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“Blue Wednesday”
· · ·
The Letters:
Freshman Year
Sophomore Year
Junior Year
Senior Year
Afterward
· · · · ·
Publisher’s Advertising
Alternative Cover
![Judy in gingham, carrying a tea tray](images/plateI.jpg)
JUDY.
BY
JEAN WEBSTER
AUTHOR OF
WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE AUTHOR
AND SCENES FROM THE PLAY
![long-legged man with short-legged dog](images/pic_titlepage.png)
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1912, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1912,
by
The Curtis Publishing Company
Published October, 1912
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
3
“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,
4
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 toward 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
5
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
6
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 did n’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
7
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
8
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 “sassed” 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-cochère. Jerusha caught only a fleeting impression
of the man—and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. He
was waving his arm toward 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
9
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 toward the asylum’s support. I am
10
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 toward 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
11
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
12
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 favor. She also read aloud an
13
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 humor. 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
14
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 does n’t
15
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
16
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
17
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.
19
THE LETTERS
OF MISS JERUSHA ABBOTT
to
MR. DADDY-LONG-LEGS SMITH
21
215 Fergussen Hall,
September 24th.
Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,
Here I am! I traveled yesterday for four hours in a train.
It ’s a funny sensation is n’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
22
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 toward 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 could n’t you have picked out a name with
a little personality? I might as well write letters to Dear
Hitching-Post or Dear Clothes-Pole.
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
23
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
sort of 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.
24
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.
25
October 1st.
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 is n’t a girl and who
can’t come here; I am sure the college you attended when you were a
boy could n’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,
26
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 has n’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 did n’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 northwest 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?
27
Tuesday.
They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there ’s
just a chance that I shall make 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 make the team?
Yours always,
Jerusha Abbott.
28
P. S. (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 asylumsick, did you?
29
October 10th.
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, does n’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
30
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
31
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 nickel 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
32
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.
P. S. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy?
It does dreadful things to your liver.
33
Wednesday.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I ’ve changed my name.
I ’m still “Jerusha” in the catalogue, but I ’m “Judy”
every place else. It ’s sort of too bad, is n’t it, to
have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had?
I did n’t quite make up the Judy though. That ’s what
Freddie Perkins used to call me before he could talk plain.
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. Would n’t it be
nice to be like that? Whatever
34
faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by
my family! But it ’s sort of 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. Good-by.)
![Judy with a laughing group of orphans, showing one of her drawings](images/plateII.jpg)
JUDY AND THE ORPHANS AT JOHN GRIER HOME.
35
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 does n’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.
![ANY ORPHAN / Rear Elevation / Front Elevation ANY ORPHAN / Rear Elevation / Front Elevation](images/pic35.png)
The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit, was developed at an
early age through
36
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 on your checks. That
is n’t a very polite thing to say—but you can’t expect me
to have any manners; a foundling asylum is n’t a young
ladies’ finishing school.
You know, Daddy, it is n’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”
37
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.
(Née Jerusha.)
38
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 mail 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 had n’t grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone
up after service and told him what I thought.
39
October 25th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I ’ve made 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
did n’t make it. 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, did n’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.
40
Please excuse my exuberance; I ’ll settle pretty soon. If my
letters bore you, you can always toss them into the waste-basket.
I promise not to write another till the middle of November.
Yours most loquaciously,
Judy Abbott.
![Judy at Basket Ball Judy at Basket Ball](images/pic40.png)
41
November 15th.
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 does n’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
42
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-colored
challis, and a gray street suit, and an every-day dress for classes.
That would n’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
43
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
44
and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses.
I have the honor of being,
Your special correspondent from the front
J. Abbott.
P. S. 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.
45
December 19th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
You never answered my question and it was very important.
ARE YOU BALD?
![tall thin man](images/pic45.png)
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 gray hair or maybe none at all.
Here is your portrait:
But the problem is, shall I add some hair?
Would you like to
46
know what color your eyes are? They ’re gray, 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 would n’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
47
“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 did n’t know that Henry the Eighth was
married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I did n’t
know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a
beautiful myth. I did n’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
48
student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book
is n’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 was n’t brought up on “Little
Women.” I have n’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 honor to report fresh explorations in the field of
geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in
parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated
49
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 cluttered 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!
Good-by, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as I am.
Yours ever,
Judy.
P. S. Don’t forget to answer my question. If you don’t want the trouble
of
50
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.
Good-by till January—and a merry Christmas!
51
Toward 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-corn.
It ’s late afternoon—the sun is just setting (a cold
yellow color) 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
52
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 on 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
53
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
was n’t perfect, did n’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 Isobel gave me the silk stockings,
and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little
54
Harry is named for 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, is n’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
neighborhood, dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and
carrying shinny sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into
town—four
55
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 did n’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
56
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’ parlor 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.
57
So you see, Daddy, my education progresses!
![procession of girls](images/pic57.png)
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.
Good-by, and thank you for thinking of me—I should be perfectly
happy except
58
for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations come in
February.
Yours with love,
Judy.
