Тексты для домашнего чтения "Daddy-Long-Legs"

JEAN WEBSTER

DADDY-LONG-LEGS

Blue Wednesday

The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day – a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” whenever a Trustee spoke.

It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the asylum’s guests, and turned upstairs to accomplish her regular work. Her special care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied eleven little cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly and willing line towards the dining-room to engage themselves for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding.

Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody’s bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron, Mrs. Lippett.

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 standing along the hillside.

Jerusha had an imagination – an imagination, Mrs. Lippett told her, that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care – but strong 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 undisturbed by orphans.

Je-ru-sha Ab-bott

You are wan-ted

In the of-fice,

And I think you’d

Better hurry up!

Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha tore 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!

Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow. What could have gone wrong, she wondered.

The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, a last Trustee stood, on the point of departure, in the open door that led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha caught only a slight impression of the man – and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. He was waving his arm towards an automobile waiting in the curved drive. As it sprang into motion and approached, 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 big, wavering daddy-long-legs.

Jerusha’s anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always taken the smallest excuse to be amused. She advanced to the office quite cheered by the episode, and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett. To her surprise the matron was also, if not exactly smiling, at least noticeably friendly; she wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she used 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.

“Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone?”

“I saw his back.”

“He is one of our richest Trustees, and has given large sums of money for the asylum’s support. I am not at liberty to mention his name; he insisted on remaining unknown.”

Jerusha’s eyes widened slightly; she was not accustomed to being called 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 to college by Mr. – er – this Trustee, and both have repaid with hard work and success the money that was so generously spent. Other payment the gentleman does not wish. I have never been able to interest him in the slightest degree in any of the girls in the institution, no matter how deserving.

He does not, I may tell you, care for girls.”

“No, ma’am,” Jerusha murmured, since some reply seemed to be expected at this point.

“To-day at the regular meeting, the question of your future was raised.

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 decided to let you go on in the village high school. Now you are finishing that, and of course the asylum cannot be responsible any longer for your support. As it is, you have had two years more than most.”

Mrs. Lippett overlooked the fact that Jerusha had worked hard for her board during those two years, that the convenience of the asylum had come first and her education second; that on days like the present she was kept at home to scrub.

“As I say, the question of your future was raised and your record was discussed – thoroughly discussed. Of course the usual way for 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 made a speech in your favor. She also read aloud an essay that you had written entitled, “Blue Wednesday”.

It seemed to me that you showed little gratitude in trying 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 luckily for you, Mr. – , that is, the gentleman who has just gone – appears to have a good 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 wrong. He believes that you have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become a writer.”

“A writer?” Jerusha’s mind was numbed. She could only repeat Mrs. Lippett’s words.

“That is his wish. Whether anything will come of it, the future will show. He is giving you a very liberal allowance, almost, for a girl who has never had any experience in taking care of money, too liberal. But he planned the matter in detail, and I did not feel free to make any suggestions. Your board and tuition will be paid directly to the college, and you will receive in addition during the four years you are there, an allowance of thirty-five dollars a month. This will enable you to enter on the same standing as the other students. The money will be sent to you by the gentleman’s private secretary once a month, and in return, you will write a letter of acknowledgment once a month. That is – you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn’t care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life. Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living.

These letters will be addressed to Mr. John Smith and will be sent in care of the secretary. The gentleman’s name is not John Smith, but he prefers to remain unknown. To you he will never be anything but John Smith. His reason in requiring the letters is that he thinks nothing helps better to become a writer than letter-writing. Since you have no family with whom to correspond, he wants you to write in this way; also, he wishes to be informed of your progress. He will never answer your letters, nor take any notice of them. He hates letter-writing and does not wish you to become a burden. If any point should ever arise where an answer would seem to be necessary – 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 accurate 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 looked for the door. Her head was in a whirl of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett’s dull remarks, and think. She rose and took a step backwards. Mrs. Lippett stopped her with a gesture:

“Not many girls in your position ever have such an opportunity to rise in the world. You must always remember – ”

“I – yes, ma’am, thank you. I think, if that’s all, I must go and sew a patch on Freddie Perkins’s trousers.” The door closed behind her, and Mrs. Lippett watched it with dropped jaw, her last words in mid-air.

