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diff --git a/old/dlleg10.txt b/old/dlleg10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de4f7db --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dlleg10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5025 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +JEAN WEBSTER +DADDY-LONG-LEGS + +Copyright 1912 by The Century Company + + + +TO YOU + + +Blue Wednesday + +The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day--a day +to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. +Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed +without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be +scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; +and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, +`Yes, sir,' `No, sir,' whenever a Trustee spoke. + +It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the +oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular +first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself +to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been +making sandwiches for the asylum's guests, and turned upstairs +to accomplish her regular work. Her special care was room F, +where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied eleven little +cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their +rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly +and willing line towards the dining-room to engage themselves +for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding. + +Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples +against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, +doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron. +Mrs. Lippett, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm +and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of Trustees +and lady visitors. Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of +frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the confines +of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, +to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees. + +The day was ended--quite successfully, so far as she knew. +The Trustees and the visiting committee had made their rounds, +and read their reports, and drunk their tea, and now were hurrying +home to their own cheerful firesides, to forget their bothersome +little charges for another month. Jerusha leaned forward +watching with curiosity--and a touch of wistfulness--the stream +of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. +In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, +to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself +in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back +in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring `Home' to the driver. +But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred. + +Jerusha had an imagination--an imagination, Mrs. Lippett told her, +that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care--but keen +as it was, it could not carry her beyond the front porch of the +houses she would enter. Poor, eager, adventurous little Jerusha, +in all her seventeen years, had never stepped inside an ordinary house; +she could not picture the daily routine of those other human beings +who carried on their lives undiscommoded by orphans. + + Je-ru-sha Ab-bott + You are wan-ted + In the of-fice, + And I think you'd + Better hurry up! + + +Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs +and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached +room F. Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced +the troubles of life. + +`Who wants me?' she cut into Tommy's chant with a note of sharp anxiety. + + Mrs. Lippett in the office, + And I think she's mad. + Ah-a-men! + + +Tommy piously intoned, but his accent was not entirely malicious. +Even the most hardened little orphan felt sympathy for an erring +sister who was summoned to the office to face an annoyed matron; +and Tommy liked Jerusha even if she did sometimes jerk him by the arm +and nearly scrub his nose off. + +Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow. +What could have gone wrong, she wondered. Were the sandwiches +not thin enough? Were there shells in the nut cakes? Had a lady +visitor seen the hole in Susie Hawthorn's stocking? Had--O horrors!-- +one of the cherubic little babes in her own room F `sauced' a Trustee? + +The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, +a last Trustee stood, on the point of departure, in the open door that +led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha caught only a fleeting impression +of the man--and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. +He was waving his arm towards an automobile waiting in the curved drive. +As it sprang into motion and approached, head on for an instant, +the glaring headlights threw his shadow sharply against the wall inside. +The shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran +along the floor and up the wall of the corridor. It looked, +for all the world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs. + +Jerusha's anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by nature +a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be amused. +If one could derive any sort of entertainment out of the oppressive +fact of a Trustee, it was something unexpected to the good. +She advanced to the office quite cheered by the tiny episode, +and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett. To her surprise the +matron was also, if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably affable; +she wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she donned +for visitors. + +`Sit down, Jerusha, I have something to say to you.' Jerusha dropped +into the nearest chair and waited with a touch of breathlessness. +An automobile flashed past the window; Mrs. Lippett glanced after it. + +`Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone?' + +`I saw his back.' + +`He is one of our most affluential Trustees, and has given large sums +of money towards the asylum's support. I am not at liberty to mention +his name; he expressly stipulated that he was to remain unknown.' + +Jerusha's eyes widened slightly; she was not accustomed to being +summoned to the office to discuss the eccentricities of Trustees +with the matron. + +`This gentleman has taken an interest in several of our boys. +You remember Charles Benton and Henry Freize? They were both sent +through college by Mr.--er--this Trustee, and both have repaid with +hard work and success the money that was so generously expended. +Other payment the gentleman does not wish. Heretofore his +philanthropies have been directed solely towards the boys; +I have never been able to interest him in the slightest degree +in any of the girls in the institution, no matter how deserving. +He does not, I may tell you, care for girls.' + +`No, ma'am,' Jerusha murmured, since some reply seemed to be expected +at this point. + +`To-day at the regular meeting, the question of your future was +brought up.' + +Mrs. Lippett allowed a moment of silence to fall, then resumed +in a slow, placid manner extremely trying to her hearer's suddenly +tightened nerves. + +`Usually, as you know, the children are not kept after they are sixteen, +but an exception was made in your case. You had finished our school +at fourteen, and having done so well in your studies--not always, +I must say, in your conduct--it was determined to let you go on in +the village high school. Now you are finishing that, and of course +the asylum cannot be responsible any longer for your support. +As it is, you have had two years more than most.' + +Mrs. Lippett overlooked the fact that Jerusha had worked hard +for her board during those two years, that the convenience +of the asylum had come first and her education second; +that on days like the present she was kept at home to scrub. + +`As I say, the question of your future was brought up and your +record was discussed--thoroughly discussed.' + +Mrs. Lippett brought accusing eyes to bear upon the prisoner in the dock, +and the prisoner looked guilty because it seemed to be expected-- +not because she could remember any strikingly black pages in her record. + +`Of course the usual disposition of one in your place would be to +put you in a position where you could begin to work, but you have +done well in school in certain branches; it seems that your work +in English has even been brilliant. Miss Pritchard, who is on our +visiting committee, is also on the school board; she has been talking +with your rhetoric teacher, and made a speech in your favour. +She also read aloud an essay that you had written entitled, +"Blue Wednesday".' + +Jerusha's guilty expression this time was not assumed. + +`It seemed to me that you showed little gratitude in holding up +to ridicule the institution that has done so much for you. Had you +not managed to be funny I doubt if you would have been forgiven. +But fortunately for you, Mr.--, that is, the gentleman who has +just gone--appears to have an immoderate sense of humour. +On the strength of that impertinent paper, he has offered to send +you to college.' + +`To college?' Jerusha's eyes grew big. Mrs. Lippett nodded. + +`He waited to discuss the terms with me. They are unusual. +The gentleman, I may say, is erratic. He believes that you +have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become +a writer.' + +`A writer?' Jerusha's mind was numbed. She could only repeat Mrs. +Lippett's words. + +`That is his wish. Whether anything will come of it, the future +will show. He is giving you a very liberal allowance, almost, for a girl +who has never had any experience in taking care of money, too liberal. +But he planned the matter in detail, and I did not feel free to +make any suggestions. You are to remain here through the summer, +and Miss Pritchard has kindly offered to superintend your outfit. +Your board and tuition will be paid directly to the college, +and you will receive in addition during the four years you are there, +an allowance of thirty-five dollars a month. This will enable you +to enter on the same standing as the other students. The money will +be sent to you by the gentleman's private secretary once a month, +and in return, you will write a letter of acknowledgment once a month. +That is--you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn't care +to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of +the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life. +Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they +were living. + +`These letters will be addressed to Mr. John Smith and will be sent +in care of the secretary. The gentleman's name is not John Smith, +but he prefers to remain unknown. To you he will never be anything +but John Smith. His reason in requiring the letters is that he +thinks nothing so fosters facility in literary expression as +letter-writing. Since you have no family with whom to correspond, +he desires you to write in this way; also, he wishes to keep +track of your progress. He will never answer your letters, +nor in the slightest particular take any notice of them. +He detests letter-writing and does not wish you to become a burden. +If any point should ever arise where an answer would seem +to be imperative--such as in the event of your being expelled, +which I trust will not occur--you may correspond with Mr. Griggs, +his secretary. These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory +on your part; they are the only payment that Mr. Smith requires, +so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it +were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always +be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training. +You must remember that you are writing to a Trustee of the John +Grier Home.' + +Jerusha's eyes longingly sought the door. Her head was in a whirl +of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett's +platitudes and think. She rose and took a tentative step backwards. +Mrs. Lippett detained her with a gesture; it was an oratorical +opportunity not to be slighted. + +`I trust that you are properly grateful for this very rare good fortune +that has befallen you? Not many girls in your position ever have +such an opportunity to rise in the world. You must always remember--' + +`I--yes, ma'am, thank you. I think, if that's all, I must go +and sew a patch on Freddie Perkins's trousers.' + +The door closed behind her, and Mrs. Lippett watched it with dropped jaw, +her peroration in mid-air. + + + + +The Letters of + +Miss Jerusha Abbott + +to + +Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith + + + 215 FERGUSSEN HALL + 24th September + +Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College, + + +Here I am! I travelled yesterday for four hours in a train. +It's a funny sensation, isn't it? I never rode in one before. + +College is the biggest, most bewildering place--I get lost whenever +I leave my room. I will write you a description later when I'm +feeling less muddled; also I will tell you about my lessons. +Classes don't begin until Monday morning, and this is Saturday night. +But I wanted to write a letter first just to get acquainted. + +It seems queer to be writing letters to somebody you don't know. +It seems queer for me to be writing letters at all--I've never +written more than three or four in my life, so please overlook it +if these are not a model kind. + +Before leaving yesterday morning, Mrs. Lippett and I had a very +serious talk. She told me how to behave all the rest of my life, +and especially how to behave towards the kind gentleman who is doing +so much for me. I must take care to be Very Respectful. + +But how can one be very respectful to a person who +wishes to be called John Smith? Why couldn't you +have picked out a name with a little personality? +I might as well write letters to Dear Hitching-Post or Dear Clothes-Prop. + +I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having +somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me +feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I +belonged to somebody now, and it's a very comfortable sensation. +I must say, however, that when I think about you, my imagination +has very little to work upon. There are just three things that +I know: + +I. You are tall. + +II. You are rich. + +III. You hate girls. + +I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl-Hater. Only that's rather +insulting to me. Or Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that's insulting +to you, as though money were the only important thing about you. +Besides, being rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you +won't stay rich all your life; lots of very clever men get smashed +up in Wall Street. But at least you will stay tall all your life! +So I've decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you won't mind. +It's just a private pet name we won't tell Mrs. Lippett. + +The ten o'clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is +divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells. +It's very enlivening; I feel like a fire horse all of the time. +There it goes! Lights out. Good night. + +Observe with what precision I obey rules--due to my training +in the John Grier Home. + Yours most respectfully, + Jerusha Abbott +To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith + + + + 1st October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + + +I love college and I love you for sending me--I'm very, very happy, +and so excited every moment of the time that I can scarcely sleep. +You can't imagine how different it is from the John Grier Home. +I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling +sorry for everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here; I am +sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been +so nice. + +My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward +before they built the new infirmary. There are three other girls +on the same floor of the tower--a Senior who wears spectacles +and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two +Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. +Sallie has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; +Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't +noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles. +Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very scarce, but I got +one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn't think it would +be right to ask a properly brought-up girl to room with a foundling. +You see there are advantages! + +My room is on the north-west corner with two windows and a view. +After you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty +room-mates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance +I've ever had to get acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm +going to like her. + +Do you think you are? + + Tuesday + +They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there's +just a chance that I shall get in it. I'm little of course, +but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping +about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. +It's loads of fun practising--out in the athletic field in the +afternoon with the trees all red and yellow and the air full of +the smell of burning leaves, and everybody laughing and shouting. +These are the happiest girls I ever saw--and I am the happiest +of all! + +I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning +(Mrs. Lippett said you wanted to know), but 7th hour has just rung, +and in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes. +Don't you hope I'll get in the team? + + Yours always, + Jerusha Abbott + +PS. (9 o'clock.) + + +Sallie McBride just poked her head in at my door. This is what +she said: + +`I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Do you feel that way?' + +I smiled a little and said no; I thought I could pull through. +At least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped! I never heard +of anybody being asylum-sick, did you? + + + + 10th October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo? + +He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. +Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the +whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds +like an archangel, doesn't he? The trouble with college is that you +are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. +It's very embarrassing at times. But now, when the girls talk about +things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up +in the encyclopedia. + +I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned +Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. +That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just +as bright in class as any of the others--and brighter than some of them! + +Do you care to know how I've furnished my room? It's a symphony +in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I've bought +yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand +for three dollars) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink +spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot. + +The windows are up high; you can't look out from an ordinary seat. +But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, +upholstered the top and moved it up against the window. It's just +the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like +steps and walk up. Very comfortable! + +Sallie McBride helped me choose the things at the Senior auction. +She has lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing. +You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real +five-dollar bill and get some change--when you've never had more than +a few cents in your life. I assure you, Daddy dear, I do appreciate +that allowance. + +Sallie is the most entertaining person in the world--and Julia +Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It's queer what a mixture +the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates. Sallie thinks +everything is funny--even flunking--and Julia is bored at everything. +She never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. She believes +that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven +without any further examination. Julia and I were born to be enemies. + +And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear +what I am learning? + +I. Latin: Second Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp +at Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for +the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. +Romans in retreat. + +II. French: 24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation, +irregular verbs. + +III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now doing cones. + +IV. English: Studying exposition. My style improves daily +in clearness and brevity. + +V. Physiology: Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas +next time. Yours, on the way to being educated, + Jerusha Abbott + + +PS. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy? It does dreadful +things to your liver. + + Wednesday + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + + +I've changed my name. + +I'm still `Jerusha' in the catalogue, but I'm `Judy' everywhere else. +It's really too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only +pet name you ever had? I didn't quite make up the Judy though. +That's what Freddy Perkins used to call me before he could +talk plainly. + +I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing +babies' names. She gets the last names out of the telephone book-- +you'll find Abbott on the first page--and she picks the Christian +names up anywhere; she got Jerusha from a tombstone. I've always +hated it; but I rather like Judy. It's such a silly name. +It belongs to the kind of girl I'm not--a sweet little blue-eyed thing, +petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through +life without any cares. Wouldn't it be nice to be like that? +Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been +spoiled by my family! But it's great fun to pretend I've been. +In the future please always address me as Judy. + +Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. +I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real +kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every +little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes. + +(Dinner bell. Goodbye.) + + + Friday + +What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last +paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. +Those were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, +considering the eighteen years of training that I've had? The aim +of the John Grier Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) +is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins. + +The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early +age through drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippett on the woodshed door. + +I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home +of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become +too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. +That isn't a very polite thing to say--but you can't expect me +to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't a young ladies' +finishing school. + +You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. +It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are +talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one +but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand +the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. +At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. +I was queer and different and everybody knew it. I could FEEL +`John Grier Home' written on my face. And then a few charitable +ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. +I HATED EVERY ONE OF THEM--the charitable ones most of all. + +Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told +Sallie McBride that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind +old gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true +so far as it goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, +but I do want to be like the other girls, and that Dreadful Home +looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. +If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, I think, +I might be just as desirable as any other girl. I don't believe +there's any real, underneath difference, do you? + +Anyway, Sallie McBride likes me! + Yours ever, + Judy Abbott + (Nee Jerusha.) + + + Saturday morning + +I've just been reading this letter over and it sounds pretty +un-cheerful. But can't you guess that I have a special topic due +Monday morning and a review in geometry and a very sneezy cold? + + + Sunday + +I forgot to post this yesterday, so I will add an indignant postscript. +We had a bishop this morning, and WHAT DO YOU THINK HE SAID? + +`The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this, +"The poor ye have always with you." They were put here in order +to keep us charitable.' + +The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. +If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up +after service and told him what I thought. + + + 25th October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I'm in the basket-ball team and you ought to see the bruise on my +left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. +Julia Pendleton tried for the team, but she didn't get in. Hooray! + +You see what a mean disposition I have. + +College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers +and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have +ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush. + +You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've +been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so +excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; +and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; +I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always +toss them into the wastebasket. I promise not to write another till +the middle of November. + Yours most loquaciously, + Judy Abbott + + + + + + 15th November + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Listen to what I've learned to-day. + +The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid +is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases +by the altitude of either of its trapezoids. + +It doesn't sound true, but it is--I can prove it! + +You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six dresses, +all new and beautiful and bought for me--not handed down from +somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks +in the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, +VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated--but nothing +compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. +Miss Pritchard, who is on the visiting committee, picked them out-- +not Mrs. Lippett, thank goodness. I have an evening dress, pink mull +over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, +and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes +me look like a Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, +and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. +That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, +perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott--Oh, my! + +I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little +beast she is, and what a waste of money to educate a girl? + +But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in checked ginghams all your life, +you'd appreciate how I feel. And when I started to the high school, +I entered upon another period even worse than the checked ginghams. + +The poor box. + +You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable +poor-box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class +next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper +and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness +of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. +If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe +I could obliterate the scar. + + LATEST WAR BULLETIN! + + News from the Scene of Action. + + +At the fourth watch on Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed +the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces +over the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light +armed Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus. +Two battles and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses. + I have the honour of being, + Your special correspondent from the front, + J. Abbott + +PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've +been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, +just this once--are you awfully old or just a little old? And are +you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult +thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry. + +Given a tall rich man who hates girls, but is very generous to one +quite impertinent girl, what does he look like? + +R.S.V.P. + + + 19th December +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +You never answered my question and it was very important. + + ARE YOU BALD? + + +I have it planned exactly what you look like--very satisfactorily-- +until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't +decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly +grey hair or maybe none at all. + +Here is your portrait: + +But the problem is, shall I add some hair? + +Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey, +and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're +called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency +to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy +old thing with a temper. + (Chapel bell.) + 9.45 p.m. + +I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter +how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read +just plain books--I have to, you know, because there are eighteen +blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss +of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. +The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home +and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. +For example: + +I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or +Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice +in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry +the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. +I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden +of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood +for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady. +I had never seen a picture of the `Mona Lisa' and (it's true but you +won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes. + +Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, +but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! +I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an `engaged' on the +door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile +all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student +lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. +I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and +Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and--don't laugh--Little Women. +I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on +Little Women. I haven't told anybody though (that WOULD stamp me +as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last +month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, +I'll know what she is talking about! + +(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.) + + + Saturday +Sir, + +I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. +On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds +and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough +and very uphill. + + + Sunday + +The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. +The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, +and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is +getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation; +there's another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, +and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice-- +learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read-- +and three empty weeks to do it in! + +Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am. + Yours ever, + Judy + + + + +PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want +the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can + +just say: + Mr. Smith is quite bald, + + or + + Mr. Smith is not bald, + + or + + Mr. Smith has white hair. + + +And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance. + +Goodbye till January--and a merry Christmas! + + + Towards the end of + the Christmas vacation. + Exact date unknown + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower +is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. +It's late afternoon--the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) +behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat +using the last light to write to you. + +Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I'm not used to receiving +Christmas presents. You have already given me such lots of things-- +everything I have, you know--that I don't quite feel that I +deserve extras. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know +what I bought with my money? + +I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me +to recitations in time. + +II. Matthew Arnold's poems. + +III. A hot water bottle. + +IV. A steamer rug. (My tower is cold.) + +V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I'm going +to commence being an author pretty soon.) + +VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author's vocabulary.) + +VII. (I don't much like to confess this last item, but I will.) +A pair of silk stockings. + +And now, Daddy, never say I don't tell all! + +It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the +silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry, +and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings +every night. But just wait--as soon as she gets back from vacation +I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, +Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I'm honest; +and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn't perfect, +didn't you? + +To recapitulate (that's the way the English instructor begins every +other sentence), I am very much obliged for my seven presents. +I'm pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family +in California. The watch is from father, the rug from mother, +the hot water bottle from grandmother who is always worrying for fear +I shall catch cold in this climate--and the yellow paper from my +little brother Harry. My sister Isabel gave me the silk stockings, +and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little Harry is +named after him) gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates, +but I insisted on synonyms. + +You don't object, do you, to playing the part of a composite family? + +And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested +in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the delicate shade +of meaning in `as such'. It is the latest addition to my vocabulary. + +The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny +as Jerusha, isn't it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride; +I shall never like any one so much as Sallie--except you. I must +always like you the best of all, because you're my whole family +rolled into one. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked 'cross +country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighbourhood, +dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying shiny +sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town--four miles-- +and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner. +Broiled lobster (35 cents), and for dessert, buckwheat cakes and maple +syrup (15 cents). Nourishing and cheap. + +It was such a lark! Especially for me, because it was so awfully +different from the asylum--I feel like an escaped convict every +time I leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell +the others what an experience I was having. The cat was almost +out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back. +It's awfully hard for me not to tell everything I know. I'm a very +confiding soul by nature; if I didn't have you to tell things to, +I'd burst. + +We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the +house matron of Fergussen to the left-behinds in the other halls. +There were twenty-two of us altogether, Freshmen and Sophomores and +juniors and Seniors all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is huge, +with copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone wall-- +the littlest casserole among them about the size of a wash boiler. +Four hundred girls live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white cap +and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons-- +I can't imagine where he got so many--and we all turned ourselves +into cooks. + +It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was +finally finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the door-knobs +all thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession and still in our +caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan, +we marched through the empty corridors to the officers' parlour, +where half-a-dozen professors and instructors were passing +a tranquil evening. We serenaded them with college songs and +offered refreshments. They accepted politely but dubiously. +We left them sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless. + +So you see, Daddy, my education progresses! + +Don't you really think that I ought to be an artist instead +of an author? + +Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the +girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine people occupy +a house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle around a bit. + +Eleven pages--poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be +just a short little thank-you note--but when I get started I seem +to have a ready pen. + +Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me--I should be perfectly +happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. +Examinations come in February. + Yours with love, + Judy + + +PS. Maybe it isn't proper to send love? If it isn't, please excuse. +But I must love somebody and there's only you and Mrs. Lippett +to choose between, so you see--you'll HAVE to put up with it, +Daddy dear, because I can't love her. + + + On the Eve +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +You should see the way this college is studying! We've forgotten we +ever had a vacation. Fifty-seven irregular verbs have I introduced +to my brain in the past four days--I'm only hoping they'll stay +till after examinations. + +Some of the girls sell their text-books when they're through with them, +but I intend to keep mine. Then after I've graduated I shall have +my whole education in a row in the bookcase, and when I need to use +any detail, I can turn to it without the slightest hesitation. +So much easier and more accurate than trying to keep it in your head. + +Julia Pendleton dropped in this evening to pay a social call, +and stayed a solid hour. She got started on the subject of family, +and I COULDN'T switch her off. She wanted to know what my +mother's maiden name was--did you ever hear such an impertinent +question to ask of a person from a foundling asylum? I didn't +have the courage to say I didn't know, so I just miserably plumped +on the first name I could think of, and that was Montgomery. +Then she wanted to know whether I belonged to the Massachusetts +Montgomerys or the Virginia Montgomerys. + +Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, +and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father's +side they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches +of her family tree there's a superior breed of monkeys with very +fine silky hair and extra long tails. + +I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter tonight, +but I'm too sleepy--and scared. The Freshman's lot is not a happy one. + Yours, about to be examined, + Judy Abbott + + + + Sunday +Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I have some awful, awful, awful news to tell you, but I won't begin +with it; I'll try to get you in a good humour first. + +Jerusha Abbott has commenced to be an author. A poem entitled, +`From my Tower', appears in the February Monthly--on the first page, +which is a very great honour for a Freshman. My English instructor +stopped me on the way out from chapel last night, and said it was +a charming piece of work except for the sixth line, which had too +many feet. I will send you a copy in case you care to read it. + +Let me see if I can't think of something else pleasant-- +Oh, yes! I'm learning to skate, and can glide about quite +respectably all by myself. Also I've learned how to slide down +a rope from the roof of the gymnasium, and I can vault a bar +three feet and six inches high--I hope shortly to pull up to four feet. + +We had a very inspiring sermon this morning preached by the Bishop +of Alabama. His text was: `Judge not that ye be not judged.' +It was about the necessity of overlooking mistakes in others, +and not discouraging people by harsh judgments. I wish you might +have heard it. + +This is the sunniest, most blinding winter afternoon, with icicles +dripping from the fir trees and all the world bending under a weight +of snow--except me, and I'm bending under a weight of sorrow. + +Now for the news--courage, Judy!--you must tell. + +Are you SURELY in a good humour? I failed in mathematics and +Latin prose. I am tutoring in them, and will take another examination +next month. I'm sorry if you're disappointed, but otherwise I don't +care a bit because I've learned such a lot of things not mentioned +in the catalogue. I've read seventeen novels and bushels of poetry-- +really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverel +and Alice in Wonderland. Also Emerson's Essays and Lockhart's +Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbon's Roman Empire +and half of Benvenuto Cellini's Life--wasn't he entertaining? +He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast. + +So you see, Daddy, I'm much more intelligent than if I'd just stuck +to Latin. Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to fail again? + Yours in sackcloth, + Judy + + + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm +rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy. All the lights are +out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep. + +I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia +and Leonora Fenton--and sardines and toasted muffins and salad +and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sallie +stayed to help wash the dishes. + + +I might, very usefully, put some time on Latin tonight but, +there's no doubt about it, I'm a very languid Latin scholar. +We've finished Livy and De Senectute and are now engaged with De +Amicitia (pronounced Damn Icitia). + +Should you mind, just for a little while, pretending you are +my grandmother? Sallie has one and Julia and Leonora each two, +and they were all comparing them tonight. I can't think of +anything I'd rather have; it's such a respectable relationship. +So, if you really don't object--When I went into town yesterday, +I saw the sweetest cap of Cluny lace trimmed with lavender ribbon. +I am going to make you a present of it on your eighty-third birthday. + +! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! + +That's the clock in the chapel tower striking twelve. I believe +I am sleepy after all. + Good night, Granny. + I love you dearly. + Judy + + + + + + The Ides of March +Dear D.-L.-L., + +I am studying Latin prose composition. I have been studying it. +I shall be studying it. I shall be about to have been studying it. +My re-examination comes the 7th hour next Tuesday, and I am +going to pass or BUST. So you may expect to hear from me next, +whole and happy and free from conditions, or in fragments. + +I will write a respectable letter when it's over. Tonight I have +a pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute. + Yours--in evident haste + J. A. + + + + 26th March + +Mr. D.-L.-L. Smith, + +SIR: You never answer any questions; you never show the slightest +interest in anything I do. You are probably the horridest one of +all those horrid Trustees, and the reason you are educating me is, +not because you care a bit about me, but from a sense of Duty. + +I don't know a single thing about you. I don't even know your name. +It is very uninspiring writing to a Thing. I haven't a doubt but that +you throw my letters into the waste-basket without reading them. +Hereafter I shall write only about work. + +My re-examinations in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed +them both and am now free from conditions. + Yours truly, + Jerusha Abbott + + + + 2nd April +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I am a BEAST. + +Please forget about that dreadful letter I sent you last week-- +I was feeling terribly lonely and miserable and sore-throaty the night +I wrote. I didn't know it, but I was just sickening for tonsillitis +and grippe and lots of things mixed. I'm in the infirmary now, +and have been here for six days; this is the first time they would let +me sit up and have a pen and paper. The head nurse is very bossy. +But I've been thinking about it all the time and I shan't get well +until you forgive me. + +Here is a picture of the way I look, with a bandage tied around +my head in rabbit's ears. + +Doesn't that arouse your sympathy? I am having sublingual +gland swelling. And I've been studying physiology all the year without +ever hearing of sublingual glands. How futile a thing is education! + +I can't write any more; I get rather shaky when I sit up too long. +Please forgive me for being impertinent and ungrateful. I was badly +brought up. + Yours with love, + Judy Abbott + + + + THE INFIRMARY + 4th April +Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Yesterday evening just towards dark, when I was sitting up in bed +looking out at the rain and feeling awfully bored with life +in a great institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box +addressed to me, and filled with the LOVELIEST pink rosebuds. +And much nicer still, it contained a card with a very polite message +written in a funny little uphill back hand (but one which shows +a great deal of character). Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. +Your flowers make the first real, true present I ever received in +my life. If you want to know what a baby I am I lay down and cried +because I was so happy. + +Now that I am sure you read my letters, I'll make them much +more interesting, so they'll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape +around them--only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up. +I'd hate to think that you ever read it over. + +Thank you for making a very sick, cross, miserable Freshman cheerful. +Probably you have lots of loving family and friends, and you don't +know what it feels like to be alone. But I do. + +Goodbye--I'll promise never to be horrid again, because now I +know you're a real person; also I'll promise never to bother you +with any more questions. + +Do you still hate girls? + Yours for ever, + Judy + + + + + 8th hour, Monday +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I hope you aren't the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off-- +I was told--with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee. + +Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them +by the laundry windows in the John Grier Home? Every spring when the +hoptoad season opened we used to form a collection of toads and keep +them in those window holes; and occasionally they would spill over +into the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days. +We were severely punished for our activities in this direction, +but in spite of all discouragement the toads would collect. + +And one day--well, I won't bore you with particulars--but somehow, +one of the fattest, biggest, JUCIEST toads got into one of those +big leather arm chairs in the Trustees' room, and that afternoon +at the Trustees' meeting--But I dare say you were there and recall +the rest? + +Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say +that punishment was merited, and--if I remember rightly--adequate. + +I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that +spring and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old +acquisitive instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting +a collection is the fact that no rule exists against it. + + + + After chapel, Thursday + +What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change +every three days. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte was quite young +when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. +She had never known any men in her life; how COULD she imagine a man +like Heathcliffe? + +I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John +Grier Asylum--I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a +dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be +awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author? +In the spring when everything is so beautiful and green and budding, +I feel like turning my back on lessons, and running away to play with +the weather. There are such lots of adventures out in the fields! +It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them. + +Ow ! ! ! ! ! ! + +That was a shriek which brought Sallie and Julia and (for a +disgusted moment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused +by a centipede like this: only worse. Just as I had finished the +last sentence and was thinking what to say next--plump!