P. S. Maybe it is n’t proper to send love? If it is n’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
59
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
could n’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 did n’t have the courage to say I did n’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.
60
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 to-night,
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 humor 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 honor for a Freshman. My English
61
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
62
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 humor? I flunked 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”—was n’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.
63
Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to flunk again?
Yours in sackcloth,
Judy.
![NEWS of the MONTH / Judy learns to skate / And to vault a bar (Legs are very difficult.) / Also to slide down a rope / She receives two flunk notes and sheds many tears / But promises to study HARD NEWS of the MONTH / Judy learns to skate / And to vault a bar (Legs are very difficult.) / Also to slide down a rope / She receives two flunk notes and sheds many tears / But promises to study HARD](images/pic63.png)
64
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because
I ’m sort of lonely to-night. It ’s awfully stormy; the
snow is beating against my tower. 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 to-night—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 to-night.
65
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.
66
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 reëxamination 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. To-night I
have a pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute.
Yours—in evident haste,
J. A.
67
March 26th.
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 have n’t a
doubt but that you throw my letters into the waste-basket without
reading them. Hereafter I shall write only about work.
My reëxaminations in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed them
both and am now free from conditions.
Yours truly,
Jerusha Abbott.
68
April 2d.
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 did n’t know it, but I was just coming down with
tonsilitis 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.
69
![Judy with her head in a bandage](images/pic69.png)
Does n’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 sort of 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.
70
The Infirmary.
April 4th.
Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,
Yesterday evening just toward 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,
71
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.
Good-by—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 forever,
Judy.
72
8th hour, Monday.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I hope you are n’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, juiciest toads got into
73
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 favorite book? Just now, I mean; I change
every three days. “Wuthering Heights.” Emily Bronté was quite young when
she wrote it,
74
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 could n’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)
75
the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by a centipede like
this:
![centipede](images/pic75.png)
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.
76
Friday, 9.30 P.
M.
Such a lot of troubles! I did n’t hear the rising bell this
morning, then I broke my shoe-string 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. Nothing
but bills in my mail (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.
77
Brazil? He twirled a button
Without a glance my way:
But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?
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 did n’t end the day. There ’s worse to
come.
It rained so we could n’t play golf, but
78
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
could n’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 flavored 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
is n’t the big troubles
79
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.
80
May 27th.
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.
81
Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes,
Vous etes un brick!
Je suis tres heureuse about the farm, parsque je n’ai
jamais been on a farm dans ma vie and I ’d hate
to retourner chez John Grier, et wash dishes tout
l’été. There would be danger of quelque chose affreuse
happening, parsque j’ai perdue ma humilité 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 brièveté et paper. Je ne peux pas send
des mes nouvelles parseque 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.
82
May 30th.
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 care-free, for vacation ’s coming, and
with that to look forward to, examinations don’t count.
Is n’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 nurse-maid or typewriter or
bookkeeper (I should have been, you know, except for you).
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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. Is n’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
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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 onto the Board by chance. The Trustee, as such, is fat and
pompous and
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benevolent. He pats one on the head and wears a gold watch chain.
![a fat Trustee](images/pic85.png)
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
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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
does n’t know him very intimately. It seems he glanced at her
when she was a baby, decided he did n’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 could n’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
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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 have n’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 did n’t like to have his nieces drink too much tea; it
made them nervous. So we just ran away and had tea
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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 take tea some day and let me see if I
like you. But
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would n’t it be dreadful if I did n’t? However, I know I
should.
Bien! I make you my compliments.
“Jamais je ne t’oublierai.”
Judy.
P. S. 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?
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June 9th.
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 is n’t after me with
her arm stretched out to grab me back.
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I don’t have to mind any one this summer, do I?
Your nominal authority does n’t annoy me in the least; you are
too far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead forever, so far as I
am concerned, and the Semples are n’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.
P. S. Here is my physiology exam. Do you think you could have
passed?
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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:
![the farm house](images/pic92.png)
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
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really does n’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.
![hilly landscape](images/pic93.png)
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
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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
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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.
P. S. 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.
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Lock Willow,
July 12th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That
is n’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 ’s 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
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Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole family is Master Jervie—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
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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 take care of cream
raised in pans, but it ’s enough 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.
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![long-legged calf](images/pic99.png)
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I have n’t had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm
keeps me too busy.
Yours always,
Judy.
P. S. I ’ve learned to make doughnuts.
P. S. (2) If you are thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend
Buff Orpingtons. They have n’t any pin feathers.
P. S. (3) I wish I could send you a pat of the nice, fresh butter I
churned yesterday. I ’m a fine dairy-maid!
P. S. (4) This is a picture of Miss Jerusha Abbott, the future great
author, driving home the cows.
![Buttercup Daisy Birdie Bess Spotty (I can’t draw cows!) Buttercup Daisy Birdie Bess Spotty (I can’t draw cows!)](images/pic100.png)
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Sunday.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Is n’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 to-day, what do you think I found sitting in the middle of the
page? A real true Daddy-Long-Legs!
![daddy-long-legs spider](images/pic101.png)
I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out of the
window.