The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith

215 Fergussen Hall

September 24th

Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,

Here I am! I travelled yesterday for four hours in a train. It’s a funny sensation, isn’t it? I never rode in one before.

College is the biggest, most bewildering place – I get lost whenever I leave my room. I will write you a description later when I’m feeling less confused; 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 strange to be writing letters to somebody you don’t know. It seems strange for me to be writing letters at all – I’ve never written more than three or four in my life, so please excuse me if these are not a model kind.

Before leaving yesterday morning, Mrs. Lippett and I had a very serious talk. She told me how to behave all the rest of my life, and especially how to behave towards the kind gentleman who is doing so much for me. I must take care to be Very Respectful.

But how can one be very respectful to a person who wishes to be called John Smith? Why couldn’t you have picked out a name with a little personality?

I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I belonged to somebody now, and it’s a very comfortable feeling. 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. So I’ve decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you won’t mind. It’s just a private pet name we won’t tell Mrs. Lippett.

The ten o’clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells. It’s very enlivening; I feel like a fire horse all of the time. There it goes! Lights out. Good night.

Observe with what precision I obey rules – due to my training in the John Grier Home.

Yours most respectfully,

Jerusha Abbott.

To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith

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 hardly sleep. You can’t imagine how different it is from the John Grier Home. I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I’m feeling sorry for everybody who isn’t a girl and who can’t come here; I am sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn’t have been so nice.

My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward before they built the new infirmary. There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower – a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn’t noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles. Usually Freshmen can’t get singles; they are very few, but I got one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn’t think it would be right to ask a properly brought up girl to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages!

After you’ve lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty room-mates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance I’ve ever had to get acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I’m going to like her.

Do you think you are?

Tuesday

They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there’s just a chance that I shall get in it. I’m little of course, but terribly quick and strong. While the others are hopping about in the air, I can get under their feet and grab the ball. It’s a lot 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 sport clothes.

Don’t you hope I’ll make the team?

Yours always,

Jerusha Abbott

PS. (9 o’clock.)

Sallie McBride just put 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?

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, doesn’t he? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you’ve never learned. It’s very confusing at times. But now, when the girls talk about things that I’v never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.

I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I’m just as bright in class as any of the others – and brighter than some of them!

Sallie is the most amusing person in the world – and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It’s strange what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of roommates. 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.

Jerusha Abbott

Wednesday

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I’ve changed my name.

I’m still “Jerusha” in the catalogue, but I’m “Judy” everywhere else. I didn’t quite make up the Judy though. That’s what Freddy Perkins used to call me before he could talk plainly.

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.

(Dinner bell. Goodbye.)

Friday

What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It doesn’t seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I’ve had? The aim of the John Grier Home is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.

I hope that I don’t hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn’t a very polite thing to say – but you can’t expect me to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn’t a young ladies’ finishing school.

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 hanging 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 difference, do you?

Anyway, Sallie McBride likes me!

Yours ever,

Judy Abbott (Nee Jerusha.)

October 25th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I’m in the basketball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It’s blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Julia Pendleton tried for the team, but she didn’t get in. Hooray! You see what a mean disposition I have. College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush.

You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn’t you? And I’ve been peppering you with letters every few days! But I’ve been so excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; and you’re the only one I know. Please excuse my being so chatty; I’ll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always throw them into the waste-basket. I promise not to write another till the middle of November.

Yours most talkative,

Judy Abbott

November 15th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

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. You gave them to me, and I am very, very, VERY much obliged. It’s a fine thing to be educated – but it’s nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses.

I suppose you’re thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast she is, and what a waste of money to educate a girl?

