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DADDY-LONG-LEGS(2)
By JEAN WEBSTER
2nd April Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I am a BEAST.
Please forget about that dreadful letter I sent you last week-- I was
feeling terribly lonely and miserable and sore-throaty the night I wrote. I
didn't know it, but I was just sickening for tonsillitis and grippe and lots of
things mixed. I'm in the infirmary now, and have been here for six days;
this is the first time they would let me sit up and have a pen and paper.
The head nurse is very bossy. But I've been thinking about it all the time
and I shan't get well until you forgive me. Here is a picture of the way I
look, with a bandage tied around my head in rabbit's ears.
Doesn't that arouse your sympathy? I am having sublingual gland
swelling. And I've been studying physiology all the year without ever
hearing of sublingual glands. How futile a thing is education!
I can't write any more; I get rather shaky when I sit up too long.
Please forgive me for being impertinent and ungrateful. I was badly
brought up. Yours with love, Judy Abbott
THE INFIRMARY 4th April Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,
Yesterday evening just towards dark, when I was sitting up in bed
looking out at the rain and feeling awfully bored with life in a great
institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box addressed to me, and
filled with the LOVELIEST pink rosebuds. And much nicer still, it
contained a card with a very polite message written in a funny little uphill
back hand (but one which shows a great deal of character). Thank you,
Daddy, a thousand times. Your flowers make the first real, true present I
ever received in my life. If you want to know what a baby I am I lay
down and cried because I was so happy.
Now that I am sure you read my letters, I'll make them much more
interesting, so they'll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape around
them--only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up. I'd hate to
think that you ever read it over.
Thank you for making a very sick, cross, miserable Freshman cheerful.
Probably you have lots of loving family and friends, and you don't know
what it feels like to be alone. But I do.
Goodbye--I'll promise never to be horrid again, because now I know
you're a real person; also I'll promise never to bother you with any more
questions.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
25
Do you still hate girls? Yours for ever, Judy
8th hour, Monday Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I hope you aren't the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off-- I was
told--with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee.
Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by
the laundry windows in the John Grier Home? Every spring when the
hoptoad season opened we used to form a collection of toads and keep
them in those window holes; and occasionally they would spill over into
the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days. We
were severely punished for our activities in this direction, but in spite of
all discouragement the toads would collect.
And one day--well, I won't bore you with particulars--but somehow,
one of the fattest, biggest, JUCIEST toads got into one of those big leather
arm chairs in the Trustees' room, and that afternoon at the Trustees'
meeting--But I dare say you were there and recall the rest?
Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say that
punishment was merited, and--if I remember rightly--adequate.
I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring
and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct.
The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the fact that no
rule exists against it.
After chapel, Thursday
What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change
every three days. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte was quite young
when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard.
She had never known any men in her life; how COULD she imagine a
man like Heathcliffe?
I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier
Asylum--I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear
comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed,
Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author? In the spring when
everything is so beautiful and green and budding, I feel like turning my
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
26
back on lessons, and running away to play with the weather. There are
such lots of adventures out in the fields! It's much more entertaining to
live books than to write them.
Ow ! ! ! ! ! !
That was a shriek which brought Sallie and Julia and (for a disgusted
moment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by a centipede
like this: only worse. Just as I had finished the last sentence and was
thinking what to say next--plump!--it fell off the ceiling and landed at my
side. I tipped two cups off the tea table in trying to get away. Sallie
whacked it with the back of my hair brush--which I shall never be able to
use again--and killed the front end, but the rear fifty feet ran under the
bureau and escaped.
This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full of
centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I'd rather find a tiger under the
bed.
Friday, 9.30 p.m.
Such a lot of troubles! I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, then
I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped my collar
button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and also for first-hour
recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and my fountain pen leaked.
In trigonometry the Professor and I had a disagreement touching a little
matter of logarithms. On looking it up, I find that she was right. We
had mutton stew and pie-plant for lunch--hate 'em both; they taste like the
asylum. The post brought me nothing but bills (though I must say that I
never do get anything else; my family are not the kind that write). In
English class this afternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. This
was it:
I asked no other thing, No other was denied. I offered Being for it; The
mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button Without a glance my way: But, madam,
is there nothing else That we can show today?
That is a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. It
was simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were
ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought I had
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
27
an idea--The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributes blessings in
return for virtuous deeds-- but when I got to the second verse and found
him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous supposition, and I hastily
changed my mind. The rest of the class was in the same predicament;
and there we sat for three-quarters of an hour with blank paper and equally
blank minds. Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!
But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come.
It rained so we couldn't play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead.
The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got home to
find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, and the skirt
was so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is sweeping day, and the
maid had mixed all the papers on my desk. We had tombstone for dessert
(milk and gelatin flavoured with vanilla). We were kept in chapel twenty
minutes later than usual to listen to a speech about womanly women.
And then--just as I was settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to
The Portrait of a Lady, a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly,
unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because her name
begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), came to ask if
Monday's lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE
HOUR. She has just gone.
Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn't the
big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis
and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of
the day with a laugh--I really think that requires SPIRIT.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to
pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly
as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh--also if I
win.
Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain
again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes drop
off the wall. Yours ever, Judy
Answer soon.
27th May Daddy-Long-Legs, Esq.
DEAR SIR: I am in receipt of a letter from Mrs. Lippett. She hopes
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that I am doing well in deportment and studies. Since I probably have no
place to go this summer, she will let me come back to the asylum and
work for my board until college opens.
I HATE THE JOHN GRIER HOME.
I'd rather die than go back. Yours most truthfully, Jerusha
Abbott
Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes,
Vous etes un brick!
Je suis tres heureuse about the farm, parceque je n'ai jamais been on a
farm dans ma vie and I'd hate to retoumer chez John Grier, et wash dishes
tout l'ete. There would be danger of quelque chose affreuse happening,
parceque j'ai perdue ma humilite d'autre fois et j'ai peur that I would just
break out quelque jour et smash every cup and saucer dans la maison.
Pardon brievete et paper. Je ne peux pas send des mes nouvelles
parceque je suis dans French class et j'ai peur que Monsieur le Professeur
is going to call on me tout de suite.
He did! Au revoir, je vous aime beaucoup.
Judy
30th May Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Did you ever see this campus? (That is merely a rhetorical question.
Don't let it annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. All the shrubs are in
blossom and the trees are the loveliest young green-- even the old pines
look fresh and new. The grass is dotted with yellow dandelions and
hundreds of girls in blue and white and pink dresses. Everybody is
joyous and carefree, for vacation's coming, and with that to look forward
to, examinations don't count.
Isn't that a happy frame of mind to be in? And oh, Daddy! I'm the
happiest of all! Because I'm not in the asylum any more; and I'm not
anybody's nursemaid or typewriter or bookkeeper (I should have been, you
know, except for you).
I'm sorry now for all my past badnesses.
I'm sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. Lippett.
I'm sorry I ever slapped Freddie Perkins.
I'm sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl with salt.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
29
I'm sorry I ever made faces behind the Trustees' backs.
I'm going to be good and sweet and kind to everybody because I'm so
happy. And this summer I'm going to write and write and write and
begin to be a great author. Isn't that an exalted stand to take? Oh, I'm
developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but
it does grow fast when the sun shines.
That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that
adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The
happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. I have
no faith in misanthropes. (Fine word! Just learned it.) You are not a
misanthrope are you, Daddy?
I started to tell you about the campus. I wish you'd come for a little
visit and let me walk you about and say:
`That is the library. This is the gas plant, Daddy dear. The Gothic
building on your left is the gymnasium, and the Tudor Romanesque beside
it is the new infirmary.'
Oh, I'm fine at showing people about. I've done it all my life at the
asylum, and I've been doing it all day here. I have honestly.
And a Man, too!
That's a great experience. I never talked to a man before (except
occasional Trustees, and they don't count). Pardon, Daddy, I don't mean to
hurt your feelings when I abuse Trustees. I don't consider that you really
belong among them. You just tumbled on to the Board by chance. The
Trustee, as such, is fat and pompous and benevolent. He pats one on the
head and wears a gold watch chain.
That looks like a June bug, but is meant to be a portrait of any Trustee
except you.
However--to resume:
I have been walking and talking and having tea with a man. And
with a very superior man--with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of the House of Julia;
her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; he's as tall as you.)
Being in town on business, he decided to run out to the college and call on
his niece. He's her father's youngest brother, but she doesn't know him
very intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
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he didn't like her, and has never noticed her since.
Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper with
his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie with seventhhour
recitations that they couldn't cut. So Julia dashed into my room and
begged me to walk him about the campus and then deliver him to her
when the seventh hour was over. I said I would, obligingly but
unenthusiastically, because I don't care much for Pendletons.
But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. He's a real human being-- not a
Pendleton at all. We had a beautiful time; I've longed for an uncle ever
since. Do you mind pretending you're my uncle? I believe they're
superior to grandmothers.
Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of you, Daddy, as you were twenty
years ago. You see I know you intimately, even if we haven't ever met!
He's tall and thinnish with a dark face all over lines, and the funniest
underneath smile that never quite comes through but just wrinkles up the
corners of his mouth. And he has a way of making you feel right off as
though you'd known him a long time. He's very companionable.
We walked all over the campus from the quadrangle to the athletic
grounds; then he said he felt weak and must have some tea. He proposed
that we go to College Inn--it's just off the campus by the pine walk. I
said we ought to go back for Julia and Sallie, but he said he didn't like to
have his nieces drink too much tea; it made them nervous. So we just ran
away and had tea and muffins and marmalade and ice-cream and cake at a
nice little table out on the balcony. The inn was quite conveniently
empty, this being the end of the month and allowances low.