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I would n’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 Center
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 did n’t wake up till I found myself on
my feet singing the hymn, and then I was awfully sorry I had n’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.
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I find that it is n’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 any 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 humor.
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
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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
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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 to-morrow; 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!
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That is the truth I am telling. Did you ever hear anything so
scandalous?
Sir,
I remain,
Your affectionate orphan,
Judy Abbott.
P. S. 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. Are n’t Judy and Jervie having fun?
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September 15th.
Dear Daddy,
I was weighed yesterday on the flour scales in the general store at
the Corners. I ’ve gained nine pounds! Let me recommend Lock
Willow as a health resort.
Yours ever,
Judy.
![Judy thin and fat](images/pic107.png)
108
September 25th.
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 in 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
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McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. It ’s the truth. We have a
study and three little bedrooms—voila!
![floor plan](images/pic109.png)
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!
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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
did n’t dare, because I was afraid that unless I reëlected
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
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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.
Good-by, 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.
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October 17th.
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. Would n’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
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that they ’re square; but I think they ’d have to be
shaped like a piece of pie. Don’t you?
2d. 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 Forever,” 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
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strain to be living in the same house with a president.
Bonne nuit, cher Daddy.
Acceptez mes compliments,
Très respectueux.
Je suis,
Votre Judy.
![McBRIDE FOREVER McBRIDE FOREVER](images/pic114.png)
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November 12th.
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. Was n’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.
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I ’m to be in the Thanksgiving theatricals. A prince in a tower
with a velvet tunic and yellow curls. Is n’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.
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“Stone Gate,”
Worcester, Mass.,
December 31st.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas
check, 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 did n’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
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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 fireplaces 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
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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
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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
does n’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 could n’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.
P. S. Would you be terribly displeased, Daddy, if I did n’t turn
out to be a Great Author after all, but just a Plain Girl?
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6.30, Saturday.
Dear Daddy,
We started to walk to town to-day, 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 over a train
in order to take tea in the study. And an awful lot of trouble we had
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.
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(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,
gray one there
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this summer, the twenty-fifth great-grandson of the one Master Jervie
caught when he was a little boy.
I called him “Master Jervie” to his face, but he did n’t
appear to be insulted. Julia says that she has never seen him so
amiable; he ’s usually pretty unapproachable. But Julia
has n’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 is n’t a very elegant metaphor. I mean it
figuratively.)
We ’re reading Marie Bashkirtseff’s journal. Is n’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.
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Mercy! how it keeps pouring. We shall have to swim to chapel
to-night.
Yours ever,
Judy.
![pouring rain on umbrellas](images/pic124a.png)
![pouring rain on umbrellas](images/pic124b.png)
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Jan. 20th.
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 dénouement,
would n’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 are n’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
have n’t as yet had much chance to develop it.
Do you know about that one scandalous
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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, would n’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,
would n’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.
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I ’m sorry because I meant to write you a very
entertaining letter this time.
Auf wiedersehen
Cher Daddy
Pax tibi!
Judy.
P. S. There ’s one thing I ’m perfectly sure of.
I ’m not a Chinaman.
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February 4th.
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
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very bewildering matter to get educated in five branches at once.
![It’s the early bird that catches the tub. It’s the early bird that catches the tub.](images/pic129.png)
“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 on the
whole.”
You can see with what nicety we have to
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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, ought n’t I?
Examinations next week, but who ’s afraid?
Yours ever,
Judy.
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March 5th.
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
clamor! 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
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us went in ankle deep. We kept losing the trail, and 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 did n’t go through; we circumnavigated the barn and
picked up the trail where it issued by way of a low shed roof onto 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
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milk and honey and biscuits. They had n’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 clamored for honey.
There was n’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 did n’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
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to flunk again. I shan’t be able to graduate with honors 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
have n’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
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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.
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March 24th
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 would n’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 a Sophomore!
The contestants are mostly Seniors. When I saw my name posted,
I could n’t quite believe it was true. Maybe I am going to
be an author after all. I wish Mrs. Lippett had n’t given me
such a silly name—it sounds like an author-ess, does n’t
it?
Also I have been chosen for the spring
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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 theater 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 theater; except
once when the Catholic Church had a festival and invited the orphans,
but that was n’t a real play and it does n’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.
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Good-by, Daddy.
This is a very entertaining world.
Yours ever,
Judy.
P. S. I ’ve just looked at the calendar. It ’s the
28th.
Another postscript.
I saw a street car conductor to-day with one brown eye and one blue.
Would n’t he make a nice villain for a detective story?
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April 7th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Mercy! Is n’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 are n’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
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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
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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 theater—it was dazzling,
marvelous, unbelievable—I dream about it every night.
Is n’t Shakespeare wonderful?
“Hamlet” is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in
class; I appreciated it before, but now, dear me!
I think, if you don’t mind, that I ’d rather be an actress
than a writer. Would n’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.
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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 did n’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 did n’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
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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. Was n’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.
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April 10th.
Dear Mr. Rich-Man,
Here ’s your check 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 was n’t begging! And I would rather not accept any
more charity than I have to.