But, Daddy, if you’d been dressed in checked ginghams all your life, you’d appreciate how I feel. And when I started to the high school, I entered upon another period even worse than the checked ginghams.

You can’t know how I feared 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.

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.

December 19th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You never answered my question and it was very important. ARE YOU BALD?

I have it planned exactly what you look like – very satisfactorily – until I reach the top of your head, and then I stop. I can’t decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.

Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They’re grey, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof, and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You’re an actual old thing with a temper.

(Chapel bell.)

9.45 p.m.

I have a new unbreakable rule: never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books – I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn’t believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself.

I never read “Mother Goose” or “David Copperfield” or “Ivanhoe” or “Cinderella” or “Blue Beard” or “Robinson Crusoe” or “Jane Eyre” or “Alice in Wonderland” or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn’t know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn’t know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn’t know that 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 a “do not disturb” 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 lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn’t enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they’re Tennyson’s poems and “Vanity Fair” and Kipling’s “Plain Tales”. I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn’t brought up on “Little Women”. I haven’t told anybody though (that would stamp me as strange). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month’s allowance.

(Ten o’clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)

Sunday

The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so noisy with excitement that studying is getting left out. I’m going to have a beautiful time in vacation; there’s another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks and if there’s any ice – learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read – and three empty weeks to do it in!

Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am.

Yours ever,

Judy

P.S. Don’t forget to answer my question. If you don’t want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can just say:

Mr. Smith is quite bald,

or

Mr. Smith is not bald,

or

Mr. Smith has white hair.

And you can spend the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.

Goodbye till January – and a merry Christmas!

Towards the end of

the Christmas vacation.

Exact date unknown

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is covered in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It’s late afternoon – the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I’m not used to receiving Christmas presents. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold’s poems.

III. A hot-water bottle.

IV. A rug. (My tower is cold.)

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I’m going to start being an author pretty soon.)

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author’s vocabulary.)

VII. (I don’t much like to confess this last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don’t tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings every night. But just wait – as soon as she gets back from vacation I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I’m honest; and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn’t perfect, didn’t you?

And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested in my education as such?

The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny as Jerusha, isn’t it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride; I shall never like any one so much as Sallie – except you. I must always like you the best of all, because you’re my whole family. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked cross country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighbourhood. Once we walked into town – four miles – and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner. It was such a fun! Especially for me, because it was so awfully different from the asylum.

Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely…

Eleven pages – poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be just a short little thank-you note – but when I get started I seem to have a ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me – I should be perfectly happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations come in February.

Yours with love,

Judy

P.S. Maybe it isn’t proper to send love? If it isn’t, please excuse. But I must love somebody and there’s only you and Mrs. Lippett to choose between, so you see – you’ll HAVE to put up with it, Daddy dear, because I can’t love her.

On the Eve

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You should see the way this college is studying!

We’ve forgotten we ever had a vacation. Fifty-seven irregular verbs have I introduced to my brain in the past four days – I’m only hoping they’ll stay till after examinations.

Some of the girls sell their text-books when they’re through with them, but I intend to keep mine. Then after I’ve graduated I shall have my whole education in a row in the bookcase, and when I need to use any detail, I can turn to it without the slightest hesitation. So much easier and more accurate than trying to keep it in your head.

Julia Pendleton dropped in this evening to pay a social call, and stayed a full hour. She got started on the subject of family, and I COULDN’T switch her off. She wanted to know what my mother’s maiden name was – did you ever hear such an impertinent question to ask of a person from a foundling asylum? I didn’t have the courage to say I didn’t know, so I just miserably mentioned the first name I could think of, and that was Montgomery. Then she wanted to know whether I belonged to the Massachusetts Montgomerys or the Virginia Montgomerys.

Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father’s side they date back further than Adam.

I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter tonight, but I’m too sleepy – and frightened. The Freshman’s lot is not a happy one.