We had the jolliest time! But he had to run for his train the minute he
got back and he barely saw Julia at all. She was furious with me for
taking him off; it seems he's an unusually rich and desirable uncle. It
relieved my mind to find he was rich, for the tea and things cost sixty
cents apiece.
This morning (it's Monday now) three boxes of chocolates came by
express for Julia and Sallie and me. What do you think of that? To be
getting candy from a man!
I begin to feel like a girl instead of a foundling.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
31
I wish you'd come and have tea some day and let me see if I like you.
But wouldn't it be dreadful if I didn't? However, I know I should.
Bien! I make you my compliments. `Jamais je ne
t'oublierai.' Judy
PS. I looked in the glass this morning and found a perfectly new
dimple that I'd never seen before. It's very curious. Where do you
suppose it came from?
9th June
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Happy day! I've just finished my last examination Physiology. And
now:
Three months on a farm!
I don't know what kind of a thing a farm is. I've never been on one in
my life. I've never even looked at one (except from the car window), but
I know I'm going to love it, and I'm going to love being FREE.
I am not used even yet to being outside the John Grier Home.
Whenever I think of it excited little thrills chase up and down my back. I
feel as though I must run faster and faster and keep looking over my
shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippett isn't after me with her arm
stretched out to grab me back.
I don't have to mind any one this summer, do I?
Your nominal authority doesn't annoy me in the least; you are too far
away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead for ever, so far as I am
concerned, and the Semples aren't expected to overlook my moral welfare,
are they? No, I am sure not. I am entirely grown up. Hooray!
I leave you now to pack a trunk, and three boxes of teakettles and
dishes and sofa cushions and books. Yours ever, Judy
PS. Here is my physiology exam. Do you think you could have
passed?
LOCK WILLOW FARM, Saturday night
Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,
I've only just come and I'm not unpacked, but I can't wait to tell you
how much I like farms. This is a heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY spot!
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
32
The house is square like this: And OLD. A hundred years or so. It
has a veranda on the side which I can't draw and a sweet porch in front.
The picture really doesn't do it justice--those things that look like feather
dusters are maple trees, and the prickly ones that border the drive are
murmuring pines and hemlocks. It stands on the top of a hill and looks
way off over miles of green meadows to another line of hills.
That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and
Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be
across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of
lightning came from heaven and burnt them down.
The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a hired girl and two hired
men. The hired people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples and Judy in
the dining-room. We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and jellycake
and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper-- and a great deal
of conversation. I have never been so entertaining in my life; everything
I say appears to be funny. I suppose it is, because I've never been in the
country before, and my questions are backed by an all-inclusive ignorance.
The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed,
but the one that I occupy. It's big and square and empty, with adorable
old-fashioned furniture and windows that have to be propped up on sticks
and green shades trimmed with gold that fall down if you touch them.
And a big square mahogany table-- I'm going to spend the summer with
my elbows spread out on it, writing a novel.
Oh, Daddy, I'm so excited! I can't wait till daylight to explore. It's
8.30 now, and I am about to blow out my candle and try to go to sleep.
We rise at five. Did you ever know such fun? I can't believe this is
really Judy. You and the Good Lord give me more than I deserve. I
must be a very, very, VERY good person to pay. I'm going to be. You'll
see. Good night, Judy
PS. You should hear the frogs sing and the little pigs squeal and you
should see the new moon! I saw it over my right shoulder.
LOCK WILLOW, 12th July Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
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How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That
isn't a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) For listen to
this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has given it
to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such a
funny coincidence? She still calls him `Master Jervie' and talks about
what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of his baby curls put
away in a box, and it is red-- or at least reddish!
Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much in her
opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best
introduction one can have at Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole
family is Master Jervis-- I am pleased to say that Julia belongs to an
inferior branch.
The farm gets more and more entertaining. I rode on a hay wagon
yesterday. We have three big pigs and nine little piglets, and you should
see them eat. They are pigs! We've oceans of little baby chickens and
ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls. You must be mad to live in a city
when you might live on a farm.
It is my daily business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the barn
loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen
has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. Semple
bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time, `Dear! Dear! It
seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell off that very same beam and
scratched this very same knee.'
The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful. There's a valley and a
river and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the distance a tall blue
mountain that simply melts in your mouth.
We churn twice a week; and we keep the cream in the spring house
which is made of stone with the brook running underneath. Some of the
farmers around here have a separator, but we don't care for these newfashioned
ideas. It may be a little harder to separate the cream in pans,
but it's sufficiently better to pay. We have six calves; and I've chosen the
names for all of them.
1. Sylvia, because she was born in the woods.
2. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
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3. Sallie.
4. Julia--a spotted, nondescript animal.
5. Judy, after me.
6. Daddy-Long-Legs. You don't mind, do you, Daddy? He's pure
Jersey and has a sweet disposition. He looks like this--you can see how
appropriate the name is.
I haven't had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm keeps me
too busy. Yours always, Judy
PS. I've learned to make doughnuts.