Sincerely yours,
Jerusha Abbott.
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April 11th.
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 would n’t give it 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 check. I know you meant it kindly, and I think you ’re
an old dear to take so much trouble
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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 must n’t
mortgage the future to pay for them.
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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
the mail chute and get 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.
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May 4th.
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
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umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patricia, really. Did you ever hear such a
name? Mrs. Lippett could n’t have done better.) who is tall and
thin was Julia’s wife in an 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’s pardon; I don’t
consider him a true Pendleton though, any more than I consider you a
true Trustee.
Sallie and I were n’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
dash (eight seconds).
I was pretty panting at the end, but it was great fun, with the whole
class waving balloons and cheering and yelling:
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What ’s the matter with Judy Abbott?
She ’s all right.
Who ’s all right?
Judy Ab-bott!
![Judy Wins the Fifty Yard Dash Judy Wins the Fifty Yard Dash](images/pic150.png)
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
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gave a dinner in the gymnasium to all of the winners. We had fried
soft-shell crabs, and chocolate ice-cream molded 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 Brontés that
fascinates me. Their books, their lives, their spirit. Where did they
get it? When I was reading about
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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
did n’t catch and we went back to bed.
Everybody likes a few surprises; it ’s a perfectly natural
human craving. But I
153
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 favorite play at night before I go to sleep.
I plan it out to the littlest detail—the
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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 window
stays open—
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![“My dear Mrs. Centipede, will you have one lump or two?” “My dear Mrs. Centipede, will you have one lump or two?”](images/pic155.png)
Saturday morning.
Perhaps you think, last night being Friday, with no classes to-day,
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.
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I have n’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 êtes bien bored!
Good-by, nice Mr. Man,
Judy.
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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) gray stone.
B. Its capacity will be:
(a) one dean, five instructors.
(b) two hundred girls.
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(c) one housekeeper, three cooks, twenty waitresses,
twenty chambermaids.
III. We had junket for dessert to-night.
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 pompons.
VII. It is half-past nine.
VIII. Good night.
Judy.
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June 2d.
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.
Was n’t it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask
160
me? It appears that she liked me when I was there for Christmas.
Please excuse this being short. It is n’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.
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June 5th.
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 and 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 are n’t any girls our age at the camp, and Mrs. McBride
wants me for a
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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 need n’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
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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 is n’t Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, writing
to you. It ’s just Judy—a girl.
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June 9th.
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.
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Lock Willow Farm,
August Third.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
It has been nearly two months since I wrote, which was n’t
nice of me, I know, but I have n’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
McBride’s camp. Of course I know that you ’re my guardian, and
that I have to regard your wishes in all matters, but I could n’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 you, my child, run along and have a good
time; see lots of new people and learn lots of new things; live out
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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
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are so shadowy. You ’re just an imaginary man that I ’ve
made up—and probably the real you is n’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 toward 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!
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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.
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August 10th.
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 down-heads” 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,
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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 up and coming, 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
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innovations in religion in this neighborhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgie 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 some day—I am, really, Daddy, when I get 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
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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
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the world in general, instead of descending to the trivial details of
daily life. But if you must have news, here it is:
![nine young pigs](images/pic172.png)
Our nine young pigs waded across the brook and ran away last Tuesday,
and only eight came back. We don’t want to accuse any one 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 color, but he says it will wear.
The Brewers have company this week; Mrs. Brewer’s sister and two
nieces from Ohio.
![hen with three chicks](images/pic173.png)
One of our Rhode Island Reds only brought off three chicks out of
fifteen eggs.
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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.
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![Judy in her new hat](images/pic175.png)
Friday.
Good morning! Here is some news! What do you think?
You ’d never, never,
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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 to-morrow 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.
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But is n’t it just like a man, Daddy? He does n’t give
the remotest hint as to whether he will land on the doorstep to-day, or
two weeks from to-day. We shall live in a perpetual breathlessness until
he comes—and if he does n’t hurry, the cleaning may all
have to be done over again.
![Old Grove is perfectly safe. Old Grove is perfectly safe.](images/pic177.png)
There ’s Amasai waiting below with the buckboard and Grover.
I drive alone—but if you could see old Grove, you
would n’t be worried as to my safety.
With my hand on my heart—farewell.
Judy.
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P. S. Is n’t that a nice ending? I got it out of Stevenson’s
letters.
Saturday.
Good morning again! I did n’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
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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 need n’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 some one to talk to.
Mrs. Semple, to tell you the truth, gets sort of 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 did n’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
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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 did n’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.
P. S. The lettuce has n’t done at all well this year. It was so
dry early in the season.
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August 25th.
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 does n’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
parlor. 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.
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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 is n’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
did n’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:
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“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 horse-back—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.
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![horse](images/pic184.png)
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
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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
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she a distracted mother. I was afraid for a while that we
were n’t going to get any jam for tea.
Saturday.
I started this letter ages ago, but I have n’t had a second to
finish it.
Is n’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!
.......
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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 surrey 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
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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 was n’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 did n’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
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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.