--it fell off +the ceiling and landed at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea +table in trying to get away. Sallie whacked it with the back of my +hair brush--which I shall never be able to use again--and killed +the front end, but the rear fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped. + +This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full +of centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I'd rather find +a tiger under the bed. + + + Friday, 9.30 p.m. + +Such a lot of troubles! I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, +then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and +dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast +and also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting +paper and my fountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the Professor +and I had a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. +On looking it up, I find that she was right. We had mutton stew +and pie-plant for lunch--hate 'em both; they taste like the asylum. +The post brought me nothing but bills (though I must say that I +never do get anything else; my family are not the kind that write). +In English class this afternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. +This was it: + + I asked no other thing, + No other was denied. + I offered Being for it; + The mighty merchant smiled. + + Brazil? He twirled a button + Without a glance my way: + But, madam, is there nothing else + That we can show today? + + +That is a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. It +was simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we +were ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse +I thought I had an idea--The Mighty Merchant was a divinity +who distributes blessings in return for virtuous deeds-- +but when I got to the second verse and found him twirling a button, +it seemed a blasphemous supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. +The rest of the class was in the same predicament; and there we +sat for three-quarters of an hour with blank paper and equally +blank minds. Getting an education is an awfully wearing process! + +But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come. + +It rained so we couldn't play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead. +The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got +home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, +and the skirt was so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is +sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk. +We had tombstone for dessert (milk and gelatin flavoured with vanilla). +We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to listen to +a speech about womanly women. And then--just as I was settling down +with a sigh of well-earned relief to The Portrait of a Lady, a girl +named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl, +who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A (I +wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), came to ask if Monday's +lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR. +She has just gone. + +Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? +It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. +Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, +but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh--I really +think that requires SPIRIT. + +It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am +going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play +as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug +my shoulders and laugh--also if I win. + +Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me +complain again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings +and centipedes drop off the wall. + Yours ever, + Judy + +Answer soon. + + 27th May +Daddy-Long-Legs, Esq. + +DEAR SIR: I am in receipt of a letter from Mrs. Lippett. +She hopes that I am doing well in deportment and studies. +Since I probably have no place to go this summer, she will let me +come back to the asylum and work for my board until college opens. + +I HATE THE JOHN GRIER HOME. + +I'd rather die than go back. + Yours most truthfully, + Jerusha Abbott + + +Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes, + +Vous etes un brick! + +Je suis tres heureuse about the farm, parceque je n'ai jamais been +on a farm dans ma vie and I'd hate to retoumer chez John Grier, +et wash dishes tout l'ete. There would be danger of quelque chose +affreuse happening, parceque j'ai perdue ma humilite d'autre fois et +j'ai peur that I would just break out quelque jour et smash every +cup and saucer dans la maison. + +Pardon brievete et paper. Je ne peux pas send des mes nouvelles +parceque je suis dans French class et j'ai peur que Monsieur le +Professeur is going to call on me tout de suite. + +He did! + Au revoir, + je vous aime beaucoup. + Judy + + + 30th May +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Did you ever see this campus? (That is merely a rhetorical question. +Don't let it annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. All the +shrubs are in blossom and the trees are the loveliest young green-- +even the old pines look fresh and new. The grass is dotted with yellow +dandelions and hundreds of girls in blue and white and pink dresses. +Everybody is joyous and carefree, for vacation's coming, and with +that to look forward to, examinations don't count. + +Isn't that a happy frame of mind to be in? And oh, Daddy! +I'm the happiest of all! Because I'm not in the asylum any more; +and I'm not anybody's nursemaid or typewriter or bookkeeper (I +should have been, you know, except for you). + +I'm sorry now for all my past badnesses. + +I'm sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. Lippett. + +I'm sorry I ever slapped Freddie Perkins. + +I'm sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl with salt. + +I'm sorry I ever made faces behind the Trustees' backs. + +I'm going to be good and sweet and kind to everybody because I'm +so happy. And this summer I'm going to write and write and write +and begin to be a great author. Isn't that an exalted stand +to take? Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops +a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines. + +That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that +adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. +The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. +I have no faith in misanthropes. (Fine word! Just learned it.) +You are not a misanthrope are you, Daddy? + +I started to tell you about the campus. I wish you'd come +for a little visit and let me walk you about and say: + +`That is the library. This is the gas plant, Daddy dear. +The Gothic building on your left is the gymnasium, and the Tudor +Romanesque beside it is the new infirmary.' + +Oh, I'm fine at showing people about. I've done it all my life at +the asylum, and I've been doing it all day here. I have honestly. + +And a Man, too! + +That's a great experience. I never talked to a man before (except +occasional Trustees, and they don't count). Pardon, Daddy, I don't +mean to hurt your feelings when I abuse Trustees. I don't consider +that you really belong among them. You just tumbled on to the Board +by chance. The Trustee, as such, is fat and pompous and benevolent. +He pats one on the head and wears a gold watch chain. + +That looks like a June bug, but is meant to be a portrait of any +Trustee except you. + +However--to resume: + +I have been walking and talking and having tea with a man. +And with a very superior man--with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of the House +of Julia; her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; +he's as tall as you.) Being in town on business, he decided to run +out to the college and call on his niece. He's her father's +youngest brother, but she doesn't know him very intimately. It seems +he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he didn't like her, +and has never noticed her since. + +Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper +with his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie +with seventh-hour recitations that they couldn't cut. So Julia +dashed into my room and begged me to walk him about the campus +and then deliver him to her when the seventh hour was over. +I said I would, obligingly but unenthusiastically, because I don't +care much for Pendletons. + +But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. He's a real human being-- +not a Pendleton at all. We had a beautiful time; I've longed +for an uncle ever since. Do you mind pretending you're my uncle? +I believe they're superior to grandmothers. + +Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of you, Daddy, as you were twenty +years ago. You see I know you intimately, even if we haven't +ever met! + +He's tall and thinnish with a dark face all over lines, and the +funniest underneath smile that never quite comes through but just +wrinkles up the corners of his mouth. And he has a way of making +you feel right off as though you'd known him a long time. +He's very companionable. + +We walked all over the campus from the quadrangle to the athletic grounds; +then he said he felt weak and must have some tea. He proposed that +we go to College Inn--it's just off the campus by the pine walk. +I said we ought to go back for Julia and Sallie, but he said he didn't +like to have his nieces drink too much tea; it made them nervous. +So we just ran away and had tea and muffins and marmalade and +ice-cream and cake at a nice little table out on the balcony. +The inn was quite conveniently empty, this being the end of the month +and allowances low. + +We had the jolliest time! But he had to run for his train +the minute he got back and he barely saw Julia at all. She was +furious with me for taking him off; it seems he's an unusually rich +and desirable uncle. It relieved my mind to find he was rich, +for the tea and things cost sixty cents apiece. + +This morning (it's Monday now) three boxes of chocolates came by +express for Julia and Sallie and me. What do you think of that? +To be getting candy from a man! + +I begin to feel like a girl instead of a foundling. + +I wish you'd come and have tea some day and let me see if I like you. +But wouldn't it be dreadful if I didn't? However, I know I should. + +Bien! I make you my compliments. + `Jamais je ne t'oublierai.' + Judy + + +PS. I looked in the glass this morning and found a perfectly +new dimple that I'd never seen before. It's very curious. +Where do you suppose it came from? + + + + 9th June + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Happy day! I've just finished my last examination Physiology. +And now: + +Three months on a farm! + +I don't know what kind of a thing a farm is. I've never been on +one in my life. I've never even looked at one (except from the car +window), but I know I'm going to love it, and I'm going to love +being FREE. + +I am not used even yet to being outside the John Grier Home. +Whenever I think of it excited little thrills chase up and down +my back. I feel as though I must run faster and faster and keep +looking over my shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippett isn't after +me with her arm stretched out to grab me back. + +I don't have to mind any one this summer, do I? + +Your nominal authority doesn't annoy me in the least; you are too +far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead for ever, so far as I +am concerned, and the Semples aren't expected to overlook my moral +welfare, are they? No, I am sure not. I am entirely grown up. Hooray! + +I leave you now to pack a trunk, and three boxes of teakettles +and dishes and sofa cushions and books. + Yours ever, + Judy + + +PS. Here is my physiology exam. Do you think you could have passed? + + LOCK WILLOW FARM, + Saturday night +Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I've only just come and I'm not unpacked, but I can't wait to tell you +how much I like farms. This is a heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY spot! +The house is square like this: And OLD. A hundred years or so. +It has a veranda on the side which I can't draw and a sweet porch +in front. The picture really doesn't do it justice--those things +that look like feather dusters are maple trees, and the prickly ones +that border the drive are murmuring pines and hemlocks. It stands +on the top of a hill and looks way off over miles of green meadows +to another line of hills. + +That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; +and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns +used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind +flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down. + +The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a hired girl and two hired men. +The hired people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples and Judy +in the dining-room. We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey +and jelly-cake and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper-- +and a great deal of conversation. I have never been so entertaining +in my life; everything I say appears to be funny. I suppose it is, +because I've never been in the country before, and my questions are +backed by an all-inclusive ignorance. + +The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed, +but the one that I occupy. It's big and square and empty, +with adorable old-fashioned furniture and windows that have to +be propped up on sticks and green shades trimmed with gold that +fall down if you touch them. And a big square mahogany table-- +I'm going to spend the summer with my elbows spread out on it, +writing a novel. + +Oh, Daddy, I'm so excited! I can't wait till daylight to explore. +It's 8.30 now, and I am about to blow out my candle and try to go +to sleep. We rise at five. Did you ever know such fun? I can't +believe this is really Judy. You and the Good Lord give me more +than I deserve. I must be a very, very, VERY good person to pay. +I'm going to be. You'll see. + Good night, + Judy + + +PS. You should hear the frogs sing and the little pigs squeal +and you should see the new moon! I saw it over my right shoulder. + + + + + + LOCK WILLOW, + 12th July +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? +(That isn't a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) +For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, +but now he has given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. +Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence? She still calls him +`Master Jervie' and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. +She has one of his baby curls put away in a box, and it is red-- +or at least reddish! + +Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much +in her opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family +is the best introduction one can have at Lock Willow. +And the cream of the whole family is Master Jervis-- +I am pleased to say that Julia belongs to an inferior branch. + +The farm gets more and more entertaining. I rode on a hay +wagon yesterday. We have three big pigs and nine little piglets, +and you should see them eat. They are pigs! We've oceans +of little baby chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls. +You must be mad to live in a city when you might live on a farm. + +It is my daily business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the +barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that +the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee, +Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time, +`Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell off +that very same beam and scratched this very same knee.' + +The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful. There's a valley +and a river and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the distance +a tall blue mountain that simply melts in your mouth. + +We churn twice a week; and we keep the cream in the spring house +which is made of stone with the brook running underneath. +Some of the farmers around here have a separator, but we don't +care for these new-fashioned ideas. It may be a little harder +to separate the cream in pans, but it's sufficiently better to pay. +We have six calves; and I've chosen the names for all of them. + +1. Sylvia, because she was born in the woods. + +2. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus. + +3. Sallie. + +4. Julia--a spotted, nondescript animal. + +5. Judy, after me. + +6. Daddy-Long-Legs. You don't mind, do you, Daddy? He's pure +Jersey and has a sweet disposition. He looks like this--you can +see how appropriate the name is. + +I haven't had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm +keeps me too busy. + Yours always, + Judy + + +PS. I've learned to make doughnuts. + +PS. (2) If you are thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend +Buff Orpingtons. They haven't any pin feathers. + +PS. (3) I wish I could send you a pat of the nice, fresh butter +I churned yesterday. I'm a fine dairy-maid! + +PS. (4) This is a picture of Miss Jerusha Abbott, the future +great author, driving home the cows. + + + + Sunday + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Isn't it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon, +but as far as I got was the heading, `Dear Daddy-Long-Legs', and then +I remembered I'd promised to pick some blackberries for supper, +so I went off and left the sheet lying on the table, and when I +came back today, what do you think I found sitting in the middle +of the page? A real true Daddy-Long-Legs! + +I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out +of the window. I wouldn't hurt one of them for the world. +They always remind me of you. + +We hitched up the spring wagon this morning and drove to the Centre +to church. It's a sweet little white frame church with a spire +and three Doric columns in front (or maybe Ionic--I always get +them mixed). + +A nice sleepy sermon with everybody drowsily waving palm-leaf fans, +and the only sound, aside from the minister, the buzzing of locusts +in the trees outside. I didn't wake up till I found myself on +my feet singing the hymn, and then I was awfully sorry I hadn't +listened to the sermon; I should like to know more of the psychology +of a man who would pick out such a hymn. This was it: + + Come, leave your sports and earthly toys + And join me in celestial joys. + Or else, dear friend, a long farewell. + I leave you now to sink to hell. + + +I find that it isn't safe to discuss religion with the Semples. +Their God (whom they have inherited intact from their remote +Puritan ancestors) is a narrow, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful, +bigoted Person. Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! +I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic +and imaginative and forgiving and understanding--and He has a sense +of humour. + +I like the Semples immensely; their practice is so superior to +their theory. They are better than their own God. I told them so-- +and they are horribly troubled. They think I am blasphemous-- +and I think they are! We've dropped theology from our conversation. + +This is Sunday afternoon. + +Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and some bright yellow buckskin gloves, +very red and shaved, has just driven off with Carrie (hired girl) +in a big hat trimmed with red roses and a blue muslin dress and her +hair curled as tight as it will curl. Amasai spent all the morning +washing the buggy; and Carrie stayed home from church ostensibly +to cook the dinner, but really to iron the muslin dress. + +In two minutes more when this letter is finished I am going to settle +down to a book which I found in the attic. It's entitled, On the Trail, +and sprawled across the front page in a funny little-boy hand: + + Jervis Pendleton + if this book should ever roam, + Box its ears and send it home. + + +He spent the summer here once after he had been ill, when he +was about eleven years old; and he left On the Trail behind. +It looks well read--the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent! +Also in a corner of the attic there is a water wheel and a windmill +and some bows and arrows. Mrs. Semple talks so constantly about him +that I begin to believe he really lives--not a grown man with a silk hat +and walking stick, but a nice, dirty, tousle-headed boy who clatters +up the stairs with an awful racket, and leaves the screen doors open, +and is always asking for cookies. (And getting them, too, if I +know Mrs. Semple!) He seems to have been an adventurous little soul-- +and brave and truthful. I'm sorry to think he is a Pendleton; +he was meant for something better. + +We're going to begin threshing oats tomorrow; a steam engine +is coming and three extra men. + +It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup (the spotted cow with +one horn, Mother of Lesbia) has done a disgraceful thing. She got +into the orchard Friday evening and ate apples under the trees, +and ate and ate until they went to her head. For two days she +has been perfectly dead drunk! That is the truth I am telling. +Did you ever hear anything so scandalous? + Sir, + I remain, + Your affectionate orphan, + Judy Abbott + + +PS. Indians in the first chapter and highwaymen in the second. +I hold my breath. What can the third contain? `Red Hawk leapt +twenty feet in the air and bit the dust.' That is the subject of +the frontispiece. Aren't Judy and Jervie having fun? + + + 15th September +Dear Daddy, + +I was weighed yesterday on the flour scales in the general store +at the Comers. I've gained nine pounds! Let me recommend Lock +Willow as a health resort. + Yours ever, + Judy + + + +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Behold me--a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave +Lock Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant +sensation to come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel +at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, +in fact, to feel at home in the world--as though I really belonged +to it and had not just crept in on sufferance. + +I don't suppose you understand in the least what I am trying to say. +A person important enough to be a Trustee can't appreciate the +feelings of a person unimportant enough to be a foundling. + +And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom do you think I am rooming with? +Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. It's the truth. +We have a study and three little bedrooms--VOILA! + +Sallie and I decided last spring that we should like to room together, +and Julia made up her mind to stay with Sallie--why, I can't imagine, +for they are not a bit alike; but the Pendletons are naturally +conservative and inimical (fine word!) to change. Anyway, here we are. +Think of Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier Home for Orphans, +rooming with a Pendleton. This is a democratic country. + +Sallie is running for class president, and unless all signs fail, +she is going to be elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue you should +see what politicians we are! Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get +our rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours. +Election comes next Saturday, and we're going to have a torchlight +procession in the evening, no matter who wins. + +I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. I've never seen +anything like it before. Molecules and Atoms are the material employed, +but I'll be in a position to discuss them more definitely next month. + +I am also taking argumentation and logic. + +Also history of the whole world. + +Also plays of William Shakespeare. + +Also French. + +If this keeps up many years longer, I shall become quite intelligent. + +I should rather have elected economics than French, but I +didn't dare, because I was afraid that unless I re-elected +French, the Professor would not let me pass--as it was, +I just managed to squeeze through the June examination. +But I will say that my high-school preparation was not very adequate. + +There's one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast +as she does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she +was a child, and spent three years in a convent school. You can +imagine how bright she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs +are mere playthings. I wish my parents had chucked me into a French +convent when I was little instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no, +I don't either! Because then maybe I should never have known you. +I'd rather know you than French. + +Goodbye, Daddy. I must call on Harriet Martin now, +and, having discussed the chemical situation, +casually drop a few thoughts on the subject of our next president. + Yours in politics, + J. Abbott + + + 17th October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Supposing the swimming tank in the gymnasium were filled full +of lemon jelly, could a person trying to swim manage to keep +on top or would he sink? + +We were having lemon jelly for dessert when the question came up. +We discussed it heatedly for half an hour and it's still unsettled. +Sallie thinks that she could swim in it, but I am perfectly sure +that the best swimmer in the world would sink. Wouldn't it be funny +to be drowned in lemon jelly? + +Two other problems are engaging the attention of our table. + +1st. What shape are the rooms in an octagon house? +Some of the girls insist that they're square; +but I think they'd have to be shaped like a piece of pie. Don't you? + +2nd. Suppose there were a great big hollow sphere made of +looking-glass and you were sitting inside. Where would it stop +reflecting your face and begin reflecting your back? The more +one thinks about this problem, the more puzzling it becomes. +You can see with what deep philosophical reflection we engage our leisure! + +Did I ever tell you about the election? It happened three weeks ago, +but so fast do we live, that three weeks is ancient history. +Sallie was elected, and we had a torchlight parade with +transparencies saying, `McBride for Ever,' and a band consisting +of fourteen pieces (three mouth organs and eleven combs). + +We're very important persons now in `258.' Julia and I come in +for a great deal of reflected glory. It's quite a social strain +to be living in the same house with a president. + +Bonne nuit, cher Daddy. + Acceptez mez compliments, + Tres respectueux, + je suis, + Votre Judy + + + 12th November +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +We beat the Freshmen at basket ball yesterday. Of course we're pleased-- +but oh, if we could only beat the juniors! I'd be willing to be black +and blue all over and stay in bed a week in a witch-hazel compress. + +Sallie has invited me to spend the Christmas vacation with her. +She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wasn't it nice of her? +I shall love to go. I've never been in a private family in my life, +except at Lock Willow, and the Semples were grown-up and old and +don't count. But the McBrides have a houseful of children (anyway two +or three) and a mother and father and grandmother, and an Angora cat. +It's a perfectly complete family! Packing your trunk and going +away is more fun than staying behind. I am terribly excited at +the prospect. + +Seventh hour--I must run to rehearsal. I'm to be in the +Thanksgiving theatricals. A prince in a tower with a velvet +tunic and yellow curls. Isn't that a lark? + Yours, + J. A. + + Saturday + +Do you want to know what I