PS. (2) If you are thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend
Buff Orpingtons. They haven't any pin feathers.
PS. (3) I wish I could send you a pat of the nice, fresh butter I
churned yesterday. I'm a fine dairy-maid!
PS. (4) This is a picture of Miss Jerusha Abbott, the future great
author, driving home the cows.
Sunday
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Isn't it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon, but as far
as I got was the heading, `Dear Daddy-Long-Legs', and then I remembered
I'd promised to pick some blackberries for supper, so I went off and left
the sheet lying on the table, and when I came back today, what do you
think I found sitting in the middle of the page? A real true Daddy-Long-
Legs!
I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out of the
window. I wouldn't hurt one of them for the world. They always
remind me of you.
We hitched up the spring wagon this morning and drove to the Centre
to church. It's a sweet little white frame church with a spire and three
Doric columns in front (or maybe Ionic--I always get them mixed).
A nice sleepy sermon with everybody drowsily waving palm-leaf fans,
and the only sound, aside from the minister, the buzzing of locusts in the
trees outside. I didn't wake up till I found myself on my feet singing the
hymn, and then I was awfully sorry I hadn't listened to the sermon; I
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
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should like to know more of the psychology of a man who would pick out
such a hymn. This was it:
Come, leave your sports and earthly toys
And join me in celestial joys. Or else, dear friend, a long
farewell. I leave you now to sink to hell.
I find that it isn't safe to discuss religion with the Semples. Their
God (whom they have inherited intact from their remote Puritan ancestors)
is a narrow, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful, bigoted Person. Thank
heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I
wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and
understanding--and He has a sense of humour.
I like the Semples immensely; their practice is so superior to their
theory. They are better than their own God. I told them so-- and they
are horribly troubled. They think I am blasphemous-- and I think they
are! We've dropped theology from our conversation.
This is Sunday afternoon.
Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and some bright yellow buckskin
gloves, very red and shaved, has just driven off with Carrie (hired girl) in a
big hat trimmed with red roses and a blue muslin dress and her hair curled
as tight as it will curl. Amasai spent all the morning washing the buggy;
and Carrie stayed home from church ostensibly to cook the dinner, but
really to iron the muslin dress.
In two minutes more when this letter is finished I am going to settle
down to a book which I found in the attic. It's entitled, On the Trail, and
sprawled across the front page in a funny little-boy hand:
Jervis Pendleton if this book should ever roam, Box its ears and send it
home.
He spent the summer here once after he had been ill, when he was
about eleven years old; and he left On the Trail behind. It looks well
read--the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent! Also in a corner of
the attic there is a water wheel and a windmill and some bows and arrows.
Mrs. Semple talks so constantly about him that I begin to believe he really
lives--not a grown man with a silk hat and walking stick, but a nice, dirty,
tousle-headed boy who clatters up the stairs with an awful racket, and
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
36
leaves the screen doors open, and is always asking for cookies. (And
getting them, too, if I know Mrs. Semple!) He seems to have been an
adventurous little soul-- and brave and truthful. I'm sorry to think he is a
Pendleton; he was meant for something better.
We're going to begin threshing oats tomorrow; a steam engine is
coming and three extra men.
It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup (the spotted cow with one horn,
Mother of Lesbia) has done a disgraceful thing. She got into the orchard
Friday evening and ate apples under the trees, and ate and ate until they
went to her head. For two days she has been perfectly dead drunk!
That is the truth I am telling. Did you ever hear anything so scandalous?
Sir, I remain, Your affectionate orphan, Judy Abbott
PS. Indians in the first chapter and highwaymen in the second. I
hold my breath. What can the third contain? `Red Hawk leapt twenty
feet in the air and bit the dust.' That is the subject of the frontispiece.
Aren't Judy and Jervie having fun?
15th September Dear Daddy,
I was weighed yesterday on the flour scales in the general store at the
Comers. I've gained nine pounds! Let me recommend Lock Willow as
a health resort. Yours ever, Judy
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Behold me--a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave Lock
Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensation to
come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home in
college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at
home in the world--as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept
in on sufferance.
I don't suppose you understand in the least what I am trying to say. A
person important enough to be a Trustee can't appreciate the feelings of a
person unimportant enough to be a foundling.
And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom do you think I am rooming
with? Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. It's the truth. We
have a study and three little bedrooms--VOILA!
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
37
Sallie and I decided last spring that we should like to room together,
and Julia made up her mind to stay with Sallie--why, I can't imagine, for
they are not a bit alike; but the Pendletons are naturally conservative and
inimical (fine word!) to change. Anyway, here we are. Think of
Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier Home for Orphans, rooming with a
Pendleton. This is a democratic country.
Sallie is running for class president, and unless all signs fail, she is
going to be elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue you should see what
politicians we are! Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get our rights,
you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours. Election comes
next Saturday, and we're going to have a torchlight procession in the
evening, no matter who wins.