Yours, about to be examined,

Judy Abbott

Sunday

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

I have some awful, awful, awful news to tell you, but I won’t begin with it; I’ll try to get you in a good humour first.

Jerusha Abbott has commenced to be an author. A poem entitled, “From my Tower”, appears in the February Monthly – on the first page, which is a very great honour for a Freshman. 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.

This is the sunniest, most blinding winter afternoon, with icicles dripping from the fir trees and all the world bending under a weight of snow – except me, and I’m bending under a weight of sorrow.

Now for the news – courage, Judy! – you must tell.

Are you SURELY in a good humour? I failed in mathematics and Latin prose. I am tutoring in them, and will take another examination next month. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but otherwise I don’t care a bit because I’ve learned such a lot of things not mentioned in the catalogue. I’ve read seventeen novels and lot of poetry – really necessary novels like “Vanity Fair” and “Alice in Wonderland”.

So you see, Daddy, I’m much more intelligent than if I’d just learnt only Latin. Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to fail again?

Yours in sackcloth and ashes,

Judy

The Ides of March

Dear D.-L.-L.,

I am studying Latin prose composition. My re-examination comes the 7th hour next Tuesday, and I am going to pass or BUST. So you may expect to hear from me next, whole and happy and free from conditions, or in fragments.

I will write a respectable letter when it’s over. Tonight I have a pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute.

Yours – in evident haste,

J. A.

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 dull writing to a Thing. I haven’t a doubt but that you throw my letters into the waste-basket without reading them.

In future I shall write only about work. My re-examinations in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed them both and am now free from conditions.

Yours truly,

Jerusha Abbott

April 2nd

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 coming down 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 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

April 4th

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

Yesterday evening just towards dark, when I was sitting up in bed looking out at the rain and feeling awfully bored with life in a great institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box addressed to me, and filled with the LOVELIEST pink rosebuds. And much nicer still, it contained a card with a very polite message written in a funny little uphill back hand (but one which shows a great deal of character). Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. Your flowers make the first real, true present I ever received in my life. If you want to know what a baby I am I lay down and cried because I was so happy.

Now that I am sure you read my letters, I’ll make them much more interesting, so they’ll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape around them – only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up. I’d hate to think that you ever read it over.

Thank you for making a very sick, cross, miserable Freshman cheerful. Probably you have lots of loving family and friends, and you don’t know what it feels like to be alone. But I do.

Goodbye – I’ll promise never to be horrid again, because now I know you’re a real person; also I’ll promise never to bother you with any more questions. Do you still hate girls?

Yours for ever,

Judy

After chapel, Thursday

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

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.

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.

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

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 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 started to tell you about the campus. I wish you’d come for a little visit and let me walk you about.

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 go on:

I have been walking and talking and having tea with a man. And with a very superior man – with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of the House of Julia; her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; he’s as tall as you.) Being in town on business, he decided to run out to the college and call on his niece. He’s her father’s youngest brother, but she doesn’t know him very intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he didn’t like her, and has never noticed her since.

Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper with his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie with seventh-hour recitations that they couldn’t cut. So Julia ran 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?

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 and the funniest 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 hardly 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.

I make you my compliments.

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?

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 go 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?

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.

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 and old. A hundred years or so. It has a veranda on the side and a sweet porch in front. It stands on the top of a hill and looks way off over miles of green meadows to another line of hills.

The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a hired girl and two hired men. The hired people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples and Judy in the dining-room. We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and jelly-cake and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper – and a great deal of conversation. I have never been so entertaining in my life; everything I say appears to be funny. I suppose it is, because I’ve never been in the country before, and my questions seem very funny to them.

The room I occupy is big and square and empty, with adorable old-fashioned furniture. And a big square mahogany table – I’m going to spend the summer with my elbows spread out on it, writing a novel.

Good night,

Judy

Lock Willow,

July 12th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That isn’t a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence? She still calls him “Master Jervie” and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of his baby curls put away in a box, and it is red – or at least reddish!

Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much in her opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best introduction one can have at Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole family is Master 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. 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 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. I haven’t had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm keeps me too busy.

Yours always,

Judy

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.

This is Sunday afternoon.

Sir,

I remain,

Your affectionate orphan,

Judy Abbott

September 15th

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

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 to it and had not just crept in.

And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom do you think I am rooming with? Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. It’s the truth. We have a study and three little bedrooms – VOILA!

Sallie and I decided last spring that we should like to room together, and Julia made up her mind to stay with Sallie – why, I can’t imagine, for they are not a bit alike. Anyway, here we are. Think of Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier Home for Orphans, rooming with a Pendleton.

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.

Yours in politics,

J. Abbott

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. Wouldn’t it be funny to be drowned in lemon jelly?

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 strain to be living in the same house with a president.

Bonne nuit, cher Daddy.

Acceptez mez compliments,

Tres respectueux,

Je suis,

Votre Judy

November 12th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

We beat the Freshmen at basketball yesterday. Of course we’re pleased – but oh, if we could only beat the Juniors! I’d be willing to be black and blue all over and stay in bed a week in a witch-hazel compress.

Sallie has invited me to spend the Christmas vacation with her. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wasn’t it nice of her? I shall love to go. I’ve never been in a private family in my life, except at Lock Willow, and the Semples were grown-up and old and don’t count. But the McBrides have a house full of children (anyway two or three) and a mother and father and grandmother, and an Angora cat. It’s a perfectly complete family! 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 fun?

Yours,

J. A.

“Stone Gate”,

Worcester, Mass.,

December 31st

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 busy, and I don’t seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.

I’ve been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie. She lives in a big old-fashioned brick house – 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.

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.

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

P.S. Would you be terribly displeased, Daddy, if I didn’t turn out to be a Great Author after all, but just a Plain Girl?

6.30, Saturday

Dear Daddy,

We started to walk to town today, but mercy! how it poured. I like winter to be winter with snow instead of rain.

Julia’s desirable uncle called again this afternoon – and brought a five-pound box of chocolates. There are advantages, you see, about rooming with Julia.

Our innocent chat 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.

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 wanted to know a lot of things about the life of the farm and I did my best to satisfy his curiosity.

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.

Mercy! how it keeps Pouring. We shall have to swim to chapel tonight.

Yours ever,

Judy

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 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.

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.

Speaking of classics, have you ever read “Hamlet”? If you haven’t, do it right off. It’s PERFECTLY EXITING. 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 remain, sir,

Yours most graciously,

Ophelia

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 wouldn’t be fair to get them hereafter too. Listen to what has happened.

Jerusha Abbott has won the short-story contest (a twenty-five dollar prize) that the Monthly holds every year. And she’s a Sophomore! The contestants are mostly Seniors. When I saw my name posted, I couldn’t quite believe it was true. Maybe I am going to be an author after all. I wish Mrs. Lippett hadn’t given me such a silly name – it sounds like an author-ess, doesn’t it?

Also I have been chosen for the spring dramatics – “As You Like It” out of doors. I am going to be Celia, own cousin to Rosalind.

And lastly: Julia and Sallie and I are going to New York next Friday to do some spring shopping and stay all night and go to the theatre the next day with “Master Jervie”. He invited us. Julia is going to stay at home with her family, but Sallie and I are going to stop at the Martha Washington Hotel.

Did you ever hear of anything so exciting? I’ve never been in a hotel in my life, nor in a theatre; except once when the Catholic Church had a festival and invited the orphans, but that wasn’t a real play and it doesn’t count.

And what do you think we’re going to see? “Hamlet”. Think of that! We studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare class and I know it by heart.

I am so excited over all these prospects that I can scarcely sleep. Goodbye, Daddy. This is a very entertaining world.

Yours ever,

Judy

April 7th

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.

And after we’d finished our shopping, we met Master Jervie at Sherry’s. I suppose you’ve been in Sherry’s? Picture that, then picture the dining-room of the John Grier Home with its oilcloth-covered tables, and white crockery that you CAN’T break, and wooden-handled knives and forks; and fancy the way I felt!