look like? Here's a photograph of all +three that Leonora Fenton took. + +The light one who is laughing is Sallie, and the tall one with her +nose in the air is Julia, and the little one with the hair blowing +across her face is Judy--she is really more beautiful than that, +but the sun was in her eyes. + + + + `STONE GATE', + WORCESTER, MASS., + + 31st December +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque, +but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don't +seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk. + +I bought a new gown--one that I didn't need, but just wanted. +My Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family +just sent love. + +I've been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie. +She lives in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set +back from the street--exactly the kind of house that I used to look +at so curiously when I was in the John Grier Home, and wonder what it +could be like inside. I never expected to see with my own eyes-- +but here I am! Everything is so comfortable and restful and homelike; +I walk from room to room and drink in the furnishings. + +It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in; +with shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn, +and an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a +comfortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen, +and a nice, fat, sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years +and always saves out a piece of dough for the children to bake. +Just the sight of such a house makes you want to be a child all +over again. + +And as for families! I never dreamed they could be so nice. +Sallie has a father and mother and grandmother, and the sweetest +three-year-old baby sister all over curls, and a medium-sized brother +who always forgets to wipe his feet, and a big, good-looking brother +named Jimmie, who is a junior at Princeton. + +We have the jolliest times at the table--everybody laughs and jokes +and talks at once, and we don't have to say grace beforehand. +It's a relief not having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. +(I dare say I'm blasphemous; but you'd be, too, if you'd offered as +much obligatory thanks as I have.) + +Such a lot of things we've done--I can't begin to tell you about them. +Mr. McBride owns a factory and Christmas eve he had a tree for +the employees' children. It was in the long packing-room which was +decorated with evergreens and holly. Jimmie McBride was dressed +as Santa Claus and Sallie and I helped him distribute the presents. + +Dear me, Daddy, but it was a funny sensation! I felt as benevolent +as a Trustee of the John Grier home. I kissed one sweet, +sticky little boy--but I don't think I patted any of them on the head! + +And two days after Christmas, they gave a dance at their own house +for ME. + +It was the first really true ball I ever attended--college doesn't +count where we dance with girls. I had a new white evening gown +(your Christmas present--many thanks) and long white gloves +and white satin slippers. The only drawback to my perfect, +utter, absolute happiness was the fact that Mrs. Lippett +couldn't see me leading the cotillion with Jimmie McBride. +Tell her about it, please, the next time you visit the J. G. H. + Yours ever, + Judy Abbott + + +PS. Would you be terribly displeased, Daddy, if I didn't turn +out to be a Great Author after all, but just a Plain Girl? + + + + 6.30, Saturday +Dear Daddy, + + +We started to walk to town today, but mercy! how it poured. +I like winter to be winter with snow instead of rain. + +Julia's desirable uncle called again this afternoon--and brought +a five-pound box of chocolates. There are advantages, you see, +about rooming with Julia. + +Our innocent prattle appeared to amuse him and he waited for a later +train in order to take tea in the study. We had an awful lot of +trouble getting permission. It's hard enough entertaining fathers +and grandfathers, but uncles are a step worse; and as for brothers +and cousins, they are next to impossible. Julia had to swear +that he was her uncle before a notary public and then have the +county clerk's certificate attached. (Don't I know a lot of law?) +And even then I doubt if we could have had our tea if the Dean +had chanced to see how youngish and good-looking Uncle Jervis is. + +Anyway, we had it, with brown bread Swiss cheese sandwiches. +He helped make them and then ate four. I told him that I had +spent last summer at Lock Willow, and we had a beautiful gossipy +time about the Semples, and the horses and cows and chickens. +All the horses that he used to know are dead, except Grover, +who was a baby colt at the time of his last visit--and poor Grove +now is so old he can just limp about the pasture. + +He asked if they still kept doughnuts in a yellow crock with a blue +plate over it on the bottom shelf of the pantry--and they do! +He wanted to know if there was still a woodchuck's hole under the pile +of rocks in the night pasture--and there is! Amasai caught a big, +fat, grey one there this summer, the twenty-fifth great-grandson +of the one Master Jervis caught when he was a little boy. + +I called him `Master Jervie' to his face, but he didn't appear +to be insulted. Julia says she has never seen him so amiable; +he's usually pretty unapproachable. But Julia hasn't a bit of tact; +and men, I find, require a great deal. They purr if you rub them the +right way and spit if you don't. (That isn't a very elegant metaphor. +I mean it figuratively.) + +We're reading Marie Bashkirtseff's journal. Isn't it amazing? +Listen to this: `Last night I was seized by a fit of despair +that found utterance in moans, and that finally drove me to throw +the dining-room clock into the sea.' + +It makes me almost hope I'm not a genius; they must be very wearing +to have about--and awfully destructive to the furniture. + +Mercy! how it keeps Pouring. We shall have to swim to chapel tonight. + Yours ever, + Judy + + + + + 20th Jan. +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Did you ever have a sweet baby girl who was stolen from the cradle +in infancy? + +Maybe I am she! If we were in a novel, that would be the denouement, +wouldn't it? + +It's really awfully queer not to know what one is--sort of +exciting and romantic. There are such a lot of possibilities. +Maybe I'm not American; lots of people aren't. I may be straight +descended from the ancient Romans, or I may be a Viking's daughter, +or I may be the child of a Russian exile and belong by rights +in a Siberian prison, or maybe I'm a Gipsy--I think perhaps I am. +I have a very WANDERING spirit, though I haven't as yet had much +chance to develop it. + +Do you know about that one scandalous blot in my career the time I ran +away from the asylum because they punished me for stealing cookies? +It's down in the books free for any Trustee to read. But really, +Daddy, what could you expect? When you put a hungry little nine-year +girl in the pantry scouring knives, with the cookie jar at her elbow, +and go off and leave her alone; and then suddenly pop in again, +wouldn't you expect to find her a bit crumby? And then when you +jerk her by the elbow and box her ears, and make her leave the table +when the pudding comes, and tell all the other children that it's +because she's a thief, wouldn't you expect her to run away? + +I only ran four miles. They caught me and brought me back; +and every day for a week I was tied, like a naughty puppy, to a stake +in the back yard while the other children were out at recess. + +Oh, dear! There's the chapel bell, and after +chapel I have a committee meeting. I'm +sorry because I meant to write you a very entertaining letter this time. + Auf wiedersehen + Cher Daddy, + Pax tibi! + Judy + + +PS. There's one thing I'm perfectly sure of I'm not a Chinaman. + + + 4th February +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Jimmie McBride has sent me a Princeton banner as big as one end +of the room; I am very grateful to him for remembering me, but I +don't know what on earth to do with it. Sallie and Julia won't +let me hang it up; our room this year is furnished in red, and you +can imagine what an effect we'd have if I added orange and black. +But it's such nice, warm, thick felt, I hate to waste it. +Would it be very improper to have it made into a bath robe? +My old one shrank when it was washed. + +I've entirely omitted of late telling you what I am learning, +but though you might not imagine it from my letters, my time is +exclusively occupied with study. It's a very bewildering matter +to get educated in five branches at once. + +`The test of true scholarship,' says Chemistry Professor, +`is a painstaking passion for detail.' + +`Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail,' says History +Professor. `Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.' + +You can see with what nicety we have to trim our sails between +chemistry and history. I like the historical method best. +If I say that William the Conqueror came over in 1492, and Columbus +discovered America in 1100 or 1066 or whenever it was, that's a mere +detail that the Professor overlooks. It gives a feeling of security +and restfulness to the history recitation, that is entirely lacking +in chemistry. + +Sixth-hour bell--I must go to the laboratory and look into a little +matter of acids and salts and alkalis. I've burned a hole as big +as a plate in the front of my chemistry apron, with hydrochloric acid. +If the theory worked, I ought to be able to neutralize that hole +with good strong ammonia, oughtn't I? + +Examinations next week, but who's afraid? + Yours ever, + Judy + + + + 5th March +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +There is a March wind blowing, and the sky is filled with heavy, +black moving clouds. The crows in the pine trees are making such +a clamour! It's an intoxicating, exhilarating, CALLING noise. +You want to close your books and be off over the hills to race with +the wind. + +We had a paper chase last Saturday over five miles of squashy +'cross country. The fox (composed of three girls and a bushel or so +of confetti) started half an hour before the twenty-seven hunters. +I was one of the twenty-seven; eight dropped by the wayside; +we ended nineteen. The trail led over a hill, through a cornfield, +and into a swamp where we had to leap lightly from hummock to hummock. +of course half of us went in ankle deep. We kept losing the trail, +and we wasted twenty-five minutes over that swamp. Then up a hill +through some woods and in at a barn window! The barn doors were all +locked and the window was up high and pretty small. I don't call +that fair, do you? + +But we didn't go through; we circumnavigated the barn and picked up +the trail where it issued by way of a low shed roof on to the top +of a fence. The fox thought he had us there, but we fooled him. +Then straight away over two miles of rolling meadow, and awfully +hard to follow, for the confetti was getting sparse. The rule is +that it must be at the most six feet apart, but they were the longest +six feet I ever saw. Finally, after two hours of steady trotting, +we tracked Monsieur Fox into the kitchen of Crystal Spring (that's +a farm where the girls go in bob sleighs and hay wagons for chicken +and waffle suppers) and we found the three foxes placidly eating milk +and honey and biscuits. They hadn't thought we would get that far; +they were expecting us to stick in the barn window. + +Both sides insist that they won. I think we did, don't you? +Because we caught them before they got back to the campus. +Anyway, all nineteen of us settled like locusts over the furniture +and clamoured for honey. There wasn't enough to go round, but Mrs. +Crystal Spring (that's our pet name for her; she's by rights a Johnson) +brought up a jar of strawberry jam and a can of maple syrup-- +just made last week--and three loaves of brown bread. + +We didn't get back to college till half-past six--half an hour late +for dinner--and we went straight in without dressing, and with +perfectly unimpaired appetites! Then we all cut evening chapel, +the state of our boots being enough of an excuse. + +I never told you about examinations. I passed everything with the +utmost ease--I know the secret now, and am never going to fail again. +I shan't be able to graduate with honours though, because of that +beastly Latin prose and geometry Freshman year. But I don't care. +Wot's the hodds so long as you're 'appy? (That's a quotation. +I've been reading the English classics.) + +Speaking of classics, have you ever read Hamlet? If you haven't, +do it right off. It's PERFECTLY CORKING. I've been hearing about +Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; +I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation. + +I have a beautiful play that I invented a long time ago when I first +learned to read. I put myself to sleep every night by pretending +I'm the person (the most important person) in the book I'm reading +at the moment. + +At present I'm Ophelia--and such a sensible Ophelia! I keep +Hamlet amused all the time, and pet him and scold him and make him +wrap up his throat when he has a cold. I've entirely cured him +of being melancholy. The King and Queen are both dead--an accident +at sea; no funeral necessary--so Hamlet and I are ruling in Denmark +without any bother. We have the kingdom working beautifully. +He takes care of the governing, and I look after the charities. +I have just founded some first-class orphan asylums. If you +or any of the other Trustees would like to visit them, I shall be +pleased to show you through. I think you might find a great many +helpful suggestions. + I remain, sir, + Yours most graciously, + OPHELIA, + Queen of Denmark. + + + + 24th March, + maybe the 25th +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I don't believe I can be going to Heaven--I am getting such a lot +of good things here; it wouldn't be fair to get them hereafter too. +Listen to what has happened. + +Jerusha Abbott has won the short-story contest (a twenty-five +dollar prize) that the Monthly holds every year. And she's a Sophomore! +The contestants are mostly Seniors. When I saw my name posted, +I couldn't quite believe it was true. Maybe I am going to be an author +after all. I wish Mrs. Lippett hadn't given me such a silly name-- +it sounds like an author-ess, doesn't it? + +Also I have been chosen for the spring dramatics--As You Like It +out of doors. I am going to be Celia, own cousin to Rosalind. + +And lastly: Julia and Sallie and I are going to New York next Friday +to do some spring shopping and stay all night and go to the theatre +the next day with `Master Jervie.' He invited us. Julia is going +to stay at home with her family, but Sallie and I are going to stop +at the Martha Washington Hotel. Did you ever hear of anything +so exciting? I've never been in a hotel in my life, nor in a theatre; +except once when the Catholic Church had a festival and invited +the orphans, but that wasn't a real play and it doesn't count. + +And what do you think we're going to see? Hamlet. Think of that! +We studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare class and I know it +by heart. + +I am so excited over all these prospects that I can scarcely sleep. + +Goodbye, Daddy. + +This is a very entertaining world. + Yours ever, + Judy + + +PS. I've just looked at the calendar. It's the 28th. + +Another postscript. + +I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue. +Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story? + + + 7th April +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Mercy! Isn't New York big? Worcester is nothing to it. Do you +mean to tell me that you actually live in all that confusion? +I don't believe that I shall recover for months from the bewildering +effect of two days of it. I can't begin to tell you all the amazing +things I've seen; I suppose you know, though, since you live +there yourself. + +But aren't the streets entertaining? And the people? And the shops? +I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. +It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes. + +Sallie and Julia and I went shopping together Saturday morning. +Julia went into the very most gorgeous place I ever saw, white and +gold walls and blue carpets and blue silk curtains and gilt chairs. +A perfectly beautiful lady with yellow hair and a long black silk +trailing gown came to meet us with a welcoming smile. I thought we +were paying a social call, and started to shake hands, but it seems +we were only buying hats--at least Julia was. She sat down in front +of a mirror and tried on a dozen, each lovelier than the last, +and bought the two loveliest of all. + +I can't imagine any joy in life greater than sitting down in front +of a mirror and buying any hat you choose without having first +to consider the price! There's no doubt about it, Daddy; New York +would rapidly undermine this fine stoical character which the John +Grier Home so patiently built up. + +And after we'd finished our shopping, we met Master Jervie +at Sherry's. I suppose you've been in Sherry's? Picture that, +then picture the dining-room of the John Grier Home with its +oilcloth-covered tables, and white crockery that you CAN'T break, +and wooden-handled knives and forks; and fancy the way I felt! + +I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but the waiter very kindly gave +me another so that nobody noticed. + +And after luncheon we went to the theatre--it was dazzling, +marvellous, unbelievable--I dream about it every night. + +Isn't Shakespeare wonderful? + +Hamlet is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in class; +I appreciated it before, but now, clear me! + +I think, if you don't mind, that I'd rather be an actress than +a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a +dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, +and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose +in your buttonhole, please, so I'll surely smile at the right man. +It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out the wrong one. + +We came back Saturday night and had our dinner in the train, +at little tables with pink lamps and negro waiters. I never heard +of meals being served in trains before, and I inadvertently said so. + +`Where on earth were you brought up?' said Julia to me. + +`In a village,' said I meekly, to Julia. + +`But didn't you ever travel?' said she to me. + +`Not till I came to college, and then it was only a hundred +and sixty miles and we didn't eat,' said I to her. + +She's getting quite interested in me, because I say such funny things. +I try hard not to, but they do pop out when I'm surprised-- +and I'm surprised most of the time. It's a dizzying experience, +Daddy, to pass eighteen years in the John Grier Home, and then +suddenly to be plunged into the WORLD. + +But I'm getting acclimated. I don't make such awful mistakes as I did; +and I don't feel uncomfortable any more with the other girls. I used +to squirm whenever people looked at me. I felt as though they saw +right through my sham new clothes to the checked ginghams underneath. +But I'm not letting the ginghams bother me any more. Sufficient unto +yesterday is the evil thereof. + +I forgot to tell you about our flowers. Master Jervie gave us each +a big bunch of violets and lilies-of-the-valley. Wasn't that sweet +of him? I never used to care much for men--judging by Trustees-- +but I'm changing my mind. + +Eleven pages--this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop. + Yours always, + Judy + + + + 10th April +Dear Mr. Rich-Man, + +Here's your cheque for fifty dollars. Thank you very much, +but I do not feel that I can keep it. My allowance is sufficient +to afford all of the hats that I need. I am sorry that I wrote +all that silly stuff about the millinery shop; it's just that I +had never seen anything like it before. + +However, I wasn't begging! And I would rather not accept any more +charity than I have to. + Sincerely yours, + Jerusha Abbott + + + 11th April + +Dearest Daddy, + +Will you please forgive me for the letter I wrote you yesterday? +After I posted it I was sorry, and tried to get it back, but that +beastly mail clerk wouldn't give it back to me. + +It's the middle of the night now; I've been awake for hours +thinking what a Worm I am--what a Thousand-legged Worm-- +and that's the worst I can say! I've closed the door very softly +into the study so as not to wake Julia and Sallie, and am sitting +up in bed writing to you on paper torn out of my history note-book. + +I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry I was so impolite +about your cheque. I know you meant it kindly, and I think you're +an old dear to take so much trouble for such a silly thing as a hat. +I ought to have returned it very much more graciously. + +But in any case, I had to return it. It's different with me than +with other girls. They can take things naturally from people. +They have fathers and brothers and aunts and uncles; but I can't +be on any such relations with any one. I like to pretend that you +belong to me, just to play with the idea, but of course I know you +don't. I'm alone, really--with my back to the wall fighting the world-- +and I get sort of gaspy when I think about it. I put it out of my mind, +and keep on pretending; but don't you see, Daddy? I can't accept +any more money than I have to, because some day I shall be wanting +to pay it back, and even as great an author as I intend to be won't +be able to face a PERFECTLY TREMENDOUS debt. + +I'd love pretty hats and things, but I mustn't mortgage the future +to pay for them. + +You'll forgive me, won't you, for being so rude? I have an awful +habit of writing impulsively when I first think things, and then +posting the letter beyond recall. But if I sometimes seem thoughtless +and ungrateful, I never mean it. In my heart I thank you always +for the life and freedom and independence that you have given me. +My childhood was just a long, sullen stretch of revolt, and now I am +so happy every moment of the day that I can't believe it's true. +I feel like a made-up heroine in a story-book. + +It's a quarter past two. I'm going to tiptoe out to post this +off now. You'll receive it in the next mail after the other; +so you won't have a very long time to think bad of me. + Good night, Daddy, + I love you always, + Judy + + + 4th May +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Field Day last Saturday. It was a very spectacular occasion. +First we had a parade of all the classes, with everybody dressed +in white linen, the Seniors carrying blue and gold Japanese umbrellas, +and the juniors white and yellow banners. Our class had crimson balloons-- +very fetching, especially as they were always getting loose +and floating off--and the Freshmen wore green tissue-paper hats +with long streamers. Also we had a band in blue uniforms hired +from town. Also about a dozen funny people, like clowns in a circus, +to keep the spectators entertained between events. + +Julia was dressed as a fat country man with a linen duster and +whiskers and baggy umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patrici really. +Did you ever hear such a name? Mrs. Lippett couldn't have done better) +who is tall and thin was Julia's wife in a absurd green bonnet +over one ear. Waves of laughter followed them the whole length +of the course. Julia played the part extremely well. I never +dreamed that a Pendleton could display so much comedy spirit-- +begging Master Jervie' pardon; I don't consider him a true +Pendleton though, any more than I consider you a true Trustee. + +Sallie and I weren't in the parade because we were entered for +the events. And what do you think? We both won! At least +in something. We tried for the running broad jump and lost; +but Sallie won the pole-vaulting (seven feet three inches) +and I won the fifty-yard sprint (eight seconds). + +I was pretty panting at the end, but it was great fun, with the +whole class waving balloons and cheering and yelling: + + What's the matter with Judy Abbott? + She's all right. + Who's all right? + Judy Ab-bott! + + +That, Daddy, is true fame. Then trotting back to the dressing tent +and being rubbed down with alcohol and having a lemon to suck. +You see we're very professional. It's a fine thing to win an event +for your class, because the class that wins the most gets the athletic +cup for the year. The Seniors won it this year, with seven events +to their credit. The athletic association gave a dinner in the +gymnasium to all of the winners. We had fried soft-shell crabs, +and chocolate ice-cream moulded in the shape of basket balls. + +I sat up half of last night reading Jane Eyre. Are you old enough, +Daddy, to remember sixty years ago? And, if so, did people talk +that way? + +The haughty Lady Blanche says to the footman, `Stop your chattering, +knave, and do my bidding.' Mr. Rochester talks about the metal +welkin when he means the sky; and as for the mad woman who laughs +like a hyena and sets fire to bed curtains and tears up wedding +veils and BITES--it's melodrama of the purest, but just the same, +you read and read and read. I can't see how any girl could have written +such a book, especially any girl who was brought up in a churchyard. +There's something about those Brontes that fascinates me. +Their books, their lives, their spirit. Where did they get it? +When I was reading about little Jane's troubles in the charity +school, I got so angry that I had to go out and take a walk. +I understood exactly how she felt. Having known Mrs. Lippett, +I could see Mr. Brocklehurst. + +Don't be outraged, Daddy. I am not intimating that the John Grier +Home was like the Lowood Institute. We had plenty to eat and plenty +to wear, sufficient water to wash in, and a furnace in the cellar. +But there was one deadly likeness. Our lives were absolutely monotonous +and uneventful. Nothing