I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. I've never seen
anything like it before. Molecules and Atoms are the material employed,
but I'll be in a position to discuss them more definitely next month.
I am also taking argumentation and logic.
Also history of the whole world.
Also plays of William Shakespeare.
Also French.
If this keeps up many years longer, I shall become quite intelligent.
I should rather have elected economics than French, but I didn't dare,
because I was afraid that unless I re-elected French, the Professor would
not let me pass--as it was, I just managed to squeeze through the June
examination. But I will say that my high-school preparation was not
very adequate.
There's one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast as she
does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she was a child,
and spent three years in a convent school. You can imagine how bright
she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs are mere playthings.
I wish my parents had chucked me into a French convent when I was little
instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no, I don't either! Because then
maybe I should never have known you. I'd rather know you than French.
Goodbye, Daddy. I must call on Harriet Martin now, and, having
discussed the chemical situation, casually drop a few thoughts on the
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
38
subject of our next president. Yours in politics, J. Abbott
17th October Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Supposing the swimming tank in the gymnasium were filled full of
lemon jelly, could a person trying to swim manage to keep on top or
would he sink?
We were having lemon jelly for dessert when the question came up.
We discussed it heatedly for half an hour and it's still unsettled. Sallie
thinks that she could swim in it, but I am perfectly sure that the best
swimmer in the world would sink. Wouldn't it be funny to be drowned in
lemon jelly?
Two other problems are engaging the attention of our table.
1st. What shape are the rooms in an octagon house? Some of the
girls insist that they're square; but I think they'd have to be shaped like a
piece of pie. Don't you?
2nd. Suppose there were a great big hollow sphere made of lookingglass
and you were sitting inside. Where would it stop reflecting your
face and begin reflecting your back? The more one thinks about this
problem, the more puzzling it becomes. You can see with what deep
philosophical reflection we engage our leisure!
Did I ever tell you about the election? It happened three weeks ago,
but so fast do we live, that three weeks is ancient history. Sallie was
elected, and we had a torchlight parade with transparencies saying,
`McBride for Ever,' and a band consisting of fourteen pieces (three mouth
organs and eleven combs).
We're very important persons now in `258.' Julia and I come in for a
great deal of reflected glory. It's quite a social strain to be living in the
same house with a president.
Bonne nuit, cher Daddy. Acceptez mez compliments,
Tres respectueux, je suis, Votre Judy
12th November Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
We beat the Freshmen at basket ball yesterday. Of course we're
pleased-- but oh, if we could only beat the juniors! I'd be willing to be
black and blue all over and stay in bed a week in a witch-hazel compress.
Sallie has invited me to spend the Christmas vacation with her. She
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
39
lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wasn't it nice of her? I shall love to
go. I've never been in a private family in my life, except at Lock Willow,
and the Semples were grown-up and old and don't count. But the
McBrides have a houseful of children (anyway two or three) and a mother
and father and grandmother, and an Angora cat. It's a perfectly complete
family! Packing your trunk and going away is more fun than staying
behind. I am terribly excited at the prospect.
Seventh hour--I must run to rehearsal. I'm to be in the Thanksgiving
theatricals. A prince in a tower with a velvet tunic and yellow curls.
Isn't that a lark? Yours, J. A.
Saturday
Do you want to know what I look like? Here's a photograph of all
three that Leonora Fenton took.
The light one who is laughing is Sallie, and the tall one with her nose
in the air is Julia, and the little one with the hair blowing across her face is
Judy--she is really more beautiful than that, but the sun was in her eyes.
`STONE GATE', WORCESTER, MASS.,
31st December Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas
cheque, but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don't
seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.
I bought a new gown--one that I didn't need, but just wanted. My
Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family just sent
love.
I've been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie. She lives
in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set back from the
street--exactly the kind of house that I used to look at so curiously when I
was in the John Grier Home, and wonder what it could be like inside. I
never expected to see with my own eyes-- but here I am! Everything is
so comfortable and restful and homelike; I walk from room to room and
drink in the furnishings.
It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in; with
shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn, and
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
40
an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a comfortable
flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen, and a nice, fat,
sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years and always saves
out a piece of dough for the children to bake. Just the sight of such a
house makes you want to be a child all over again.
And as for families! I never dreamed they could be so nice. Sallie
has a father and mother and grandmother, and the sweetest three-year-old
baby sister all over curls, and a medium-sized brother who always forgets
to wipe his feet, and a big, good-looking brother named Jimmie, who is a
junior at Princeton.
We have the jolliest times at the table--everybody laughs and jokes and
talks at once, and we don't have to say grace beforehand. It's a relief not
having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. (I dare say I'm
blasphemous; but you'd be, too, if you'd offered as much obligatory thanks
as I have.)
Such a lot of things we've done--I can't begin to tell you about them.
Mr. McBride owns a factory and Christmas eve he had a tree for the
employees' children. It was in the long packing-room which was
decorated with evergreens and holly. Jimmie McBride was dressed as
Santa Claus and Sallie and I helped him distribute the presents.
