Letters from Skye Read Online Free PDF

she’d kept from me.
       Margaret

Chapter Five

 
Elspeth
    Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
    June 17, 1913
    Dear Sue,
    I am finished!
    I’m sorry it took me so long to respond, but I was waiting to be able to tell you that I’m completely and utterly done. Ah, what a luxury to sit down to write to you without a stack of books glaring at me from my desk! Instead, I’m sitting in my parents’ house, window open, warm summer breeze puffing out the lace curtains, with nothing more malevolent glaring at me than the
Chicago Tribune
. Just to lean back, sip some cool lemonade, and write to you—extravagance itself!
    You’ll be quite proud of me, I think. I came clean with my father. You may wonder how I worked up the courage to tell him. By barely scraping by in my classes! He took one look atmy grades and sniffed. “How do you expect to get into medical school with grades like this?” he asked. “I don’t expect to,” I said. “I don’t expect to nor do I care.” He nearly choked on his morning coffee. “What do you mean, you don’t care?” “Exactly that, Father. I’ve never wanted to go to medical school. And it’s too late now to convince me otherwise.” He left the table with a thud of his chair and hasn’t spoken to me since. I think it’s only through my mother’s good graces that he hasn’t thrown me out on my ear.
    My sister is here staying at my parents’ for a time this summer, making it easier to handle my father’s sulks, and I’m able to spend more time getting to know my niece, Florence. There’s a spot in the sitting room in the back of the house where the sunlight falls through the window just so in the afternoon. Florence and I will sit in that circle of sunlight and watch each other. When she gets tired of staring at me with those great blue eyes of hers, she’ll crawl onto my lap, tug on my suspenders, and beg, “Unc’ Day! P’ease, story?” And how can I resist such a plea? I tell her a fairy story and watch her eyes grow large at the frightening parts and turn up in the corners when she is laughing. It is marvelous to see the raw play of emotions on the face of a child. No trying to conceal any feeling or disguise one emotion as something else. We are going to be great friends, my niece and I, I can already tell.
    Another bit of news: I have a girl I’ve started stepping out with. Lara. She’s a real nice girl, in college studying German literature. We met at a party, one of those socially tedious events one is expected to attend on occasion. I went to please my mother. Lara and I met and, after talking, realized that she“knew” my parents. One of those convoluted acquaintances—you know, where her mother plays bridge with my mother’s best friend’s aunt Vivian, or some such nonsense. Whatever the acquaintance, it means my mother approves of her.
    So, see, life is going wonderfully for me right now. Two girls in my life, a room all to myself, and NO MORE EXAMS!
    Oh, the night I dropped the squirrels in the Women’s Building was a classic! Can you think of a much better combination than a perilous climb, a gang of displaced squirrels, and shrieking women in various states of undress? I must say, though, these escapades don’t often end in hospital visits. But it’s the possibility they
could
that makes the pranks so tempting to me.
    That’s really where my nickname came from. The guys, they call me “Mort,” morbidly convinced that my antics will lead me straight to the mortuary one day. Splendid fellows, aren’t they?
    How are things on Skye for you, Sue? You must be happier with the snow gone. I can already picture you cheerfully tromping all over the hills in your trousers and hat, notebook tucked under one arm, pencil stuck behind an ear. Ah, summer!
    By the way, you didn’t guess my age correctly. I’m already twenty-one! Now you can see why I strove to grow that mustache.…
       Relaxed, relaxing,
       David
    P.S. Here is a photo of me in all my robes