nice ever happened, except ice-cream +on Sundays, and even that was regular. In all the eighteen years +I was there I only had one adventure--when the woodshed burned. +We had to get up in the night and dress so as to be ready in case +the house should catch. But it didn't catch and we went back +to bed. + +Everybody likes a few surprises; it's a perfectly natural human craving. +But I never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me to the office +to tell me that Mr. John Smith was going to send me to college. +And then she broke the news so gradually that it just barely +shocked me. + +You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any +person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves +in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic +and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children. +But the John Grier Home instantly stamped out the slightest flicker +that appeared. Duty was the one quality that was encouraged. +I don't think children ought to know the meaning of the word; +it's odious, detestable. They ought to do everything from love. + +Wait until you see the orphan asylum that I am going to be the +head of! It's my favourite play at night before I go to sleep. +I plan it out to the littlest detail--the meals and clothes and +study and amusements and punishments; for even my superior orphans +are sometimes bad. + +But anyway, they are going to be happy. I think that every one, +no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, +ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. And if I ever +have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, +I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up. + +(There goes the chapel bell--I'll finish this letter sometime). + + + Thursday + +When I came in from laboratory this afternoon, I found a squirrel +sitting on the tea table helping himself to almonds. These are +the kind of callers we entertain now that warm weather has come +and the windows stay open-- + + + + + Saturday morning +Perhaps you think, last night being Friday, with no classes today, +that I passed a nice quiet, readable evening with the set of Stevenson +that I bought with my prize money? But if so, you've never attended +a girls' college, Daddy dear. Six friends dropped in to make fudge, +and one of them dropped the fudge--while it was still liquid-- +right in the middle of our best rug. We shall never be able to clean +up the mess. + +I haven't mentioned any lessons of late; but we are still having +them every day. It's sort of a relief though, to get away from +them and discuss life in the large--rather one-sided discussions +that you and I hold, but that's your own fault. You are welcome +to answer back any time you choose. + +I've been writing this letter off and on for three days, and I fear +by now vous etes bien bored! + Goodbye, nice Mr. Man, + Judy + + +Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith, + +SIR: Having completed the study of argumentation and the science +of dividing a thesis into heads, I have decided to adopt the +following form for letter-writing. It contains all necessary facts, +but no unnecessary verbiage. + +I. We had written examinations this week in: + A. Chemistry. + B. History. + +II. A new dormitory is being built. + A. Its material is: + (a) red brick. + (b) grey stone. + B. Its capacity will be: + (a) one dean, five instructors. + (b) two hundred girls. + (c) one housekeeper, three cooks, twenty waitresses, + twenty chambermaids. + +III. We had junket for dessert tonight. + +IV. I am writing a special topic upon the Sources of Shakespeare's Plays. + +V. Lou McMahon slipped and fell this afternoon at basket ball, +and she: + A. Dislocated her shoulder. + B. Bruised her knee. + +VI. I have a new hat trimmed with: + A. Blue velvet ribbon. + B. Two blue quills. + C. Three red pompoms. + +VII. It is half past nine. + +VIII. Good night. + Judy + + + + 2nd June +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +You will never guess the nice thing that has happened. + +The McBrides have asked me to spend the summer at their camp in +the Adirondacks! They belong to a sort of club on a lovely little +lake in the middle of the woods. The different members have houses +made of logs dotted about among the trees, and they go canoeing +on the lake, and take long walks through trails to other camps, +and have dances once a week in the club house--Jimmie McBride is +going to have a college friend visiting him part of the summer, +so you see we shall have plenty of men to dance with. + +Wasn't it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask me? It appears that she +liked me when I was there for Christmas. + +Please excuse this being short. It isn't a real letter; it's just +to let you know that I'm disposed of for the summer. + Yours, + In a VERY contented frame of mind, + Judy + + + + 5th June +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Your secretary man has just written to me saying that Mr. Smith +prefers that I should not accept Mrs. McBride's invitation, +but should return to Lock Willow the same as last summer. + +Why, why, WHY, Daddy? + +You don't understand about it. Mrs. McBride does want me, +really and truly. I'm not the least bit of trouble in the house. +I'm a help. They don't take up many servants, and Sallie an I can do lots +of useful things. It's a fine chance for me to learn housekeeping. +Every woman ought to understand it, and I only know asylum-keeping. + +There aren't any girls our age at the camp, and Mrs. McBride wants +me for a companion for Sallie. We are planning to do a lot of +reading together. We are going to read all of the books for next +year's English and sociology. The Professor said it would be a great +help if we would get our reading finished in the summer; and it's +so much easier to remember it if we read together and talk it over. + +Just to live in the same house with Sallie's mother is an education. +She's the most interesting, entertaining, companionable, charming woman +in the world; she knows everything. Think how many summers I've +spent with Mrs. Lippett and how I'll appreciate the contrast. +You needn't be afraid that I'll be crowding them, for their house is +made of rubber. When they have a lot of company, they just sprinkle +tents about in the woods and turn the boys outside. It's going to be +such a nice, healthy summer exercising out of doors every minute. +Jimmie McBride is going to teach me how to ride horseback and paddle +a canoe, and how to shoot and--oh, lots of things I ought to know. +It's the kind of nice, jolly, care-free time that I've never had; +and I think every girl deserves it once in her life. Of course I'll +do exactly as you say, but please, PLEASE let me go, Daddy. I've never +wanted anything so much. + +This isn't Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, writing to you. +It's just Judy--a girl. + + + 9th June +Mr. John Smith, + +SIR: Yours of the 7th inst. at hand. In compliance with the +instructions received through your secretary, I leave on Friday +next to spend the summer at Lock Willow Farm. + +I hope always to remain, + (Miss) Jerusha Abbott + + + + LOCK WILLOW FARM, + 3rd August +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +It has been nearly two months since I wrote, which wasn't nice of me, +I know, but I haven't loved you much this summer--you see I'm +being frank! + +You can't imagine how disappointed I was at having to give up +the McBrides' camp. Of course I know that you're my guardian, +and that I have to regard your wishes in all matters, but I couldn't +see any REASON. It was so distinctly the best thing that could +have happened to me. If I had been Daddy, and you had been Judy, +I should have said, `Bless yo my child, run along and have a +good time; see lots of new people and learn lots of new things; +live out of doors, and get strong and well and rested for a year +of hard work.' + +But not at all! Just a curt line from your secretary ordering me +to Lock Willow. + +It's the impersonality of your commands that hurts my feelings. +It seems as though, if you felt the tiniest little bit for me the +way I feel for you, you'd sometimes send me a message that you'd +written with your own hand, instead of those beastly typewritten +secretary's notes. If there were the slightest hint that you cared, +I'd do anything on earth to please you. + +I know that I was to write nice, long, detailed letters without ever +expecting any answer. You're living up to your side of the bargain-- +I'm being educated--and I suppose you're thinking I'm not living up +to mine! + +But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is, really. I'm so awfully lonely. +You are the only person I have to care for, and you are so shadowy. +You're just an imaginary man that I've made up--and probably +the real YOU isn't a bit like my imaginary YOU. But you did once, +when I was ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and now, +when I am feeling awfully forgotten, I get out your card and read +it over. + +I don't think I am telling you at all what I started to say, +which was this: + +Although my feelings are still hurt, for it is very humiliating +to be picked up and moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, +unreasonable, omnipotent, invisible Providence, still, when a man +has been as kind and generous and thoughtful as you have heretofore +been towards me, I suppose he has a right to be an arbitrary, +peremptory, unreasonable, invisible Providence if he chooses, and so-- +I'll forgive you and be cheerful again. But I still don't enjoy +getting Sallie's letters about the good times they are having in camp! + +However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again. + +I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories +finished and sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm +trying to be an author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the +attic where Master Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. +It's in a cool, breezy corner with two dormer windows, and shaded +by a maple tree with a family of red squirrels living in a hole. + +I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news. + +We need rain. + Yours as ever, + Judy + + + + 10th August +Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs, + +SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree +by the pool in the pasture. There's a frog croaking underneath, +a locust singing overhead and two little `devil downheads' +darting up and down the trunk. I've been here for an hour; +it's a very comfortable crotch, especially after being upholstered +with two sofa cushions. I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to +write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time +with my heroine--I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; +so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you. +(Not much relief though, for I can't make you behave as I want +you to, either.) + +If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some +of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven +after a week of rain. + +Speaking of Heaven--do you remember Mr. Kellogg that I told you about +last summer?--the minister of the little white church at the Corners. +Well, the poor old soul is dead--last winter of pneumonia. I went +half a dozen times to hear him preach and got very well acquainted +with his theology. He believed to the end exactly the same things +he started with. It seems to me that a man who can think straight +along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to +be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying his harp +and golden crown; he was so perfectly sure of finding them! There's a +new young man, very consequential, in his place. The congregation +is pretty dubious, especially the faction led by Deacon Cummings. +It looks as though there was going to be an awful split in the church. +We don't care for innovations in religion in this neighbourhood. + +During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgy +of reading--Stevenson, mostly. He himself is more entertaining +than any of the characters in his books; I dare say he made himself +into the kind of hero that would look well in print. Don't you +think it was perfect of him to spend all the ten thousand dollars +his father left, for a yacht, and go sailing off to the South Seas? +He lived up to his adventurous creed. If my father had left me ten +thousand dollars, I'd do it, too. The thought of Vailima makes +me wild. I want to see the tropics. I want to see the whole world. +I am going to be a great author, or artist, or actress, or playwright-- +or whatever sort of a great person I turn out to be. I have a +terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put +on my hat and take an umbrella and start. `I shall see before I die +the palms and temples of the South.' + + + + Thursday evening at twilight, + sitting on the doorstep. + +Very hard to get any news into this letter! Judy is becoming +so philosophical of late, that she wishes to discourse largely +of the world in general, instead of descending to the trivial +details of daily life. But if you MUST have news, here it is: + +Our nine young pigs waded across the brook and ran away last Tuesday, +and only eight came back. We don't want to accuse anyone unjustly, +but we suspect that Widow Dowd has one more than she ought to have. + +Mr. Weaver has painted his barn and his two silos a bright pumpkin yellow-- +a very ugly colour, but he says it will wear. + +The Brewers have company this week; Mrs. Brewer's sister and two +nieces from Ohio. + +One of our Rhode Island Reds only brought off three chicks +out of fifteen eggs. We can't imagine what was the trouble. +Rhode island Reds, in my opinion, are a very inferior breed. +I prefer Buff Orpingtons. + +The new clerk in the post office at Bonnyrigg Four Corners drank +every drop of Jamaica ginger they had in stock--seven dollars' +worth--before he was discovered. + +Old Ira Hatch has rheumatism and can't work any more; he never saved +his money when he was earning good wages, so now he has to live +on the town. + +There's to be an ice-cream social at the schoolhouse next +Saturday evening. Come and bring your families. + +I have a new hat that I bought for twenty-five cents at the post office. +This is my latest portrait, on my way to rake the hay. + +It's getting too dark to see; anyway, the news is all used up. + Good night, + Judy + + + + Friday + +Good morning! Here is some news! What do you think? You'd never, +never, never guess who's coming to Lock Willow. A letter to Mrs. +Semple from Mr. Pendleton. He's motoring through the Berkshires, +and is tired and wants to rest on a nice quiet farm--if he climbs +out at her doorstep some night will she have a room ready for him? +Maybe he'll stay one week, or maybe two, or maybe three; he'll see +how restful it is when he gets here. + +Such a flutter as we are in! The whole house is being cleaned and +all the curtains washed. I am driving to the Corners this morning +to get some new oilcloth for the entry, and two cans of brown floor +paint for the hall and back stairs. Mrs. Dowd is engaged to come +tomorrow to wash the windows (in the exigency of the moment, we waive +our suspicions in regard to the piglet). You might think, from this +account of our activities, that the house was not already immaculate; +but I assure you it was! Whatever Mrs. Semple's limitations, +she is a HOUSEKEEPER. + +But isn't it just like a man, Daddy? He doesn't give the remotest +hint as to whether he will land on the doorstep today, or two weeks +from today. We shall live in a perpetual breathlessness until he comes-- +and if he doesn't hurry, the cleaning may all have to be done over again. + +There's Amasai waiting below with the buckboard and Grover. +I drive alone--but if you could see old Grove, you wouldn't be +worried as to my safety. + +With my hand on my heart--farewell. + Judy + + +PS. Isn't that a nice ending? I got it out of Stevenson's +letters. + + + + Saturday Good +morning again! I didn't get this ENVELOPED yesterday before +the postman came, so I'll add some more. We have one mail a day +at twelve o'clock. Rural delivery is a blessing to the farmers! +Our postman not only delivers letters, but he runs errands for us +in town, at five cents an errand. Yesterday he brought me some +shoe-strings and a jar of cold cream (I sunburned all the skin +off my nose before I got my new hat) and a blue Windsor tie and a +bottle of blacking all for ten cents. That was an unusual bargain, +owing to the largeness of my order. + +Also he tells us what is happening in the Great World. +Several people on the route take daily papers, and he reads them as he +jogs along, and repeats the news to the ones who don't subscribe. +So in case a war breaks out between the United States and Japan, +or the president is assassinated, or Mr. Rockefeller leaves a million +dollars to the John Grier Home, you needn't bother to write; +I'll hear it anyway. + +No sign yet of Master Jervie. But you should see how clean our +house is--and with what anxiety we wipe our feet before we step in! + +I hope he'll come soon; I am longing for someone to talk to. +Mrs. Semple, to tell you the truth, gets rather monotonous. +She never lets ideas interrupt the easy flow of her conversation. +It's a funny thing about the people here. Their world is just +this single hilltop. They are not a bit universal, if you know +what I mean. It's exactly the same as at the John Grier Home. +Our ideas there were bounded by the four sides of the iron fence, +only I didn't mind it so much because I was younger, and was so +awfully busy. By the time I'd got all my beds made and my babies' +faces washed and had gone to school and come home and had washed their +faces again and darned their stockings and mended Freddie Perkins's +trousers (he tore them every day of his life) and learned my lessons +in between--I was ready to go to bed, and I didn't notice any lack +of social intercourse. But after two years in a conversational college, +I do miss it; and I shall be glad to see somebody who speaks +my language. + +I really believe I've finished, Daddy. Nothing else occurs to me +at the moment--I'll try to write a longer letter next time. + Yours always, + Judy + + +PS. The lettuce hasn't done at all well this year. It was so dry +early in the season. + + + 25th August + +Well, Daddy, Master Jervie's here. And such a nice time as +we're having! At least I am, and I think he is, too--he has been +here ten days and he doesn't show any signs of going. The way +Mrs. Semple pampers that man is scandalous. If she indulged him +as much when he was a baby, I don't know how he ever turned out so well. + +He and I eat at a little table set on the side porch, or sometimes +under the trees, or--when it rains or is cold--in the best parlour. +He just picks out the spot he wants to eat in and Carrie trots +after him with the table. Then if it has been an awful nuisance, +and she has had to carry the dishes very far, she finds a dollar +under the sugar bowl. + +He is an awfully companionable sort of man, though you would never +believe it to see him casually; he looks at first glance like a +true Pendleton, but he isn't in the least. He is just as simple +and unaffected and sweet as he can be--that seems a funny way +to describe a man, but it's true. He's extremely nice with the +farmers around here; he meets them in a sort of man-to-man fashion +that disarms them immediately. They were very suspicious at first. +They didn't care for his clothes! And I will say that his clothes +are rather amazing. He wears knickerbockers and pleated jackets +and white flannels and riding clothes with puffed trousers. +Whenever he comes down in anything new, Mrs. Semple, beaming with pride, +walks around and views him from every angle, and urges him to be careful +where he sits down; she is so afraid he will pick up some dust. +It bores him dreadfully. He's always saying to her: + +`Run along, Lizzie, and tend to your work. You can't boss me +any longer. I've grown up.' + +It's awfully funny to think of that great big, long-legged man (he's +nearly as long-legged as you, Daddy) ever sitting in Mrs. Semple's lap +and having his face washed. Particularly funny when you see her lap! +She has two laps now, and three chins. But he says that once she +was thin and wiry and spry and could run faster than he. + +Such a lot of adventures we're having! We've explored the country +for miles, and I've learned to fish with funny little flies made +of feathers. Also to shoot with a rifle and a revolver. Also to +ride horseback--there's an astonishing amount of life in old Grove. +We fed him on oats for three days, and he shied at a calf and almost +ran away with me. + + Wednesday + +We climbed Sky Hill Monday afternoon. That's a mountain near here; +not an awfully high mountain, perhaps--no snow on the summit--but at +least you are pretty breathless when you reach the top. The lower slopes +are covered with woods, but the top is just piled rocks and open moor. +We stayed up for the sunset and built a fire and cooked our supper. +Master Jervie did the cooking; he said he knew how better than me +and he did, too, because he's used to camping. Then we came down +by moonlight, and, when we reached the wood trail where it was dark, +by the light of an electric bulb that he had in his pocket. +It was such fun! He laughed and joked all the way and talked +about interesting things. He's read all the books I've ever read, +and a lot of others besides. It's astonishing how many different +things he knows. + +We went for a long tramp this morning and got caught in a storm. +Our clothes were drenched before we reached home but our spirits not +even damp. You should have seen Mrs. Semple's face when we dripped +into her kitchen. + +`Oh, Master Jervie--Miss Judy! You are soaked through. Dear! Dear! +What shall I do? That nice new coat is perfectly ruined.' + +She was awfully funny; you would have thought that we were ten +years old, and she a distracted mother. I was afraid for a while +that we weren't going to get any jam for tea. + + + + Saturday + +I started this letter ages ago, but I haven't had a second to finish it. + +Isn't this a nice thought from Stevenson? + + + The world is so full of a number of things, + I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. + + +It's true, you know. The world is full of happiness, and plenty +to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes +your way. The whole secret is in being PLIABLE. In the country, +especially, there are such a lot of entertaining things. +I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view, +and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much +as though I owned the land--and with no taxes to pay! + +It's Sunday night now, about eleven o'clock, +and I am supposed to be getting some beauty +sleep, but I had black coffee for dinner, so--no beauty sleep for me! + +This morning, said Mrs. Semple to Mr. Pendleton, with a very +determined accent: + +`We have to leave here at a quarter past ten in order to get +to church by eleven.' + +`Very well, Lizzie,' said Master Jervie, `you have the buggy ready, +and if I'm not dressed, just go on without waiting.' 'We'll wait,' +said she. + +`As you please,' said he, `only don't keep the horses standing +too long.' + +Then while she was dressing, he told Carrie to pack up a lunch, +and he told me to scramble into my walking clothes; and we slipped +out the back way and went fishing. + +It discommoded the household dreadfully, because Lock Willow of +a Sunday dines at two. But he ordered dinner at seven--he orders meals +whenever he chooses; you would think the place were a restaurant-- +and that kept Carrie and Amasai from going driving. But he said it +was all the better because it wasn't proper for them to go driving +without a chaperon; and anyway, he wanted the horses himself to take +me driving. Did you ever hear anything so funny? + +And poor Mrs. Semple believes that people who go fishing on Sundays go +afterwards to a sizzling hot hell! She is awfully troubled to think +that she didn't train him better when he was small and helpless +and she had the chance. Besides--she wished to show him off in church. + +Anyway, we had our fishing (he caught four little ones) and we cooked +them on a camp-fire for lunch. They kept falling off our spiked +sticks into the fire, so they tasted a little ashy, but we ate them. +We got home at four and went driving at five and had dinner at seven, +and at ten I was sent to bed and here I am, writing to you. + +I am getting a little sleepy, though. + Good night. + + +Here is a picture of the one fish I caught. + + + +Ship Ahoy, Cap'n Long-Legs! + +Avast! Belay! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. Guess what I'm reading? +Our conversation these past two days has been nautical and piratical. +Isn't Treasure Island fun? Did you ever read it, or wasn't it +written when you were a boy? Stevenson only got thirty pounds for +the serial rights--I don't believe it pays to be a great author. +Maybe I'll be a school-teacher. + +Excuse me for filling my letters so full of Stevenson; my mind +is very much engaged with him at present. He comprises Lock +Willow's library. + +I've been writing this letter for two weeks, and I think it's +about long enough. Never say, Daddy, that I don't give details. +I wish you were here, too; we'd all have such a jolly time together. +I like my different friends to know each other. I wanted to ask +Mr. Pendleton if he knew you in New York--I should think he might; +you must move in about the same exalted social circles, and you are +both interested in reforms and things--but I couldn't, for I don't know +your real name. + +It's the silliest thing I ever heard of, not to know your name. +Mrs. Lippett warned me that you were eccentric. I should think so! + Affectionately, + Judy + + +PS. On reading this over, I find that it isn't all Stevenson. +There are one or two glancing references to Master Jervie. + + + + 10th September +Dear Daddy, + +He has gone, and we are missing him! When you get accustomed to +people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, +it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing sort of sensation. +I'm finding Mrs. Semple's conversation pretty unseasoned food. + +College opens in two weeks and I shall be glad to begin work again. +I have worked quite a lot this summer though--six short stories and +seven poems. Those I sent to the magazines all came back with the +most courteous promptitude. But I don't mind. It's good practice. +Master Jervie read them--he brought in the post, so I couldn't +help his knowing--and he said they were DREADFUL. They showed +that I didn't have the slightest idea of what I was talking about. +(Master Jervie doesn't let politeness interfere with truth.) +But the last one I did--just a little sketch laid in college-- +he said wasn't bad; and he had it typewritten, and I sent it +to a magazine. They've had it two weeks; maybe they're thinking +it over. + +You should see the sky! There's the queerest orange-coloured light +over everything. We're going to have a storm. + + +It commenced just that moment with tremendously big drops and all +the shutters banging. I had to run to close the windows, while Carrie +flew to the attic with an armful of milk pans to put under the places +where the roof leaks and then, just as I was resuming my pen, +I remembered that I'd left a cushion and rug and hat and Matthew +Arnold's poems under a tree in the orchard, so I dashed out to get them, +all quite soaked. The red cover of the poems had run into the inside; +Dover Beach in the future will be washed by pink waves. + +A storm is awfully disturbing in the country. You are always having +to think of so many things that are out of doors and getting spoiled. + + Thursday + +Daddy! Daddy! What do you think? The postman has just come +with two letters. + +1st. My story is accepted. $50. + +ALORS! I'm an AUTHOR. + +2nd. A letter from the college secretary. I'm to have a scholarship +for two years that will cover board and tuition. It was founded +for `marked proficiency in English with general excellency in +other lines.' And I've won it! I applied for it before I left, +but I didn't have an idea I'd get it, on account of my Freshman +bad work in maths and Latin. But it seems I've made it up. I am +awfully glad, Daddy, because now I won't be such a burden to you. +The monthly allowance will be all I'll need, and maybe I can earn +that with writing or tutoring or something. + +I'm LONGING to go back and begin work. + Yours ever, + Jerusha Abbott, + + Author of When the Sophomores Won + the Game. For sale at all news + stands, price ten cents. + + + + 26th September +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Back at college again and an upper classman. Our study is better +than ever this year--faces the South with two huge windows and oh! +so furnished. Julia, with an unlimited allowance, arrived two days +early and was attacked with a fever for settling. + +We have new wall paper and oriental rugs and mahogany chairs-- +not painted mahogany which made us sufficiently happy last year, +but real. It's very gorgeous, but I don't feel as though I belonged +in it; I'm nervous all the time for fear I'll get an ink spot in the +wrong place. + +And, Daddy, I found your letter waiting for me--pardon--I mean +your secretary's. + +Will you kindly convey to me a comprehensible reason why I should +not accept that scholarship? I don't understand your objection +in the least. But anyway, it won't do the slightest good for you +to object, for I've already accepted it and I am not going to change! +That sounds a little impertinent, but I don't mean it so. + +I suppose you feel that when you set out to educate me, you'd like to +finish the work, and put a neat period, in the shape of a diploma, +at the end. + +But look at it just a second from my point of view. I shall owe my +education to you just as much as though I let you pay for the whole of it, +but I won't be quite so much indebted. I know that you don't want me +to return the money, but nevertheless, I am going to want to do it, +if I possibly can; and winning this scholarship makes it so much easier. +I was expecting to spend the rest of my life in paying my debts, +but now I shall only have to spend one-half of the rest of it. + +I hope you understand my position and won't be cross. The allowance +I shall still most gratefully accept. It requires an allowance +to live up to Julia and her furniture! I wish that she had been +reared to simpler tastes, or else that she were not my room-mate. + +This isn't much of a letter; I meant to have written a lot--but I've +been hemming four window curtains and three portieres (I'm glad you +can't see the length of the stitches), and polishing a brass desk +set with tooth powder (very uphill work), and sawing off picture +wire with manicure scissors, and unpacking four boxes of books, +and putting away two trunkfuls of clothes (it doesn't seem believable +that Jerusha Abbott owns two trunks full of clothes, but she does!) +and welcoming back fifty dear friends in between. + +Opening day is a joyous occasion! + +Good night, Daddy dear, and don't be annoyed because your +chick is wanting to scratch for herself. She's growing up +into an awfully energetic little hen--with a very determined +cluck and lots of beautiful feathers (all due to you). + Affectionately, + Judy + + + 30th September +Dear Daddy, + +Are you still harping on that scholarship? I never knew a man +so obstinate, and stubborn and unreasonable, and tenacious, +and bull-doggish, and unable-to-see-other-people's-point-of-view, +as you. + +You prefer that I should not be accepting favours from strangers. + +Strangers!--And what are you, pray? + +Is there anyone in the world that I know less? I shouldn't recognize +you if I met you in the street. Now, you see, if you had been a sane, +sensible person and had written nice, cheering fatherly letters to your +little Judy, and had come occasionally and patted her on the head, +and had said you were glad she was such a good girl--Then, perhaps, +she wouldn't have flouted you in your old age, but would have obeyed +your slightest wish like the dutiful daughter she was meant to be. + +Strangers indeed! You live in a glass house, Mr. Smith. + +And besides, this isn't a favour; it's like a prize--I earned it by +hard work. If nobody had been good enough in English, the committee +wouldn't have awarded the scholarship; some years they don't. Also-- +But what's the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr. Smith, +to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, +there are just two methods: one must either coax or be disagreeable. +I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must be disagreeable. + +I refuse, sir, to give up the scholarship; and if you make any +more fuss, I won't accept the monthly allowance either, but will +wear myself into a nervous wreck tutoring stupid Freshmen. + +That is my ultimatum! + +And listen--I have a further thought. Since you are so afraid that by +taking this scholarship I am depriving someone else of an education, +I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would have spent +for me towards educating some other little girl from the John Grier Home. +Don't you think that's a nice idea? Only, Daddy, EDUCATE the new +girl as much as you choose, but please don't LIKE her any better than me. + +I trust that your secretary won't be hurt because I pay so little +attention to the suggestions offered in his letter, but I can't +help it if he is. He's a spoiled child, Daddy. I've meekly given +in to his whims heretofore, but this time I intend to be FIRM. + +Yours, + With a mind, + Completely and Irrevocably and + World-without-End Made-up, + + Jerusha Abbott + + + + 9th November +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I started down town today to buy a bottle of shoe blacking and some +collars and the material for a new blouse and a jar of violet cream +and a cake of Castile soap--all very necessary; I couldn't be happy +another day without them--and when I tried to pay the car fare, +I found that I had left my purse in the pocket of my other coat. +So I had to get out and take the next car, and was late for gymnasium. + +It's a dreadful thing to have no memory and two coats! + +Julia Pendleton has invited me to visit her for the Christmas holidays. +How does that strike you, Mr. Smith? Fancy Jerusha Abbott, +of the John Grier Home, sitting at the tables of the rich. +I don't know why Julia wants me--she seems to be getting quite +attached to me of late. I should, to tell the truth, very much +prefer going to Sallie's, but Julia asked me first, so if I +go anywhere it must be to New York instead of to Worcester. +I'm rather awed at the prospect of meeting Pendletons EN MASSE, +and also I'd have to get a lot of new clothes--so, Daddy dear, +if you write that you would prefer having me remain quietly at college, +I will bow to your wishes with my usual sweet docility. + +I'm engaged at odd moments with the Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley-- +it makes nice, light reading to pick up between times. Do you know +what an archaeopteryx is? It's a bird. And a stereognathus? +I'm not sure myself, but I think it's a missing link, like a bird +with teeth or a lizard with wings. No, it isn't either; I've just +looked in the book. It's a mesozoic mammal. + +I've elected economics this year--very illuminating subject. +When I finish that I'm going to take Charity and Reform; then, +Mr. Trustee, I'll know just how an orphan asylum ought to be run. +Don't you think I'd make an admirable voter if I had my rights? +I was twenty-one last week. This is an awfully wasteful country to +throw away such an honest, educated, conscientious, intelligent citizen +as I would be. + Yours always, + Judy + + + + 7th December +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Thank you for permission to visit Julia--I take it that silence +means consent. + +Such a social whirl as we've been having! The Founder's dance came +last week--this was the first year that any of us could attend; +only upper classmen being allowed. + +I invited Jimmie McBride, and Sallie invited his room-mate +at Princeton, who visited them last summer at their camp--an awfully +nice man with red hair--and Julia invited a man from New York, +not very exciting, but socially irreproachable. He is connected +with the De la Mater Chichesters. Perhaps that means something +to you? It doesn't illuminate me to any extent. + +However--our guests came Friday afternoon in time for tea in the +senior corridor, and then dashed down to the hotel for dinner. +The hotel was so full that they slept in rows on the billiard tables, +they say. Jimmie McBride says that the next time he is bidden +to a social event in this college, he is going to bring one of their +Adirondack tents and pitch it on the campus. + +At seven-thirty they came back for the President's reception and dance. +Our functions commence early! We had the men's cards all made out +ahead of time, and after every dance, we'd leave them in groups, +under the letter that stood for their names, so that they could be +readily found by their next partners. Jimmie McBride, for example, +would stand patiently under `M' until he was claimed. (At least, +he ought to have stood patiently, but he kept wandering off +and getting mixed with `R's' and `S's' and all sorts of letters.) +I found him a very difficult guest; he was sulky because he had +only three dances with me. He said he was bashful about dancing +with girls he didn't know! + +The next morning we had a glee club concert--and who do you think +wrote the funny new song composed for the occasion? It's the truth. +She did. Oh, I tell you, Daddy, your little foundling is getting +to be quite a prominent person! + +Anyway, our gay two days were great fun, and I think the men enjoyed it. +Some of them were awfully perturbed at first at the prospect of +facing one thousand girls; but they got acclimated very quickly. +Our two Princeton men had a beautiful time--at least they politely +said they had, and they've invited us to their dance next spring. +We've accepted, so please don't object, Daddy dear. + +Julia and Sallie and I all had new dresses. Do you want to hear +about them? Julia's was cream satin and gold embroidery and she +wore purple orchids. It was a DREAM and came from Paris, and cost +a million dollars. + +Sallie's was pale blue trimmed with Persian embroidery, and went +beautifully with red hair. It didn't cost quite a million, +but was just as effective as Julia's. + +Mine was pale pink crepe de chine trimmed with ecru lace and rose satin. +And I carried crimson roses which J. McB. sent (Sallie having told +him what colour to get). And we all had satin slippers and silk +stockings and chiffon scarfs to match. + +You must be deeply impressed by these millinery details. + +One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is +forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point +and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. +Whereas a woman--whether she is interested in babies or microbes +or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or +Plato or bridge--is fundamentally and always interested in clothes. + +It's the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. +(That isn't original. I got it out of one of Shakespeare's plays). + +However, to resume. Do you want me to tell you a secret that I've +lately discovered? And will you promise not to think me vain? +Then listen: + +I'm pretty. + +I am, really. I'd be an awful idiot not to know it with three +looking-glasses in the room. + A Friend + + +PS. This is one of those wicked anonymous letters you read about +in novels. + + 20th December +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I've just a moment, because I must attend two classes, pack a trunk +and a suit-case, and catch the four-o'clock train--but I couldn't +go without sending a word to let you know how much I appreciate +my Christmas box. + +I love the furs and the necklace and the Liberty scarf and the gloves +and handkerchiefs and books and purse--and most of all I love you! +But Daddy, you have no business to spoil me this way. I'm only human-- +and a girl at that. How can I keep my mind sternly fixed on a +studious career, when you deflect me with such worldly frivolities? + +I have strong suspicions now as to which one of the John Grier +Trustees used to give the Christmas tree and the Sunday ice-cream. +He was nameless, but by his works I know him! You deserve to be +happy for all the good things you do. + +Goodbye, and a very merry Christmas. + Yours always, + Judy + + +PS. I am sending a slight token, too. Do you think you would +like her if you knew her? + + + 11th January + +I meant to write to you from the city, Daddy, but New York +is an engrossing place. + +I had an interesting--and illuminating--time, but I'm glad I don't +belong to such a family! I should truly rather have the John Grier +Home for a background. Whatever the drawbacks of my bringing up, +there was at least no pretence about it. I know now what people +mean when they say they are weighed down by Things. The material +atmosphere of that house was crushing; I didn't draw a deep breath +until I was on an express train coming back. All the furniture +was carved and upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met were +beautifully dressed and low-voiced and well-bred, but it's the truth, +Daddy, I never heard one word of real talk from the time we arrived +until we left. I don't think an idea ever entered the front door. + +Mrs. Pendleton never thinks of anything but jewels and dressmakers +and social engagements. She did seem a different kind of mother from +Mrs. McBride! If I ever marry and have a family, I'm going to make them +as exactly like the McBrides as I can. Not for all the money in the +world would I ever let any children of mine develop into Pendletons. +Maybe it isn't polite to criticize people you've been visiting? +If it isn't, please excuse. This is very confidential, between you +and me. + +I only saw Master Jervie once when he called at tea time, +and then I didn't have a chance to speak to him alone. +It was really disappointing after our nice time last summer. +I don't think he cares much for his relatives--and I am sure they +don't care much for him! Julia's mother says he's unbalanced. +He's a Socialist--except, thank Heaven, he doesn't let his hair grow +and wear red ties. She can't imagine where he picked up his queer ideas; +the family have been Church of England for generations. He throws +away his money on every sort of crazy reform, instead of spending it +on such sensible things as yachts and automobiles and polo ponies. +He does buy candy with it though! He sent Julia and me each a box +for Christmas. + +You know, I think I'll be a Socialist, too. You wouldn't mind, +would you, Daddy? They're quite different from Anarchists; +they don't believe in blowing people up. Probably I am one by rights; +I belong to the proletariat. I haven't determined yet just which +kind I am going to be. I will look into the subject over Sunday, +and declare my principles in my next. + +I've seen loads of theatres and hotels and beautiful houses. +My mind is a confused jumble of onyx and gilding and mosaic floors +and palms. I'm still pretty breathless but I am glad to get back +to college and my books--I believe that I really am a student; +this atmosphere of academic calm I find more bracing than New York. +College is a very satisfying sort of life; the books and study +and regular classes keep you alive mentally, and then when your +mind gets tired, you have the gymnasium and outdoor athletics, +and always plenty of congenial friends who are thinking about the +same things you are. We spend a whole evening in nothing but talk-- +talk--talk--and go to bed with a very uplifted feeling, as though we +had settled permanently some pressing world problems. And filling +in every crevice, there is always such a lot of nonsense--just silly +jokes about the little things that come up but very satisfying. +We do appreciate our own witticisms! + +It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making +a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true +secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. +Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; +but to get the most that you can out of this very instant. +It's like farming. You can have extensive farming and intensive +farming; well, I am going to have intensive living after this. +I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to KNOW I'm enjoying +it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. +They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the +heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose +all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; +and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, +and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal +or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot +of little happinesses, even if I never become a Great Author. +Did you ever know such a philosopheress as I am developing into? + Yours ever, + Judy + +PS. It's raining cats and dogs tonight. Two puppies and a kitten +have just landed on the window-sill. + +Dear Comrade, + +Hooray! I'm a Fabian. + +That's a Socialist who's willing to wait. We don't want the social +revolution to come tomorrow morning; it would be too upsetting. +We want it to come very gradually in the distant future, when we +shall all be prepared and able to sustain the shock. + +In the meantime, we must be getting ready, by instituting industrial, +educational and orphan asylum reforms. + Yours, with fraternal love, + Judy +Monday, 3rd hour + + + + 11th February +Dear D.-L.-L., + +Don't be insulted because this is so short. It isn't a letter; +it's just a LINE to say that I'm going to write a letter pretty soon +when examinations are over. It is not only necessary that I pass, +but pass WELL. I have a scholarship to live up to. + Yours, studying hard, + J. A. + + + 5th March +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +President Cuyler made a speech this evening about the modern +generation being flippant and superficial. He says that we are +losing the old ideals of earnest endeavour and true scholarship; +and particularly is this falling-off noticeable in our disrespectful +attitude towards organized authority. We no longer pay a seemly +deference to our superiors. + +I came away from chapel very sober. + +Am I too familiar, Daddy? Ought I to treat you with more dignity +and aloofness?--Yes, I'm sure I ought. I'll begin again. + +My Dear Mr. Smith, + +You will be pleased to hear that I passed successfully my mid-year +examinations, and am now commencing work in the new semester. I am +leaving chemistry--having completed the course in qualitative analysis-- +and am entering upon the study of biology. I approach this subject with +some hesitation, as I understand that we dissect angleworms and frogs. + +An extremely interesting and valuable lecture was given in the +chapel last week upon Roman Remains in Southern France. I have +never listened to a more illuminating exposition of the subject. + +We are reading Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey in connection with our +course in English Literature. What an exquisite work it is, +and how adequately it embodies his conceptions of Pantheism! +The Romantic movement of the early part of the last century, +exemplified in the works of such poets as Shelley, Byron, Keats, +and Wordsworth, appeals to me very much more than the Classical +period that preceded it. Speaking of poetry, have you ever read +that charming little thing of Tennyson's called Locksley Hall? + +I am attending gymnasium very regularly of late. A proctor +system has been devised, and failure to comply with the rules +causes a great deal of inconvenience. The gymnasium is equipped +with a very beautiful swimming tank of cement and marble, the gift +of a former graduate. My room-mate, Miss McBride, has given me +her bathing-suit (it shrank so that she can no longer wear it) +and I am about to begin swimming lessons. + +We had delicious pink ice-cream for dessert last night. +Only vegetable dyes are used in colouring the food. The college +is very much opposed, both from aesthetic and hygienic motives, +to the use of aniline dyes. + +The weather of late has been ideal--bright sunshine and clouds +interspersed with a few welcome snow-storms. I and my companions +have enjoyed our walks to and from classes--particularly from. + +Trusting, my dear Mr. Smith, that this will find you in your usual +good health, + I remain, + Most cordially yours, + Jerusha Abbott + + + 24th April +Dear Daddy, + +Spring has come again! You should see how lovely the campus is. +I think you might come and look at it for yourself. Master Jervie +dropped in again last Friday--but he chose a most unpropitious time, +for Sallie and Julia and I were just running to catch a train. +And where do you think we were going? To Princeton, to attend a dance +and a ball game, if you please! I didn't ask you if I might go, +because I had a feeling that your secretary would say no. But it +was entirely regular; we had leave-of-absence from college, and Mrs. +McBride chaperoned us. We had a charming time--but I shall have to +omit details; they are too many and complicated. + + + Saturday + +Up before dawn! The night watchman called us--six of us--and we +made coffee in a chafing dish (you never saw so many grounds!) +and walked two miles to the top of One Tree Hill to see the sun rise. +We had to scramble up the last slope! The sun almost beat us! +And perhaps you think we didn't bring back appetites to breakfast! + +Dear me, Daddy, I seem to have a very ejaculatory style today; +this page is peppered with exclamations. + +I meant to have written a lot about the budding trees and the new +cinder path in the athletic field, and the awful lesson we have in +biology for tomorrow, and the new canoes on the lake, and Catherine +Prentiss who has pneumonia, and Prexy's Angora kitten that strayed +from home and has been boarding in Fergussen Hall for two weeks +until a chambermaid reported it, and about my three new dresses-- +white and pink and blue polka dots with a hat to match--but I am +too sleepy. I am always making this an excuse, am I not? But a girls' +college is a busy place and we do get tired by the end of the day! +Particularly when the day begins at dawn. + Affectionately, + Judy + + + 15th May +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Is it good manners when you get into a car just to stare straight +ahead and not see anybody else? + +A very beautiful lady in a very beautiful velvet dress got +into the car today, and without the slightest expression sat +for fifteen minutes and looked at a sign advertising suspenders. +It doesn't seem polite to ignore everybody else as though you +were the only important person present. Anyway, you miss a lot. +While she was absorbing that silly sign, I was studying a whole car +full of interesting human beings. + +The accompanying illustration is hereby reproduced for the first time. +It looks like a spider on the end of a string, but it isn't at all; +it's a picture of me learning to swim in the tank in the gymnasium. + +The instructor hooks a rope into a ring in the back of my belt, and runs +it through a pulley in the ceiling. It would be a beautiful system +if one had perfect confidence in the probity of one's instructor. +I'm always afraid, though, that she will let the rope get slack, +so I keep one anxious eye on her and swim with the other, +and with this divided interest I do not make the progress that I +otherwise might. + +Very miscellaneous weather we're having of late. It was raining +when I commenced and now the sun is shining. Sallie and I are going +out to play tennis--thereby gaining exemption from Gym. + + + A week later + +I should have finished this letter long ago, but I didn't. You +don't mind, do you, Daddy, if I'm not very regular? I really +do love to write to you; it gives me such a respectable feeling +of having some family. Would you like me to tell you something? +You are not the only man to whom I write letters. There are +two others! I have been receiving beautiful long letters this +winter from Master Jervie (with typewritten envelopes so Julia won't +recognize the writing). Did you ever hear anything so shocking? +And every week or so a very scrawly epistle, usually on yellow +tablet paper, arrives from Princeton. All of which I answer +with business-like promptness. So you see--I am not so different +from other girls--I get letters, too. + +Did I tell you that I have been elected a member of the Senior +Dramatic Club? Very recherche organization. Only seventy-five +members out of one thousand. Do you think as a consistent Socialist +that I ought to belong? + +What do you suppose is at present engaging my attention in sociology? +I am writing (figurez vous!) a paper on the Care of Dependent Children. +The Professor shuffled up his subjects and dealt them out promiscuously, +and that fell to me. C'est drole ca n'est pas? + +There goes the gong for dinner. I'll post this as I pass the box. + Affectionately, + J. + + + 4th June +Dear Daddy, + +Very busy time--commencement in ten days, examinations tomorrow; +lots of studying, lots of packing, and the outdoor world so lovely +that it hurts you to stay inside. + +But never mind, vacation's coming. Julia is going abroad this summer-- +it makes the fourth time. No doubt about it, Daddy, goods are not +distributed evenly. Sallie, as usual, goes to the Adirondacks. +And what do you think I am going to do? You may have three guesses. +Lock Willow? Wrong. The Adirondacks with Sallie? Wrong. +(I'll never attempt that again; I was discouraged last year.) +Can't you guess anything else? You're not very inventive. +I'll tell you, Daddy, if you'll promise not to make a lot of objections. +I warn your secretary in advance that my mind is made up. + +I am going to spend the summer at the seaside with a Mrs. Charles +Paterson and tutor her daughter who is to enter college in the autumn. +I met her through the McBrides, and she is a very charming woman. +I am to give lessons in English and Latin to the younger daughter, +too, but I shall have a little time to myself, and I shall be earning +fifty dollars a month! Doesn't that impress you as a perfectly +exorbitant amount? She offered it; I should have blushed to ask +for more than twenty-five. + +I finish at Magnolia (that's where she lives) the first of September, +and shall probably spend the remaining three weeks at Lock Willow-- +I should like to see the Semples again and all the friendly animals. + +How does my programme strike you, Daddy? +I am getting quite independent, you see. +You have put me on my feet and I think I can almost walk alone by now. + +Princeton commencement and our examinations exactly coincide-- +which is an awful blow. Sallie and I did so want to get away in time +for it, but of course that is utterly impossible. + +Goodbye, Daddy. Have a nice summer and come back in the autumn +rested and ready for another year of work. (That's what you ought +to be writing to me!) I haven't any idea what you do in the summer, +or how you amuse yourself. I can't visualize your surroundings. +Do you play golf or hunt or ride horseback or just sit in the sun +and meditate? + +Anyway, whatever it is, have a good time and don't forget Judy. + + + 10th June +Dear Daddy, + +This is the hardest letter I ever wrote, but I have decided +what I must do, and there isn't going to be any turning back. +It is very sweet and generous and dear of you to wish to send me +to Europe this summer--for the moment I was intoxicated by the idea; +but sober second thoughts said no. It would be rather illogical of me +to refuse to take your money for college, and then use it instead +just for amusement! You mustn't get me used to too many luxuries. +One doesn't miss what one has never had; but it's awfully hard +going without things after one has commenced thinking they are his-- +hers (English language needs another pronoun) by natural right. +Living with Sallie and Julia is an awful strain on my stoical philosophy. +They have both had things from the time they were babies; +they accept happiness as a matter of course. The World, they think, +owes them everything they want. Maybe the World does--in any case, +it seems to acknowledge the debt and pay up. But as for me, +it owes me nothing, and distinctly told me so in the beginning. +I have no right to borrow on credit, for there will come a time when the +World will repudiate my claim. + +I seem to be floundering in a sea of metaphor--but I hope you +grasp my meaning? Anyway, I have a very strong feeling that the +only honest thing for me to do is to teach this summer and begin +to support myself. + + + + MAGNOLIA, + Four days later + +I'd got just that much written, when--what do you think happened? +The maid arrived with Master Jervie's card. He is going abroad +too this summer; not with Julia and her family, but entirely by +himself I told him that you had invited me to go with a lady who is +chaperoning a party of girls. He knows about you, Daddy. That is, +he knows that my father and mother are dead, and that a kind gentleman +is sending me to college; I simply didn't have the courage to tell +him about the John Grier Home and all the rest. He thinks that you +are my guardian and a perfectly legitimate old family friend. +I have never told him that I didn't know you--that would seem +too queer! + +Anyway, he insisted on my going to Europe. He said that it +was a necessary part of my education and that I mustn't think +of refusing. Also, that he would be in Paris at the same time, +and that we would run away from the chaperon occasionally +and have dinner together at nice, funny, foreign restaurants. + +Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I almost weakened; if he hadn't +been so dictatorial, maybe I should have entirely weakened. +I can be enticed step by step, but I WON'T be forced. He said I +was a silly, foolish, irrational, quixotic, idiotic, stubborn child +(those are a few of his abusive adjectives; the rest escape me), +and that I didn't know what was good for me; I ought to let older +people judge. We almost quarrelled--I am not sure but that we +entirely did! + +In any case, I packed my trunk fast and came up here. I thought +I'd better see my bridges in flames behind me before I finished +writing to you. They are entirely reduced to ashes now. +Here I am at Cliff Top (the name of Mrs. Paterson's cottage) with my +trunk unpacked and Florence (the little one) already struggling +with first declension nouns. And it bids fair to be a struggle! +She is a most uncommonly spoiled child; I shall have to teach +her first how to study--she has never in her life concentrated +on anything more difficult than ice-cream soda water. + +We use a quiet corner of the cliffs for a schoolroom--Mrs. Paterson wishes +me to keep them out of doors--and I will say that I find it difficult +to concentrate with the blue sea before me and ships a-sailing by! +And when I think I might be on one, sailing off to foreign lands-- +but I WON'T let myself think of anything but Latin Grammar. + + +The prepositions a or ab, absque, coram, cum, de e or ex, +prae, pro, sine, tenus, in, subter, sub and super govern the ablative. + + +So you see, Daddy, I am already plunged into work with my eyes +persistently set against temptation. Don't be cross with me, +please, and don't think that I do not appreciate your kindness, +for I do--always--always. The only way I can ever repay you +is by turning out a Very Useful Citizen (Are women citizens? +I don't suppose they are.) Anyway, a Very Useful Person. And when you +look at me you can say, `I gave that Very Useful Person to the world.' + +That sounds well, doesn't it, Daddy? But I don't wish to mislead you. +The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable; +it is fun to plan a career, but in all probability I shan't turn +out a bit different from any other ordinary person. I may end by +marrying an undertaker and being an inspiration to him in his work. + Yours ever, + Judy + + + 19th August +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +My window looks out on the loveliest landscape--ocean-scape, rather-- +nothing but water and rocks. + +The summer goes. I spend the morning with Latin and English +and algebra and my two stupid girls. I don't know how Marion is +ever going to get into college, or stay in after she gets there. +And as for Florence, she is hopeless--but oh! such a little beauty. +I don't suppose it matters in the least whether they are stupid +or not so long as they are pretty? One can't help thinking, though, +how their conversation will bore their husbands, unless they +are fortunate enough to obtain stupid husbands. I suppose that's +quite possible; the world seems to be filled with stupid men; +I've met a number this summer. + +In the afternoon we take a walk on the cliffs, or swim, if the tide +is right. I can swim in salt water with the utmost ease you see +my education is already being put to use! + +A letter comes from Mr. Jervis Pendleton in Paris, rather a short +concise letter; I'm not quite forgiven yet for refusing to follow +his advice. However, if he gets back in time, he will see me +for a few days at Lock Willow before college opens, and if I +am very nice and sweet and docile, I shall (I am led to infer) +be received into favour again. + +Also a letter from Sallie. She wants me to come to their camp +for two weeks in September. Must I ask your permission, or haven't +I yet arrived at the place where I can do as I please? Yes, I am +sure I have--I'm a Senior, you know. Having worked all summer, +I feel like taking a little healthful recreation; I want to see +the Adirondacks; I want to see Sallie; I want to see Sallie's brother-- +he's going to teach me to canoe--and (we come to my chief motive, +which is mean) I want Master Jervie to arrive at Lock Willow and find +me not there. + +I MUST show him that he can't dictate to me. No one can dictate +to me but you, Daddy--and you can't always! I'm off for the woods. + Judy + + + CAMP MCBRIDE, + 6th September + +Dear Daddy, + +Your letter didn't come in time (I am pleased to say). If you +wish your instructions to be obeyed, you must have your secretary +transmit them in less than two weeks. As you observe, I am here, +and have been for five days. + +The woods are fine, and so is the camp, and so is the weather, +and so are the McBrides, and so is the whole world. I'm very happy! + +There's Jimmie calling for me to come canoeing. Goodbye--sorry to +have disobeyed, but why are you so persistent about not wanting +me to play a little? When I've worked all the summer I deserve +two weeks. You are awfully dog-in-the-mangerish. + +However--I love you still, Daddy, in spite of all your faults. + Judy + + + 3rd October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Back at college and a Senior--also editor of the Monthly. +It doesn't seem possible, does it, that so sophisticated a person, +just four years ago, was an inmate of the John Grier Home? +We do arrive fast in America! + +What do you think of this? A note from Master Jervie directed +to Lock Willow and forwarded here. He's sorry, but he finds that +he can't get up there this autumn; he has accepted an invitation +to go yachting with some friends. Hopes I've had a nice summer +and am enjoying the country. + +And he knew all the time that I was with the McBrides, for Julia +told him so! You men ought to leave intrigue to women; you haven't +a light enough touch. + +Julia has a trunkful of the most ravishing new clothes--an evening +gown of rainbow Liberty crepe that would be fitting raiment for the +angels in Paradise. And I thought that my own clothes this year +were unprecedentedly (is there such a word?) beautiful. I copied +Mrs. Paterson's wardrobe with the aid of a cheap dressmaker, +and though the gowns didn't turn out quite twins of the originals, +I was entirely happy until Julia unpacked. But now--I live to see Paris! + +Dear Daddy, aren't you glad you're not a girl? I suppose you think +that the fuss we make over clothes is too absolutely silly? It is. +No doubt about it. But it's entirely your fault. + +Did you ever hear about the learned Herr Professor who regarded +unnecessary adornment with contempt and favoured sensible, +utilitarian clothes for women? His wife, who was an obliging +creature, adopted `dress reform.' And what do you think he did? +He eloped with a chorus girl. + Yours ever, + Judy + + +PS. The chamber-maid in our corridor wears blue checked gingham aprons. +I am going to get her some brown ones instead, and sink the blue +ones in the bottom of the lake. I have a reminiscent chill every +time I look at them. + + + + 17th November +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Such a blight has fallen over my literary career. I don't know +whether to tell you or not, but I would like some sympathy-- +silent sympathy, please; don't re-open the wound by referring to it +in your next letter. + +I've been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all +the summer when I wasn't teaching Latin to my two stupid children. +I just finished it before college opened and sent it to a publisher. +He kept it two months, and I was certain he was going to take it; +but yesterday morning an express parcel came (thirty cents due) +and there it was back again with a letter from the publisher, a very nice, +fatherly letter--but frank! He said he saw from the address that I +was still at college, and if I would accept some advice, he would +suggest that I put all of my energy into my lessons and wait until I +graduated before beginning to write. He enclosed his reader's opinion. +Here it is: + +`Plot highly improbable. Characterization exaggerated. +Conversation unnatural. A good deal of humour but not always +in the best of taste. Tell her to keep on trying, and in time +she may produce a real book.' + +Not on the whole flattering, is it, Daddy? And I thought I was +making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. +I was planning to surprise you by writing a great novel before +I graduated. I collected the material for it while I was at +Julia's last Christmas. But I dare say the editor is right. +Probably two weeks was not enough in which to observe the manners +and customs of a great city. + +I took it walking with me yesterday afternoon, and when I came +to the gas house, I went in and asked the engineer if I might borrow +his furnace. He politely opened the door, and with my own hands +I chucked it in. I felt as though I had cremated my only child! + +I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never +going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your +money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning +with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about +all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. +No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband +and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob +up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. + Affectionately, + Judy + + + + 14th December +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I dreamed the funniest dream last night. I thought I went into +a book store and the clerk brought me a new book named The Life +and Letters of Judy Abbott. I could see it perfectly plainly-- +red cloth binding with a picture of the John Grier Home on the cover, +and my portrait for a frontispiece with, `Very truly yours, Judy Abbott,' +written below. But just as I was turning to the end to read the +inscription on my tombstone, I woke up. It was very annoying! +I almost found out whom I'm going to marry and when I'm going +to die. + +Don't you think it would be interesting if you really could read the story +of your life--written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? +And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that you +would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing +ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, +and foreseeing to the exact hour the time when you would die. +How many people do you suppose would have the courage to read it +then? or how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently +to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live +without hope and without surprises? + +Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about +so often. But imagine how DEADLY monotonous it would be if nothing +unexpected could happen between meals. Mercy! Daddy, there's a blot, +but I'm on the third page and I can't begin a new sheet. + +I'm going on with biology again this year--very interesting subject; +we're studying the alimentary system at present. You should see +how sweet a cross-section of the duodenum of a cat is under +the microscope. + +Also we've arrived at philosophy--interesting but evanescent. I prefer +biology where you can pin the subject under discussion to a board. +There's another! And another! This pen is weeping copiously. +Please excuse its tears. + +Do you believe in free will? I do--unreservedly. I don't agree +at all with the philosophers who think that every action is the +absolutely inevitable and automatic resultant of an aggregation +of remote causes. That's the most immoral doctrine I ever heard-- +nobody would be to blame for anything. If a man believed in fatalism, +he would naturally just sit down and say, `The Lord's will be done,' +and continue to sit until he fell over dead. + +I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish-- +and that is the belief that moves mountains. You watch me become +a great author! I have four chapters of my new book finished +and five more drafted. + +This is a very abstruse letter--does your head ache, Daddy? +I think we'll stop now and make some fudge. I'm sorry I can't +send you a piece; it will be unusually good, for we're going +to make it with real cream and three butter balls. + Yours affectionately, + Judy + + + +PS. We're having fancy dancing in gymnasium class. You can see +by the accompanying picture how much we look like a real ballet. +The one at the end accomplishing a graceful pirouette is me--I mean +I. + + + 26th December +My Dear, Dear, Daddy, + +Haven't you any sense? Don't you KNOW that you mustn't give one girl +seventeen Christmas presents? I'm a Socialist, please remember; +do you wish to turn me into a Plutocrat? + +Think how embarrassing it would be if we should ever quarrel! +I should have to engage a moving-van to return your gifts. + +I am sorry that the necktie I sent was so wobbly; I knit it with my +own hands (as you doubtless discovered from internal evidence). +You will have to wear it on cold days and keep your coat buttoned +up tight. + +Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. I think you're the sweetest +man that ever lived--and the foolishest! + Judy + + +Here's a four-leaf clover from Camp McBride to bring you good luck +for the New Year. + + + 9th January + +Do you wish to do something, Daddy, that will ensure your +eternal salvation? There is a family here who are in awfully +desperate straits. A mother and father and four visible children-- +the two older boys have disappeared into the world to make their +fortune and have not sent any of it back. The father worked in a +glass factory and got consumption--it's awfully unhealthy work-- +and now has been sent away to a hospital. That took all their savings, +and the support of the family falls upon the oldest daughter, +who is twenty-four. She dressmakes for $1.50 a day (when she can +get it) and embroiders centrepieces in the evening. The mother +isn't very strong and is extremely ineffectual and pious. +She sits with her hands folded, a picture of patient resignation, +while the daughter kills herself with overwork and responsibility +and worry; she doesn't see how they are going to get through the +rest of the winter--and I don't either. One hundred dollars would +buy some coal and some shoes for three children so that they could +go to school, and give a little margin so that she needn't worry +herself to death when a few days pass and she doesn't get work. + +You are the richest man I know. Don't you suppose you could spare +one hundred dollars? That girl deserves help a lot more than I +ever did. I wouldn't ask it except for the girl; I don't care +much what happens to the mother--she is such a jelly-fish. + +The way people are for ever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, +`Perhaps it's all for the best,' when they are perfectly dead sure +it's not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever +you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I'm for a more +militant religion! + +We are getting the most dreadful lessons in philosophy--all of +Schopenhauer for tomorrow. The professor doesn't seem to realize +that we are taking any other subject. He's a queer old duck; +he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks dazedly +when occasionally he strikes solid earth. He tries to lighten +his lectures with an occasional witticism--and we do our best +to smile, but I assure you his jokes are no laughing matter. +He spends his entire time between classes in trying to figure +out whether matter really exists or whether he only thinks it exists. + +I'm sure my sewing girl hasn't any doubt but that it exists! + +Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste-basket. I can +see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author +realizes that, what WOULD be the judgment of a critical public? + + + Later + +I address you, Daddy, from a bed of pain. For two days I've +been laid up with swollen tonsils; I can just swallow hot milk, +and that is all. `What were your parents thinking of not to have +those tonsils out when you were a baby?' the doctor wished to know. +I'm sure I haven't an idea, but I doubt if they were thinking much +about me. + Yours, + J. A. + + + Next morning + +I just read this over before sealing it. I don't know WHY I cast +such a misty atmosphere over life. I hasten to assure you that I +am young and happy and exuberant; and I trust you are the same. +Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, +so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy. + Affectionately, + Judy + + + 12th Jan. +Dear Mr. Philanthropist, + +Your cheque for my family came yesterday. Thank you so much! +I cut gymnasium and took it down to them right after luncheon, +and you should have seen the girl's face! She was so surprised +and happy and relieved that she looked almost young; and she's only +twenty-four. Isn't it pitiful? + +Anyway, she feels now as though all the good things were coming together. +She has steady work ahead for two months--someone's getting married, +and there's a trousseau to make. + +`Thank the good Lord!' cried the mother, when she grasped the fact +that that small piece of paper was one hundred dollars. + +`It wasn't the good Lord at all,' said I, `it was Daddy-Long-Legs.' +(Mr. Smith, I called you.) + +`But it was the good Lord who put it in his mind,' said she. + +`Not at all! I put it in his mind myself,' said I. + +But anyway, Daddy, I trust the good Lord will reward you suitably. +You deserve ten thousand years out of purgatory. + Yours most gratefully, + Judy Abbott + + + 15th Feb. +May it please Your Most Excellent Majesty: + +This morning I did eat my breakfast upon a cold turkey pie +and a goose, and I did send for a cup of tee (a china drink) +of which I had never drank before. + +Don't be nervous, Daddy--I haven't lost my mind; I'm merely quoting +Sam'l Pepys. We're reading him in connection with English History, +original sources. Sallie and Julia and I converse now in the language +of 1660. Listen to this: + +`I went to Charing Cross to see Major Harrison hanged, +drawn and quartered: he looking as cheerful as any man could +do in that condition.' And this: `Dined with my lady who is +in handsome mourning for her brother who died yesterday of spotted fever.' + +Seems a little early to commence entertaining, doesn't it? A friend +of Pepys devised a very cunning manner whereby the king might pay +his debts out of the sale to poor people of old decayed provisions. +What do you, a reformer, think of that? I don't believe we're so bad +today as the newspapers make out. + +Samuel was as excited about his clothes as any girl; he spent +five times as much on dress as his wife--that appears to have +been the Golden Age of husbands. Isn't this a touching entry? +You see he really was honest. `Today came home my fine Camlett +cloak with gold buttons, which cost me much money, and I pray God +to make me able to pay for it.' + +Excuse me for being so full of Pepys; I'm writing a special topic +on him. + +What do you think, Daddy? The Self-Government Association has +abolished the ten o'clock rule. We can keep our lights all night +if we choose, the only requirement being that we do not disturb others-- +we are not supposed to entertain on a large scale. The result is a +beautiful commentary on human nature. Now that we may stay up as long +as we choose, we no longer choose. Our heads begin to nod at nine +o'clock, and by nine-thirty the pen drops from our nerveless grasp. +It's nine-thirty now. Good night. + + + Sunday + +Just back from church--preacher from Georgia. We must take care, he says, +not to develop our intellects at the expense of our emotional natures-- +but methought it was a poor, dry sermon (Pepys again). It doesn't +matter what part of the United States or Canada they