Dear me, Daddy, but it was a funny sensation! I felt as benevolent as
a Trustee of the John Grier home. I kissed one sweet, sticky little boy--
but I don't think I patted any of them on the head!
And two days after Christmas, they gave a dance at their own house
for ME.
It was the first really true ball I ever attended--college doesn't count
where we dance with girls. I had a new white evening gown (your
Christmas present--many thanks) and long white gloves and white satin
slippers. The only drawback to my perfect, utter, absolute happiness was
the fact that Mrs. Lippett couldn't see me leading the cotillion with Jimmie
McBride. Tell her about it, please, the next time you visit the J. G. H.
Yours ever, Judy Abbott
PS. Would you be terribly displeased, Daddy, if I didn't turn out to
be a Great Author after all, but just a Plain Girl?
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
41
6.30, Saturday Dear Daddy,
We started to walk to town today, but mercy! how it poured. I like
winter to be winter with snow instead of rain.
Julia's desirable uncle called again this afternoon--and brought a fivepound
box of chocolates. There are advantages, you see, about rooming
with Julia.
Our innocent prattle appeared to amuse him and he waited for a later
train in order to take tea in the study. We had an awful lot of trouble
getting permission. It's hard enough entertaining fathers and
grandfathers, but uncles are a step worse; and as for brothers and cousins,
they are next to impossible. Julia had to swear that he was her uncle
before a notary public and then have the county clerk's certificate attached.
(Don't I know a lot of law?) And even then I doubt if we could have had
our tea if the Dean had chanced to see how youngish and good-looking
Uncle Jervis is.
Anyway, we had it, with brown bread Swiss cheese sandwiches. He
helped make them and then ate four. I told him that I had spent last
summer at Lock Willow, and we had a beautiful gossipy time about the
Semples, and the horses and cows and chickens. All the horses that he
used to know are dead, except Grover, who was a baby colt at the time of
his last visit--and poor Grove now is so old he can just limp about the
pasture.
He asked if they still kept doughnuts in a yellow crock with a blue
plate over it on the bottom shelf of the pantry--and they do! He wanted
to know if there was still a woodchuck's hole under the pile of rocks in the
night pasture--and there is! Amasai caught a big, fat, grey one there this
summer, the twenty-fifth great-grandson of the one Master Jervis caught
when he was a little boy.
I called him `Master Jervie' to his face, but he didn't appear to be
insulted. Julia says she has never seen him so amiable; he's usually
pretty unapproachable. But Julia hasn't a bit of tact; and men, I find,
require a great deal. They purr if you rub them the right way and spit if
you don't. (That isn't a very elegant metaphor. I mean it figuratively.)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
42
We're reading Marie Bashkirtseff's journal. Isn't it amazing? Listen
to this: `Last night I was seized by a fit of despair that found utterance in
moans, and that finally drove me to throw the dining-room clock into the
sea.'
It makes me almost hope I'm not a genius; they must be very wearing
to have about--and awfully destructive to the furniture.
Mercy! how it keeps Pouring. We shall have to swim to chapel
tonight. Yours ever, Judy
20th Jan. Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Did you ever have a sweet baby girl who was stolen from the cradle in
infancy?
Maybe I am she! If we were in a novel, that would be the
denouement, wouldn't it?
It's really awfully queer not to know what one is--sort of exciting and
romantic. There are such a lot of possibilities. Maybe I'm not
American; lots of people aren't. I may be straight descended from the
ancient Romans, or I may be a Viking's daughter, or I may be the child of a
Russian exile and belong by rights in a Siberian prison, or maybe I'm a
Gipsy--I think perhaps I am. I have a very WANDERING spirit, though
I haven't as yet had much chance to develop it.
Do you know about that one scandalous blot in my career the time I
ran away from the asylum because they punished me for stealing cookies?
It's down in the books free for any Trustee to read. But really, Daddy,
what could you expect? When you put a hungry little nine-year girl in
the pantry scouring knives, with the cookie jar at her elbow, and go off and
leave her alone; and then suddenly pop in again, wouldn't you expect to
find her a bit crumby? And then when you jerk her by the elbow and box
her ears, and make her leave the table when the pudding comes, and tell all
the other children that it's because she's a thief, wouldn't you expect her to
run away?
I only ran four miles. They caught me and brought me back; and
every day for a week I was tied, like a naughty puppy, to a stake in the
back yard while the other children were out at recess.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
43
Oh, dear! There's the chapel bell, and after chapel I have a
committee meeting. I'm sorry because I meant to write you a very
entertaining letter this time. Auf wiedersehen Cher
Daddy, Pax tibi! Judy
PS. There's one thing I'm perfectly sure of I'm not a Chinaman.
