sufficient for your needs. There
is a vulgar tendency among all Americans to
overdress which you must avoid. Remember that in
your veins flows the blood of Ponsonby and de Vere
and that is more to be considered than all the
fine clothes in the world of the _nouveau riche_.
I will send you the box containing some old lace
and a white dress of your Mother's. If that is not
suitable, I think you had better not appear at
the concert of which you write.

I also wish to warn you against undue intimacies
with persons of whom you know little or nothing.
The sacrifice I am making in sending you to
boarding school is not that you may amuse yourself
with friends no doubt beneath you in birth and
breeding but that you may perfect yourself in your
studies and cultivate your voice, which may prove
of material benefit to you.

General Price called on me yesterday and told me
he had received a letter from his grandson,
Harvie, in which he had mentioned the fact that he
had met you at a football game. I hope you are not
wasting much of your time in such frivolous
pursuits.

Yours truly,
ARTHUR PONSONBY PORE.