![turtle](images/pic189.png)
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![skull and crossbones](images/pic190.png)
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. Is n’t “Treasure Island” fun? Did you ever read it, or
was n’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 teach school.
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.
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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 could n’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.
P. S. On reading this over, I find that it is n’t all Stevenson.
There are one or two glancing references to Master Jervie.
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September 10th.
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 suddenly 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 mail, so I
could n’t help his knowing—and he said they were
dreadful. They showed
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that I did n’t have the slightest idea of what I was talking
about. (Master Jervie does n’t let politeness interfere with
truth.) But the last one I did—just a little sketch laid in
college—he said was n’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-colored
light over everything. We ’re going to have a storm.
.......
It commenced just that moment with drops as big as quarters and all
the shutters banging. I had to run to close 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
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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.
2d.—A letter from the college secretary. I ’m to have a
scholarship for two years that will cover board and tuition. It was
founded by an alumna 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 did n’t have an idea I ’d get it,
on account of my Freshman bad work in math. and Latin. But it
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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 crazy to go back and begin work.
Yours ever,
Jerusha Abbott,
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September 26th.
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 of 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.
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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
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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 is n’t much of a letter; I meant to have written a
lot—but I ’ve been hemming four window curtains and three
portières (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 does n’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!
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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.
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September 30th.
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-points-of-view as
you.
You prefer that I should not be accepting favors from strangers.
Strangers!—And what are you, pray?
Is there any one in the world that I know less? I should n’t
recognize you if I met you on 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 would n’t have flouted
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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 is n’t a favor; it ’s like a
prize—I earned it by hard work. If nobody had been good enough in
English, the committee would n’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!
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And listen—I have a further thought. Since you are so afraid
that by taking this scholarship, I am depriving some one else of an
education, I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would
have spent for me, toward 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.
![Judy with Julia, Sallie, Jervis and other friends](images/plateIII.jpg)
“I LIKE MY DIFFERENT FRIENDS TO KNOW EACH OTHER.”
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November 9th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I started down town to-day 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 could n’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
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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 archæopteryx 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
is n’t either; I ’ve just looked in the book. It ’s
a mesozoic mammal.
205
![This is the only picture extant of a stereognathus. He has a head like a snake and ears like a dog and feet like a cow and a tail like a lizard and wings like a swan and is covered with nice soft fur like a sweet little pussy cat. This is the only picture extant of a stereognathus. He has a head like a snake and ears like a dog and feet like a cow and a tail like a lizard and wings like a swan and is covered with nice soft fur like a sweet little pussy cat.](images/pic205.png)
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.
206
December 7th.
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
does n’t illuminate me to any extent.
207
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
208
because he had only three dances with me. He said he was bashful about
dancing with girls he did n’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,
209
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 did n’t cost quite a million, but
was just as effective as Julia’s.
Mine was pale pink crêpe de chine trimmed with écru lace and rose
satin. And I carried crimson roses which J. McB. sent (Sallie
having told him what color 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 colorless 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
210
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 is n’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.
P. S. This is one of those wicked anonymous letters you read about in
novels.
211
December 20th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I ’ve just a moment, because I must attend two classes, pack a
trunk and a suitcase, and catch the four-o’clock train—but I
could n’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
212
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.
Good-by, and a very merry Christmas.
Yours always,
Judy.
P. S. I am sending a slight token, too. Do you think you would like her
if you knew her?
213
January 11th.
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 in 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 pretense 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 did n’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,
214
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 is n’t polite to criticize people
you ’ve been visiting? If it is n’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
did n’t have a chance to speak to him alone. It was sort of
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,
215
thank Heaven, he does n’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
would n’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 have n’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 theaters and hotels and beautiful houses.
My mind is a confused jumble of onyx and gilding and
216
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 is n’t the great big pleasures that count the most;
it ’s making a great deal
217
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
forever 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
does n’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
218
Author. Did you ever know such a philosopheress as I am developing
into?
Yours ever,
Judy.
P. S. It ’s raining cats and dogs to-night. Two puppies and a
kitten have just landed on the window-sill.
219
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 to-morrow 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, 3d hour.
220
February 11th.
Dear D. L. L.,
Don’t be insulted because this is so short. It is n’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.
221
March 5th.
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 endeavor and true scholarship; and
particularly is this falling-off noticeable in our disrespectful
attitude toward 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,
222
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 “Tinturn Abbey” in connection with our
course in English Literature. What an exquisite work it is, and how
adequately it embodies his conception 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
223
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 coloring the food. The college is very much
opposed, both from esthetic and hygienic motives, to the use of aniline
dyes.
The weather of late has been ideal—bright sunshine and clouds
interspersed
224
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.
225
April 24th.
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 did n’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.
226
Saturday.
![girls greeting the rising sun](images/pic226.png)
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
227
you think we did n’t bring back appetites to breakfast!
Dear me, Daddy, I seem to have a very ejaculatory style to-day; this
page is peppered with exclamations.
![This is Prexy’s kitten. You can see from the picture how Angora he is. This is Prexy’s kitten. You can see from the picture how Angora he is.](images/pic227.png)
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 to-morrow, 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
228
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 girl’s 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.
