Susan says it is all in the way I
hold my mouth and father says my subconscious mind is desirous of
learning now, and I dare say they're both right. Anyhow, I can make
dandy short-bread and fruitcake. I got ambitious last week and attempted
cream puffs, but made an awful failure of them. They came out of the
oven flat as flukes. I thought maybe the cream would fill them up again
and make them plump but it didn't. I think Susan was secretly pleased.
She is past mistress in the art of making cream puffs and it would break
her heart if anyone else here could make them as well. I wonder if Susan
tampered--but no, I won't suspect her of such a thing.
"Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cut
out certain Red Cross garments known by the charming name of 'vermin
shirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so I suggested she
call them 'cootie sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version of it.
But she shook her head and I heard her telling mother later that, in her
opinion, 'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for young girls
to talk about. She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in his last
letter to mother, 'Tell Susan I had a fine cootie hunt this morning and
caught fifty-three!' Susan positively turned pea-green. 'Mrs. Dr. dear,'
she said, 'when I was young, if decent people were so unfortunate as to
get--those insects--they kept it a secret if possible.
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