4th February Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Jimmie McBride has sent me a Princeton banner as big as one end of
the room; I am very grateful to him for remembering me, but I don't know
what on earth to do with it. Sallie and Julia won't let me hang it up; our
room this year is furnished in red, and you can imagine what an effect
we'd have if I added orange and black. But it's such nice, warm, thick
felt, I hate to waste it. Would it be very improper to have it made into a
bath robe? My old one shrank when it was washed.
I've entirely omitted of late telling you what I am learning, but though
you might not imagine it from my letters, my time is exclusively occupied
with study. It's a very bewildering matter to get educated in five
branches at once.
`The test of true scholarship,' says Chemistry Professor, `is a
painstaking passion for detail.'
`Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail,' says History
Professor. `Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.'
You can see with what nicety we have to trim our sails between
chemistry and history. I like the historical method best. If I say that
William the Conqueror came over in 1492, and Columbus discovered
America in 1100 or 1066 or whenever it was, that's a mere detail that the
Professor overlooks. It gives a feeling of security and restfulness to the
history recitation, that is entirely lacking in chemistry.
Sixth-hour bell--I must go to the laboratory and look into a little matter
of acids and salts and alkalis. I've burned a hole as big as a plate in the
front of my chemistry apron, with hydrochloric acid. If the theory
worked, I ought to be able to neutralize that hole with good strong
ammonia, oughtn't I?
Examinations next week, but who's afraid? Yours ever,
Judy
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
44
5th March Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
There is a March wind blowing, and the sky is filled with heavy, black
moving clouds. The crows in the pine trees are making such a clamour!
It's an intoxicating, exhilarating, CALLING noise. You want to close
your books and be off over the hills to race with the wind.
We had a paper chase last Saturday over five miles of squashy 'cross
country. The fox (composed of three girls and a bushel or so of confetti)
started half an hour before the twenty-seven hunters. I was one of the
twenty-seven; eight dropped by the wayside; we ended nineteen. The
trail led over a hill, through a cornfield, and into a swamp where we had to
leap lightly from hummock to hummock. of course half of us went in
ankle deep. We kept losing the trail, and we wasted twenty-five minutes
over that swamp. Then up a hill through some woods and in at a barn
window! The barn doors were all locked and the window was up high
and pretty small. I don't call that fair, do you?
But we didn't go through; we circumnavigated the barn and picked up
the trail where it issued by way of a low shed roof on to the top of a fence.
The fox thought he had us there, but we fooled him. Then straight away
over two miles of rolling meadow, and awfully hard to follow, for the
confetti was getting sparse. The rule is that it must be at the most six feet
apart, but they were the longest six feet I ever saw. Finally, after two
hours of steady trotting, we tracked Monsieur Fox into the kitchen of
Crystal Spring (that's a farm where the girls go in bob sleighs and hay
wagons for chicken and waffle suppers) and we found the three foxes
placidly eating milk and honey and biscuits. They hadn't thought we
would get that far; they were expecting us to stick in the barn window.
Both sides insist that they won. I think we did, don't you? Because
we caught them before they got back to the campus. Anyway, all
nineteen of us settled like locusts over the furniture and clamoured for
honey. There wasn't enough to go round, but Mrs. Crystal Spring (that's
our pet name for her; she's by rights a Johnson) brought up a jar of
strawberry jam and a can of maple syrup-- just made last week--and three
loaves of brown bread.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
45
We didn't get back to college till half-past six--half an hour late for
dinner--and we went straight in without dressing, and with perfectly
unimpaired appetites! Then we all cut evening chapel, the state of our
boots being enough of an excuse.
I never told you about examinations. I passed everything with the
utmost ease--I know the secret now, and am never going to fail again. I
shan't be able to graduate with honours though, because of that beastly
Latin prose and geometry Freshman year. But I don't care. Wot's the
hodds so long as you're 'appy? (That's a quotation. I've been reading
the English classics.)
Speaking of classics, have you ever read Hamlet? If you haven't, do
it right off. It's PERFECTLY CORKING. I've been hearing about
Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always
suspected him of going largely on his reputation.
I have a beautiful play that I invented a long time ago when I first
learned to read. I put myself to sleep every night by pretending I'm the
person (the most important person) in the book I'm reading at the moment.
At present I'm Ophelia--and such a sensible Ophelia! I keep Hamlet
amused all the time, and pet him and scold him and make him wrap up his
throat when he has a cold. I've entirely cured him of being melancholy.
The King and Queen are both dead--an accident at sea; no funeral
necessary--so Hamlet and I are ruling in Denmark without any bother.
We have the kingdom working beautifully. He takes care of the
governing, and I look after the charities. I have just founded some firstclass
orphan asylums. If you or any of the other Trustees would like to
visit them, I shall be pleased to show you through. I think you might find
a great many helpful suggestions. I remain, sir, Yours most
graciously, OPHELIA, Queen of Denmark.
24th March, maybe the 25th Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I don't believe I can be going to Heaven--I am getting such a lot of
good things here; it wouldn't be fair to get them hereafter too. Listen to
what has happened.