229
May 15th.
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 to-day, and without the slightest expression sat for fifteen minutes
and looked at a sign advertising suspenders. It does n’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
is n’t
230
at all; it ’s a picture of me learning to swim in the tank in the
gymnasium.
![Judy learning to swim](images/pic230.png)
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.
231
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 did n’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
232
businesslike promptness. So you see—I am not so different from
other girls—I get mail, too.
Did I tell you that I have been elected a member of the Senior
Dramatic Club? Very recherché 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 drôle ça n’est
pas?
There goes the gong for dinner. I ’ll mail this as I pass the
chute.
Affectionately,
J.
233
June 4th.
Dear Daddy,
Very busy time—commencement in ten days, examinations
to-morrow; lots of studying, lots of packing, and the outdoors 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,
234
if you ’ll promise not to make a lot of objections. I warn your
secretary ahead of time 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! Does n’t that impress you as a perfectly
exorbitant amount? She offered it; I should have blushed to ask
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 program strike you, Daddy? I am getting quite
independent,
235
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.
Good-by, 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 have n’t an 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.
236
June Tenth.
Dear Daddy,
This is the hardest letter I ever wrote, but I have decided what I
must do, and there is n’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 must n’t get me used to too many luxuries. One
does n’t miss what one has never had; but it is 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
237
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
238
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 did n’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 did n’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 must n’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.
239
Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I almost weakened; if he
had n’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 did n’t know what was good for me;
I ought to let older people judge. We almost quarreled—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
240
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?
241
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, does n’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.
242
August 19th.
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
243
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 favor 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 have n’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
244
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.
245
Camp McBride,
September 6th.
Dear Daddy,
Your letter did n’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.
Good-by—sorry to have disobeyed, but why are you so persistent
about not wanting me to play a little? When I ’ve worked all
summer I deserve two
246
weeks. You are awfully dog-in-the-mangerish.
However—I love you still, Daddy, in spite of all your
faults.
Judy.
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October 3rd.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Back at college and a Senior—also editor of the Monthly.
It does n’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
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men ought to leave intrigue to women; you have n’t a light enough
touch.
Julia has a trunkful of the most ravishing new clothes—an
evening gown of rainbow Liberty crêpe 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 did n’t turn out quite twins of the originals, I was
entirely happy until Julia unpacked. But now—I live to see
Paris!
Dear Daddy, are n’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 favored sensible, utilitarian
clothes for women? His wife,
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who was an obliging creature, adopted “dress reform.” And what do you
think he did? He eloped with a chorus girl.
Yours ever,
Judy.
P. S. The chamber-maid on 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.
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November 17th.
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 reopen the wound by referring to it in your next
letter.
I ’ve been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings,
and all summer when I was n’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 in college, and if I
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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 humor 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
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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.
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December 14th.
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 who 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
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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
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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!
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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.
P. S. 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
on the end accomplishing a graceful pirouette is me—I
mean I.
![line of dancing girls](images/pic256.png)
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December 26th.
My dear, dear Daddy,
Have n’t you any sense? Don’t you know that you
must n’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.
![furniture van addressed to Daddy Long Legs](images/pic257.png)
I am sorry that the necktie I sent was so wobbly; I knit it with my
own hands (as you doubtless discovered from internal
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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.
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January 9th.
Do you wish to do something, Daddy, that will insure 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 of 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
centerpieces in the evening. The mother is n’t very strong and is
extremely ineffectual and
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pious. She sits with her hands folded, a picture of patient resignation,
while the daughter kills herself with overwork and responsibility and
worry; she does n’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 the three children so that they could
go to school, and give a little margin so that she need n’t worry
herself to death when a few days pass and she does n’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 would n’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 forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying,
“Perhaps it ’s all for the best,” when they are perfectly
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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 to-morrow. The professor does n’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 has n’t any doubt but that it
exists!
Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see
myself that
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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 have n’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;
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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 gray,
Daddy, you can still be a boy.
Affectionately,
Judy.
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Jan. 12th.
Dear Mr. Philanthropist,
Your check 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. Is n’t it pitiful?
Anyway, she feels now as though all the good things were coming
together. She has steady work ahead for two months—some
one ’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.
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“It was n’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.
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Feb. 15th.
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 have n’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.”
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Seems a little early to commence entertaining, does n’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 to-day 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. Is n’t this a touching entry? You see he
really was honest. “To-day 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
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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
does n’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?
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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 to-night and make it
eight.
Farewell, kind Sir.
I have the honour of subscribing myself,
Your most loyall, dutifull, faithfull and obedient servant,
J. Abbott.
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March Fifth.
Dear Mr. Trustee,
To-morrow 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
271
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.
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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.
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Lock Willow,
April 4th.
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 would n’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
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time. We climbed to the top of “Sky Hill” this morning where Master
Jervie and I once cooked supper—it does n’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
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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 does n’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 have n’t given up
hope yet.
Good-by, Daddy dear,
(I like to call you Daddy dear; it ’s so alliterative.)
