I remember I used to think it would be such fun to have dozens of beaux -- and now I 'm worried to death because two are too many . `` I am learning to cook . Susan is teaching me . I tried to learn long ago -- but no , let me be honest -- Susan tried to teach me , which is a very different thing . I never seemed to succeed with anything and I got discouraged . But since the boys have gone away I wanted to be able to make cake and things for them myself and so I started in again and this time I 'm getting on surprisingly well . 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 did n'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 wo n'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 .
I do not want to be narrow-minded , Mrs. Dr. dear , but I still think it is better not XXXXX mention such things . '
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