come from, +or what denomination they are, we always get the same sermon. +Why on earth don't they go to men's colleges and urge the students +not to allow their manly natures to be crushed out by too much +mental application? + +It's a beautiful day--frozen and icy and clear. As soon as dinner +is over, Sallie and Julia and Marty Keene and Eleanor Pratt (friends +of mine, but you don't know them) and I are going to put on short +skirts and walk 'cross country to Crystal Spring Farm and have a fried +chicken and waffle supper, and then have Mr. Crystal Spring drive +us home in his buckboard. We are supposed to be inside the campus +at seven, but we are going to stretch a point tonight and make it eight. + +Farewell, kind Sir. + I have the honour of subscribing myself, + Your most loyall, dutifull, faithfull and obedient + servant, + J. Abbott + + + March Fifth +Dear Mr. Trustee, + +Tomorrow is the first Wednesday in the month--a weary day for the +John Grier Home. How relieved they'll be when five o'clock comes +and you pat them on the head and take yourselves off! Did you +(individually) ever pat me on the head, Daddy? I don't believe so-- +my memory seems to be concerned only with fat Trustees. + +Give the Home my love, please--my TRULY love. I have quite a feeling +of tenderness for it as I look back through a haze of four years. +When I first came to college I felt quite resentful because I'd +been robbed of the normal kind of childhood that the other girls +had had; but now, I don't feel that way in the least. I regard it +as a very unusual adventure. It gives me a sort of vantage point +from which to stand aside and look at life. Emerging full grown, +I get a perspective on the world, that other people who have been +brought up in the thick of things entirely lack. + +I know lots of girls (Julia, for instance) who never know that they +are happy. They are so accustomed to the feeling that their senses +are deadened to it; but as for me--I am perfectly sure every moment +of my life that I am happy. And I'm going to keep on being, +no matter what unpleasant things turn up. I'm going to regard them +(even toothaches) as interesting experiences, and be glad to know what +they feel like. `Whatever sky's above me, I've a heart for any fate.' + +However, Daddy, don't take this new affection for the J.G.H. +too literally. If I have five children, like Rousseau, I shan't +leave them on the steps of a foundling asylum in order to insure +their being brought up simply. + +Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Lippett (that, I think, is truthful; +love would be a little strong) and don't forget to tell her what a +beautiful nature I've developed. + Affectionately, + Judy + + + LOCK WILLOW, + 4th April +Dear Daddy, + +Do you observe the postmark? Sallie and I are embellishing +Lock Willow with our presence during the Easter Vacation. +We decided that the best thing we could do with our ten days +was to come where it is quiet. Our nerves had got to the point +where they wouldn't stand another meal in Fergussen. Dining in +a room with four hundred girls is an ordeal when you are tired. +There is so much noise that you can't hear the girls across the table +speak unless they make their hands into a megaphone and shout. +That is the truth. + +We are tramping over the hills and reading and writing, and having +a nice, restful time. We climbed to the top of `Sky Hill' +this morning where Master Jervie and I once cooked supper-- +it doesn't seem possible that it was nearly two years ago. I could +still see the place where the smoke of our fire blackened the rock. +It is funny how certain places get connected with certain people, +and you never go back without thinking of them. I was quite lonely +without him--for two minutes. + +What do you think is my latest activity, Daddy? You will begin +to believe that I am incorrigible--I am writing a book. I started it +three weeks ago and am eating it up in chunks. I've caught the secret. +Master Jervie and that editor man were right; you are most convincing +when you write about the things you know. And this time it is about +something that I do know--exhaustively. Guess where it's laid? +In the John Grier Home! And it's good, Daddy, I actually believe +it is--just about the tiny little things that happened every day. +I'm a realist now. I've abandoned romanticism; I shall go back to it +later though, when my own adventurous future begins. + +This new book is going to get itself finished--and published! +You see if it doesn't. If you just want a thing hard enough and keep +on trying, you do get it in the end. I've been trying for four years +to get a letter from you--and I haven't given up hope yet. + +Goodbye, Daddy dear, + +(I like to call you Daddy dear; it's so alliterative.) + Affectionately, + Judy + + +PS. I forgot to tell you the farm news, but it's very distressing. +Skip this postscript if you don't want your sensibilities all +wrought up. + +Poor old Grove is dead. He got so that he couldn't chew and they +had to shoot him. + +Nine chickens were killed by a weasel or a skunk or a rat last week. + +One of the cows is sick, and we had to have the veterinary surgeon +out from Bonnyrigg Four Corners. Amasai stayed up all night to +give her linseed oil and whisky. But we have an awful suspicion +that the poor sick cow got nothing but linseed oil. + +Sentimental Tommy (the tortoise-shell cat) has disappeared; +we are afraid he has been caught in a trap. + +There are lots of troubles in the world! + + + 17th May +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +This is going to be extremely short because my shoulder aches at the +sight of a pen. Lecture notes all day, immortal novel all evening, +make too much writing. + +Commencement three weeks from next Wednesday. I think you might come +and make my acquaintance--I shall hate you if you don't! Julia's +inviting Master Jervie, he being her family, and Sallie's inviting +Jimmie McB., he being her family, but who is there for me to invite? +Just you and Lippett, and I don't want her. Please come. + +Yours, with love and writer's cramp. + Judy + + + LOCK WILLOW, + 19th June +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +I'm educated! My diploma is in the bottom bureau drawer with my +two best dresses. Commencement was as usual, with a few showers +at vital moments. Thank you for your rosebuds. They were lovely. +Master Jervie and Master Jimmie both gave me roses, too, but I left +theirs in the bath tub and carried yours in the class procession. + +Here I am at Lock Willow for the summer--for ever maybe. The board +is cheap; the surroundings quiet and conducive to a literary life. +What more does a struggling author wish? I am mad about my book. +I think of it every waking moment, and dream of it at night. All I +want is peace and quiet and lots of time to work (interspersed with +nourishing meals). + +Master Jervie is coming up for a week or so in August, and Jimmie +McBride is going to drop in sometime through the summer. +He's connected with a bond house now, and goes about the country +selling bonds to banks. He's going to combine the `Farmers' National' +at the Corners and me on the same trip. + +You see that Lock Willow isn't entirely lacking in society. +I'd be expecting to have you come motoring through--only I know now +that that is hopeless. When you wouldn't come to my commencement, +I tore you from my heart and buried you for ever. + Judy Abbott, A.B. + + + 24th July +Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Isn't it fun to work--or don't you ever do it? It's especially +fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than +anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen +would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life +is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful +and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking. + +I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin +the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest +book you ever saw--it is, truly. I think of nothing else. +I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; +then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm +limp all over. Then I go out with Colin (the new sheep dog) and romp +through the fields and get a fresh supply of ideas for the next day. +It's the most beautiful book you ever saw--Oh, pardon--I said +that before. + +You don't think me conceited, do you, Daddy dear? + +I'm not, really, only just now I'm in the enthusiastic stage. +Maybe later on I'll get cold and critical and sniffy. No, I'm sure +I won't! This time I've written a real book. Just wait till you +see it. + +I'll try for a minute to talk about something else. I never told you, +did I, that Amasai and Carrie got married last May? They are still +working here, but so far as I can see it has spoiled them both. +She used to laugh when he tramped in mud or dropped ashes on the floor, +but now--you should hear her scold! And she doesn't curl her hair +any longer. Amasai, who used to be so obliging about beating +rugs and carrying wood, grumbles if you suggest such a thing. +Also his neckties are quite dingy--black and brown, where they +used to be scarlet and purple. I've determined never to marry. +It's a deteriorating process, evidently. + +There isn't much of any farm news. The animals are all in the best +of health. The pigs are unusually fat, the cows seem contented +and the hens are laying well. Are you interested in poultry? +If so, let me recommend that invaluable little work, 200 Eggs per +Hen per Year. I am thinking of starting an incubator next spring +and raising broilers. You see I'm settled at Lock Willow permanently. +I have decided to stay until I've written 114 novels like Anthony +Trollope's mother. Then I shall have completed my life work and can +retire and travel. + +Mr. James McBride spent last Sunday with us. Fried chicken and ice-cream +for dinner, both of which he appeared to appreciate. I was awfully +glad to see him; he brought a momentary reminder that the world at +large exists. Poor Jimmie is having a hard time peddling his bonds. +The `Farmers' National' at the Corners wouldn't have anything +to do with them in spite of the fact that they pay six per cent. +interest and sometimes seven. I think he'll end up by going home +to Worcester and taking a job in his father's factory. He's too open +and confiding and kind-hearted ever to make a successful financier. +But to be the manager of a flourishing overall factory is a very +desirable position, don't you think? Just now he turns up his nose +at overalls, but he'll come to them. + +I hope you appreciate the fact that this is a long letter from +a person with writer's cramp. But I still love you, Daddy dear, +and I'm very happy. With beautiful scenery all about, and lots +to eat and a comfortable four-post bed and a ream of blank paper +and a pint of ink--what more does one want in the world? + Yours as always, + Judy + +PS. The postman arrives with some more news. We are to expect +Master Jervie on Friday next to spend a week. That's a very +pleasant prospect--only I am afraid my poor book will suffer. +Master Jervie is very demanding. + + + 27th August +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Where are you, I wonder? + +I never know what part of the world you are in, but I hope you're +not in New York during this awful weather. I hope you're on a +mountain peak (but not in Switzerland; somewhere nearer) looking at +the snow and thinking about me. Please be thinking about me. +I'm quite lonely and I want to be thought about. Oh, Daddy, I wish +I knew you! Then when we were unhappy we could cheer each other up. + +I don't think I can stand much more of Lock Willow. I'm thinking +of moving. Sallie is going to do settlement work in Boston +next winter. Don't you think it would be nice for me to go with her, +then we could have a studio together? I would write while she +SETTLED and we could be together in the evenings. Evenings are +very long when there's no one but the Semples and Carrie and Amasai +to talk to. I know in advance that you won't like my studio idea. +I can read your secretary's letter now: + + +`Miss Jerusha Abbott. + `DEAR MADAM, + +`Mr. Smith prefers that you remain at Lock Willow. + `Yours truly, + `ELMER H. GRIGGS.' + + +I hate your secretary. I am certain that a man named Elmer H. +Griggs must be horrid. But truly, Daddy, I think I shall have to go +to Boston. I can't stay here. If something doesn't happen soon, +I shall throw myself into the silo pit out of sheer desperation. + +Mercy! but it's hot. All the grass is burnt up and the brooks are +dry and the roads are dusty. It hasn't rained for weeks and weeks. + +This letter sounds as though I had hydrophobia, but I haven't. I +just want some family. + +Goodbye, my dearest Daddy. + I wish I knew you. + Judy + + + LOCK WILLOW, + 19th September +Dear Daddy, + +Something has happened and I need advice. I need it from you, +and from nobody else in the world. Wouldn't it be possible for me +to see you? It's so much easier to talk than to write; and I'm +afraid your secretary might open the letter. + Judy + +PS. I'm very unhappy. + + + LOCK WILLOW, + 3rd October +Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Your note written in your own hand--and a pretty wobbly hand!-- +came this morning. I am so sorry that you have been ill; I wouldn't +have bothered you with my affairs if I had known. Yes, I will tell you +the trouble, but it's sort of complicated to write, and VERY PRIVATE. +Please don't keep this letter, but burn it. + +Before I begin--here's a cheque for one thousand dollars. +It seems funny, doesn't it, for me to be sending a cheque to you? +Where do you think I got it? + +I've sold my story, Daddy. It's going to be published serially +in seven parts, and then in a book! You might think I'd be wild +with joy, but I'm not. I'm entirely apathetic. Of course I'm glad +to begin paying you--I owe you over two thousand more. It's coming +in instalments. Now don't be horrid, please, about taking it, +because it makes me happy to return it. I owe you a great deal +more than the mere money, and the rest I will continue to pay all +my life in gratitude and affection. + +And now, Daddy, about the other thing; please give me your most +worldly advice, whether you think I'll like it or not. + +You know that I've always had a very special feeling towards you; +you sort of represented my whole family; but you won't mind, will you, +if I tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for +another man? You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. +I suspect that my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a +very long time. + +I wish I could make you understand what he is like and how entirely +companionable we are. We think the same about everything-- +I am afraid I have a tendency to make over my ideas to match his! +But he is almost always right; he ought to be, you know, +for he has fourteen years' start of me. In other ways, though, +he's just an overgrown boy, and he does need looking after-- +he hasn't any sense about wearing rubbers when it rains. He and I +always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; +it's dreadful when two people's senses of humour are antagonistic. +I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf! + +And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, +and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the +moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me. +But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, +I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain. + +Anyway, that's the way I feel--and I've refused to marry him. + +I didn't tell him why; I was just dumb and miserable. I couldn't +think of anything to say. And now he has gone away imagining +that I want to marry Jimmie McBride--I don't in the least, +I wouldn't think of marrying Jimmie; he isn't grown up enough. +But Master Jervie and I got into a dreadful muddle of misunderstanding +and we both hurt each other's feelings. The reason I sent him +away was not because I didn't care for him, but because I cared +for him so much. I was afraid he would regret it in the future-- +and I couldn't stand that! It didn't seem right for a person +of my lack of antecedents to marry into any such family as his. +I never told him about the orphan asylum, and I hated to explain +that I didn't know who I was. I may be DREADFUL, you know. +And his family are proud--and I'm proud, too! + +Also, I felt sort of bound to you. After having been educated +to be a writer, I must at least try to be one; it would scarcely +be fair to accept your education and then go off and not use it. +But now that I am going to be able to pay back the money, I feel +that I have partially discharged that debt--besides, I suppose I could +keep on being a writer even if I did marry. The two professions +are not necessarily exclusive. + +I've been thinking very hard about it. Of course he is a Socialist, +and he has unconventional ideas; maybe he wouldn't mind marrying into +the proletariat so much as some men might. Perhaps when two people are +exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when apart, +they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them. +Of course I WANT to believe that! But I'd like to get your +unemotional opinion. You probably belong to a Family also, and will +look at it from a worldly point of view and not just a sympathetic, +human point of view--so you see how brave I am to lay it before you. + +Suppose I go to him and explain that the trouble isn't Jimmie, +but is the John Grier Home--would that be a dreadful thing for me +to do? It would take a great deal of courage. I'd almost rather +be miserable for the rest of my life. + +This happened nearly two months ago; I haven't heard a word from him +since he was here. I was just getting sort of acclimated to the +feeling of a broken heart, when a letter came from Julia that stirred +me all up again. She said--very casually--that `Uncle Jervis' +had been caught out all night in a storm when he was hunting in Canada, +and had been ill ever since with pneumonia. And I never knew it. +I was feeling hurt because he had just disappeared into blankness +without a word. I think he's pretty unhappy, and I know I am! + +What seems to you the right thing for me to do? + Judy + + + 6th October +Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, + +Yes, certainly I'll come--at half-past four next Wednesday afternoon. +Of COURSE I can find the way. I've been in New York three times and am +not quite a baby. I can't believe that I am really going to see you-- +I've been just THINKING you so long that it hardly seems as though +you are a tangible flesh-and-blood person. + +You are awfully good, Daddy, to bother yourself with me, when you're +not strong. Take care and don't catch cold. These fall rains +are very damp. + Affectionately, + Judy + + +PS. I've just had an awful thought. Have you a butler? I'm afraid +of butlers, and if one opens the door I shall faint upon the step. +What can I say to him? You didn't tell me your name. Shall I ask +for Mr. Smith? + + + Thursday Morning +My Very Dearest Master-Jervie-Daddy-Long-Legs Pendleton-Smith, + +Did you sleep last night? I didn't. Not a single wink. I was +too amazed and excited and bewildered and happy. I don't believe +I ever shall sleep again--or eat either. But I hope you slept; +you must, you know, because then you will get well faster and can +come to me. + +Dear Man, I can't bear to think how ill you've been--and all the +time I never knew it. When the doctor came down yesterday to put +me in the cab, he told me that for three days they gave you up. +Oh, dearest, if that had happened, the light would have gone out +of the world for me. I suppose that some day in the far future-- +one of us must leave the other; but at least we shall have had +our happiness and there will be memories to live with. + +I meant to cheer you up--and instead I have to cheer myself. +For in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, +I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen rests like +a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and +care-free and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. +But now--I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. +Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles +that can run over you, or the sign-boards that can fall on your head, +or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. My peace +of mind is gone for ever--but anyway, I never cared much for just +plain peace. + +Please get well--fast--fast--fast. I want to have you close +by where I can touch you and make sure you are tangible. Such a +little half hour we had together! I'm afraid maybe I dreamed it. +If I were only a member of your family (a very distant fourth cousin) +then I could come and visit you every day, and read aloud and plump up +your pillow and smooth out those two little wrinkles in your forehead +and make the corners of your mouth turn up in a nice cheerful smile. +But you are cheerful again, aren't you? You were yesterday before +I left. The doctor said I must be a good nurse, that you looked +ten years younger. I hope that being in love doesn't make every +one ten years younger. Will you still care for me, darling, if I +turn out to be only eleven? + +Yesterday was the most wonderful day that could ever happen. +If I live to be ninety-nine I shall never forget the tiniest detail. +The girl that left Lock Willow at dawn was a very different person from +the one who came back at night. Mrs. Semple called me at half-past four. +I started wide awake in the darkness and the first thought that +popped into my head was, `I am going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!' I ate +breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five +miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. +The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed +crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled +with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. +I knew something was going to happen. All the way in the train +the rails kept singing, `You're going to see Daddy-Long-Legs.' +It made me feel secure. I had such faith in Daddy's ability to set +things right. And I knew that somewhere another man--dearer than Daddy-- +was wanting to see me, and somehow I had a feeling that before the +journey ended I should meet him, too. And you see! + +When I came to the house on Madison Avenue it looked so big and brown +and forbidding that I didn't dare go in, so I walked around the +block to get up my courage. But I needn't have been a bit afraid; +your butler is such a nice, fatherly old man that he made me +feel at home at once. `Is this Miss Abbott?' he said to me, +and I said, `Yes,' so I didn't have to ask for Mr. Smith after all. +He told me to wait in the drawing-room. It was a very sombre, +magnificent, man's sort of room. I sat down on the edge of a big +upholstered chair and kept saying to myself: + +`I'm going to see Daddy-Long-Legs! I'm going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!' + + +Then presently the man came back and asked me please to step up +to the library. I was so excited that really and truly my feet +would hardly take me up. Outside the door he turned and whispered, +`He's been very ill, Miss. This is the first day he's been +allowed to sit up. You'll not stay long enough to excite him?' +I knew from the way he said it that he loved you--an I think he's +an old dear! + +Then he knocked and said, `Miss Abbott,' and I went in and the door +closed behind me. + +It was so dim coming in from the brightly lighted hall that for a +moment I could scarcely make out anything; then I saw a big easy +chair before the fire and a shining tea table with a smaller chair +beside it. And I realized that a man was sitting in the big chair +propped up by pillows with a rug over his knees. Before I could +stop him he rose--rather shakily--and steadied himself by the back +of the chair and just looked at me without a word. And then-- +and then--I saw it was you! But even with that I didn't understand. +I thought Daddy had had you come there to meet me or a surprise. + +Then you laughed and held out your hand and said, `Dear little Judy, +couldn't you guess that I was Daddy-Long-Legs?' + +In an instant it flashed over me. Oh, but I have been stupid! +A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits. +I wouldn't make a very good detective, would I, Daddy? Jervie? +What must I call you? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, and I +can't be disrespectful to you! + +It was a very sweet half hour before your doctor came and sent me away. +I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a train +for St Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give +me any tea. But we're both very, very happy, aren't we? I drove +back to Lock Willow in the dark but oh, how the stars were shining! +And this morning I've been out with Colin visiting all the places +that you and I went to together, and remembering what you said and +how you looked. The woods today are burnished bronze and the air +is full of frost. It's CLIMBING weather. I wish you were here to +climb the hills with me. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie dear, +but it's a happy kind of missing; we'll be together soon. We belong +to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn't it +seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, +very sweet. + +And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant. + + Yours, for ever and ever, + Judy + + +PS. This is the first love-letter I ever wrote. Isn't it funny +that I know how? + + + +The end of Project Gutenberg etext of "Daddy-Long-Legs" + + diff --git a/old/dlleg10.zip b/old/dlleg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bd5d51 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dlleg10.zip |