Affectionately,
Judy.
P. S. 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 he could n’t chew and they
had to shoot him.
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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!
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May 17th.
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 makes
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 Mrs. Lippett, and I don’t want her.
Please come.
Yours, with love and writer’s cramp.
Judy.
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Lock Willow.
June 19th.
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—forever 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
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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 is n’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 would n’t come to my
commencement, I tore you from my heart and buried you forever.
Judy Abbott, A.B.
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July 24th.
Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,
Is n’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 are n’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 to-morrow 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.
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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 Carry got married last May?
They are still working here, but so far as I can see it has spoiled them
both. She used just to laugh when he tramped in mud or dropped ashes on
the floor, but now—you should hear her scold! And she
does n’t curl her hair any longer. Amasai, who used to be so
obliging about beating rugs and carrying wood, grumbles if you suggest
such
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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 is n’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.
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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 would n’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 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
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paper and a pint of ink—what more does one want in the world?
Yours, as always,
Judy.
P. S. 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.
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August 27th.
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 could write while
286
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 ahead of time 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 does n’t happen
soon, I shall throw myself into the silo pit out of sheer
desperation.
Mercy! but it ’s hot. All the grass is
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burnt up and the brooks are dry and the roads are dusty. It
has n’t rained for weeks and weeks.
This letter sounds as though I had hydrophobia, but I
have n’t. I just want some family.
Good-by, my dearest Daddy.
I wish I knew you.
Judy.
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Lock Willow,
September 19th.
Dear Daddy,
Something has happened and I need advice. I need it from you, and
from nobody else in the world. Would n’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.
P. S. I ’m very unhappy.
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Lock Willow,
October 3d.
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 would n’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 check for one thousand dollars.
It seems funny, does n’t it, for me to be sending a check 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
290
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 toward
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
291
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 has n’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 humor 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
is n’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 have n’t, I can’t explain.
292
Anyway, that ’s the way I feel—and I ’ve refused
to marry him.
I did n’t tell him why; I was just dumb and miserable. I
could n’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 would n’t think of marrying Jimmie; he
is n’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 did n’t
care for him, but because I cared for him so much. I was afraid he
would regret it in the future—and I could n’t stand that!
It did n’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 did n’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
293
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 would n’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
294
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 is n’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 have n’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.
295
October 6th.
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.
P. S. I ’ve just had an awful thought. Have you a butler?
I ’m afraid of butlers,
296
and if one opens the door I shall faint upon the step. What can I say to
him? You did n’t tell me your name. Shall I ask for Mr.
Smith?
297
Thursday Morning.
My very dearest Master-Jervie-Daddy-Long-Legs-Pendleton-Smith,
Did you sleep last night? I did n’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
298
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 to you 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
forever—but anyway, I never cared much for just plain
peace.
![Judy embraces Jervie](images/plateIV.jpg)
THE IDENTITY OF DADDY-LONG-LEGS IS ESTABLISHED.
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
299
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, are n’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 does n’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
300
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 coloring. 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 did n’t dare go in, so I walked around the
block to get up my courage. But
301
I need n’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 did n’t have to
ask for Mr. Smith after all. He told me to wait in the drawing-room. It
was a very somber, 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—and I
think he ’s an old dear!
302
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—sort of 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 did n’t
understand. I thought Daddy had had you come there to meet me for a
surprise.
Then you laughed and held out your hand and said, “Dear little Judy,
could n’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
303
might have told me, if I had had any wits. I would n’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, are n’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 to-day 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
304
now really and truly, no make-believe. Does n’t it seem queer for
me to belong to some one at last? It seems very, very sweet.
And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.
Yours, forever and ever,
Judy.
P. S. This is the first love letter I ever wrote. Is n’t it funny
that I know how?
THE END
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WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean
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Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
One of the best stories of life in a girl’s college that has ever been
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JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster.
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THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor
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This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children
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REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas
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One of the most beautiful studies of childhood—Rebecca’s artistic,
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NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas
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Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that
carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.
REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton
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Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.
This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque
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EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart, By George
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THE HARVESTER
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“The Harvester,” David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who
draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the
book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his
sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous
knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl
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large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life
which has come to him—there begins a romance, troubled and
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FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson
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Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he
takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
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the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with “The
Angel” are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.
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The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
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It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of
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AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by
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The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central
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LAVENDER AND OLD LACE.
A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to
the young people on the staff of a newspaper—and it is one of the
prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories,
* * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception,
full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and
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A SPINNER IN THE SUN.
Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which
poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and
entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays
a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a
touch of active realism to all her writings. In “A Spinner in the
Sun” she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives
in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a
mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of
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THE MASTER’S VIOLIN,
A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso
is the reverent possessor of a genuine “Cremona.” He consents to take
for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for
technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy,
careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with
his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life
and all its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its
fulness. But a girl comes into his life—a beautiful bit of human
driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home, and through
his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to
give—and his soul awakes.
Founded on a fact that all artists realize.