Jerusha Abbott has won the short-story contest (a twenty-five dollar
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
46
prize) that the Monthly holds every year. And she's a Sophomore! The
contestants are mostly Seniors. When I saw my name posted, I couldn't
quite believe it was true. Maybe I am going to be an author after all. I
wish Mrs. Lippett hadn't given me such a silly name-- it sounds like an
author-ess, doesn't it?
Also I have been chosen for the spring dramatics--As You Like It out
of doors. I am going to be Celia, own cousin to Rosalind.
And lastly: Julia and Sallie and I are going to New York next Friday
to do some spring shopping and stay all night and go to the theatre the
next day with `Master Jervie.' He invited us. Julia is going to stay at
home with her family, but Sallie and I are going to stop at the Martha
Washington Hotel. Did you ever hear of anything so exciting? I've
never been in a hotel in my life, nor in a theatre; except once when the
Catholic Church had a festival and invited the orphans, but that wasn't a
real play and it doesn't count.
And what do you think we're going to see? Hamlet. Think of that!
We studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare class and I know it by heart.
I am so excited over all these prospects that I can scarcely sleep.
Goodbye, Daddy.
This is a very entertaining world. Yours ever, Judy
PS. I've just looked at the calendar. It's the 28th.
Another postscript.
I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue.
Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story?
7th April Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Mercy! Isn't New York big? Worcester is nothing to it. Do you
mean to tell me that you actually live in all that confusion? I don't
believe that I shall recover for months from the bewildering effect of two
days of it. I can't begin to tell you all the amazing things I've seen; I
suppose you know, though, since you live there yourself.
But aren't the streets entertaining? And the people? And the shops?
I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. It makes you
want to devote your life to wearing clothes.
Sallie and Julia and I went shopping together Saturday morning.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
47
Julia went into the very most gorgeous place I ever saw, white and gold
walls and blue carpets and blue silk curtains and gilt chairs. A perfectly
beautiful lady with yellow hair and a long black silk trailing gown came to
meet us with a welcoming smile. I thought we were paying a social call,
and started to shake hands, but it seems we were only buying hats--at least
Julia was. She sat down in front of a mirror and tried on a dozen, each
lovelier than the last, and bought the two loveliest of all.
I can't imagine any joy in life greater than sitting down in front of a
mirror and buying any hat you choose without having first to consider the
price! There's no doubt about it, Daddy; New York would rapidly
undermine this fine stoical character which the John Grier Home so
patiently built up.
And after we'd finished our shopping, we met Master Jervie at Sherry's.
I suppose you've been in Sherry's? Picture that, then picture the diningroom
of the John Grier Home with its oilcloth-covered tables, and white
crockery that you CAN'T break, and wooden-handled knives and forks;
and fancy the way I felt!
I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but the waiter very kindly gave me
another so that nobody noticed.
And after luncheon we went to the theatre--it was dazzling, marvellous,
unbelievable--I dream about it every night.
Isn't Shakespeare wonderful?
Hamlet is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in class;
I appreciated it before, but now, clear me!
I think, if you don't mind, that I'd rather be an actress than a writer.
Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school?
And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you
across the footlights. Only wear a red rose in your buttonhole, please, so
I'll surely smile at the right man. It would be an awfully embarrassing
mistake if I picked out the wrong one.
We came back Saturday night and had our dinner in the train, at little
tables with pink lamps and negro waiters. I never heard of meals being
served in trains before, and I inadvertently said so.
`Where on earth were you brought up?' said Julia to me.
DADDY-LONG-LEGS
48
`In a village,' said I meekly, to Julia.
`But didn't you ever travel?' said she to me.
`Not till I came to college, and then it was only a hundred and sixty
miles and we didn't eat,' said I to her.
She's getting quite interested in me, because I say such funny things.
I try hard not to, but they do pop out when I'm surprised-- and I'm
surprised most of the time. It's a dizzying experience, Daddy, to pass
eighteen years in the John Grier Home, and then suddenly to be plunged
into the WORLD.
But I'm getting acclimated. I don't make such awful mistakes as I did;
and I don't feel uncomfortable any more with the other girls. I used to
squirm whenever people looked at me. I felt as though they saw right
through my sham new clothes to the checked ginghams underneath. But
I'm not letting the ginghams bother me any more. Sufficient unto
yesterday is the evil thereof.
I forgot to tell you about our flowers. Master Jervie gave us each a
big bunch of violets and lilies-of-the-valley. Wasn't that sweet of him? I
never used to care much for men--judging by Trustees-- but I'm changing
my mind.
Eleven pages--this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop.
Yours always, Judy
10th April Dear Mr. Rich-Man,
Here's your cheque for fifty dollars. Thank you very much, but I do
not feel that I can keep it. My allowance is sufficient to afford all of the
hats that I need. I am sorry that I wrote all that silly stuff about the
millinery shop; it's just that I had never seen anything like it before.
However, I wasn't begging! And I would rather not accept any more
charity than I have to. Sincerely yours,Jerusha Abbott