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THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON. With
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This exquisite little romance opens in New York City in “the tender
grace” of a May day long past, when the old Dutch families clustered
around Bowling Green. It is the beginning of the romance of Katherine,
a young Dutch girl who has sent, as a love token, to a young
English officer, the bow of orange ribbon which she has worn for years
as a sacred emblem on the day of St. Nicholas. After the bow of ribbon
Katherine’s heart soon flies. Unlike her sister, whose heart has found a
safe resting place among her own people, Katherine’s heart must rove
from home—must know to the utmost all that life holds of both joy
and sorrow. And so she goes beyond the seas, leaving her parents as
desolate as were Isaac and Rebecca of old.
THE MAID OF MAIDEN LANE; A Love Story. With
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A sequel to “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” The time is the gracious days of
Seventeen-hundred and ninety-one, when “The Marseillaise” was sung with
the American national airs, and the spirit affected commerce, politics
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historic and local color.
SHEILA VEDDER. Frontispiece in colors by
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A love story set in the Shetland Islands.
Among the simple, homely folk who dwelt there Jan Vedder was raised; and
to this island came lovely Sheila Jarrow. Jan knew, when first he beheld
her, that she was the one woman in all the world for him, and to the
winning of her love he set himself. The long days of summer by the sea,
the nights under the marvelously soft radiance of Shetland moonlight
passed in love-making, while with wonderment the man and woman, alien in
traditions, adjusted themselves to each other. And the day came when Jan
and Sheila wed, and then a sweeter love story is told.
TRINITY BELLS. With eight Illustrations by
C. M. Relyea.
The story centers around the life of little Katryntje Van Clyffe, who,
on her return home from a fashionable boarding school, faces poverty and
heartache. Stout of heart, she does not permit herself to become
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day.
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JEWEL: A Chapter in Her Life.
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JEWEL’S STORY BOOK.
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A sequel to “Jewel” and equally enjoyable.
CLEVER BETSY.
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The “Clever Betsy” was a boat—named for the unyielding spinster
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SWEET CLOVER: A Romance of the White
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A story of Chicago at the time of the World’s Fair. A sweet human story
that touches the heart.
THE OPENED SHUTTERS.
Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
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realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul
to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love.
A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it
all.
THE RIGHT PRINCESS.
An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve
in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each other’s
lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in
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THE LEAVEN OF LOVE.
Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful
but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of
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story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasè woman by
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STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.
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The “lonesome pine” from which the story takes its name was a tall tree
that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine
lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he
finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the
foot-prints of a girl. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant,
and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a
madder chase than “the trail of the lonesome pine.”
THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
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This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as “Kingdom Come.” It
is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often
springs the flower of civilization.
“Chad.” the “little shepherd” did not know who he was nor whence he
came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood,
seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and
mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming
waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in
the mountains.
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.
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The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of
moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner’s son, and the
heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened “The Blight.” Two
impetuous young Southerners’ fall under the spell of “The Blight’s”
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CHIP, OF THE FLYING U
A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della
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A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen
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Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively
and exciting adventures.
HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners
who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana
ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and
the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.
THE RANGE DWELLERS
Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited
action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet
courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull
page.
THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS
A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the
cowboys of the West, in search of “local color” for a new novel. “Bud”
Thurston learns many a lesson while following “the lure of the dim
trails” but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of
love.
THE LONESOME TRAIL
“Weary” Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city
life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the
atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown
eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.
THE LONG SHADOW
A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a
mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of
life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to
finish.
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THE OLD PEABODY PEW. Large Octavo.
Decorative text pages, printed in two colors. Illustrations by Alice
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One of the prettiest romances that has ever come from this author’s pen
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PENELOPE’S PROGRESS. Attractive cover
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Scotland is the background for the merry doings of three very clever and
original American girls. Their adventures in adjusting themselves to the
Scot and his land are full of humor.
PENELOPE’S IRISH EXPERIENCES. Uniform in
style
with “Penelope’s Progress.”
The trio of clever girls who rambled over Scotland cross the border to
the Emerald Isle, and again they sharpen their wits against new
conditions, and revel in the land of laughter and wit.
REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM.
One of the most beautiful studies of childhood—Rebecca’s artistic,
unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of
austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal
dramatic record.
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA. With
illustrations by F. C. Yohn.
Some more quaintly amusing chronicles that carry Rebecca through various
stages to her eighteenth birthday.
ROSE O’ THE RIVER. With illustrations by
George Wright.
The simple story of Rose, a country girl and Stephen a sturdy young
farmer, The girl’s fancy for a city man interrupts their love and merges
the story into an emotional strain where the reader follows the events
with rapt attention.
Uncorrected Errors in Publisher’s Advertising Section
Missing or incorrect punctuation is not noted.
The stage version is making a phenominal dramatic record.
a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid
G. & D. Popular Copyrighed Fiction (this page only)
of delightful humor and spontaniety.
the soul of the blasè woman
play the banjo better that anyone else
Two impetuous young Southerners’ fall under the spell
Shown below is the cover design from another edition published in the
same year.
![image of book spine](images/old_cover.jpg)