I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but the waiter very kindly gave me another so that nobody noticed.

And after luncheon we went to the theatre – it was dazzling, marvellous, unbelievable – I dream about it every night.

Isn’t Shakespeare wonderful?

“Hamlet” is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in class; I appreciated it before, but now, dear 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.

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 thoughtlessly said so.

“Where on earth were you brought up?” said Julia to me.

“In a village,” said I meekly, to Julia.

“But didn’t you ever travel?” said she to me.

“Not till I came to college, and then it was only a hundred and sixty miles and we didn’t eat,” said I to her.

She’s getting quite interested in me, because I say such funny things. I try hard not to, but they do pop out when I’m surprised – and I’m surprised most of the time. It’s a dizzying experience, Daddy, to pass eighteen years in the John Grier Home, and then suddenly to be plunged into the WORLD.

But I’m getting acclimated. I don’t make such awful mistakes as I did; and I don’t feel uncomfortable any more with the other girls.

I 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.

Yours always,

Judy

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 ribbons. Also we had a band in blue uniforms hired from town. Also about a dozen funny people, like clowns in a circus, to keep the spectators entertained between events.

Julia was dressed as a fat country man with a linen duster and whiskers and baggy umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patrici really. Did you ever hear such a name?) who is tall and thin was Julia’s wife in a absurd green bonnet over one ear. Waves of laughter followed them the whole length of the course.

Julia played the part extremely well. I never dreamed that a Pendleton could display so much comedy spirit – begging Master Jervie’s pardon; I don’t consider him a true Pendleton though, any more than I consider you a true Trustee.

Sallie and I weren’t in the parade because we were entered for the events. And what do you think? We both won! At least in something. We tried for the running broad jump and lost; but Sallie won the pole-vaulting (seven feet three inches) and I won the fifty-yard sprint (eight seconds).

I was pretty panting at the end, but it was great fun, with the whole class waving balloons and cheering and yelling:

What’s the matter with Judy Abbott?

She’s all right.

Who’s all right?

Judy Ab-bott!

That, Daddy, is true fame. Then trotting back to the dressing tent and being rubbed down with alcohol and having a lemon to suck. You see we’re very professional. It’s a fine thing to win an event for your class, because the class that wins the most gets the athletic cup for the year. The Seniors won it this year, with seven events to their credit. The athletic association gave a dinner in the sport hall to all of the winners. We had fried soft-shell crabs, and chocolate ice-cream moulded in the shape of basket balls.

I sat up half of last night reading “Jane Eyre”. I can’t see how any girl could have written such a book, especially any girl who was brought up in a churchyard. There’s something about those Brontes that fascinates me. Their books, their lives, their spirit. Where did they get it? When I was reading about little Jane’s troubles in the charity school, I got so angry that I had to go out and take a walk. I understood exactly how she felt. Having known Mrs. Lippett, I could see Mr. Brocklehurst.

Don’t be outraged, Daddy. I am not intimating that the John Grier Home was like the Lowood Institute. We had plenty to eat and plenty to wear, sufficient water to wash in, and a furnace in the cellar. But there was one deadly likeness. Our lives were absolutely monotonous and uneventful. Nothing nice ever happened, except ice-cream on Sundays, and even that was regular. In all the eighteen years I was there I only had one adventure – when the woodshed burned.

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.

Wait until you see the orphan asylum that I am going to be the head of! It’s my favourite play at night before I go to sleep. I plan it out to the littlest detail – the meals and clothes and study and amusements and punishments; for even my superior orphans are sometimes bad.

But anyway, they are going to be happy. I think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. And if I ever have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up.

Goodbye, nice Mr. Man,

Judy

June 2nd

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You will never guess the nice thing that has happened.

The McBrides have asked me to spend the summer at their camp in the Adirondacks! They belong to a sort of club on a lovely little lake in the middle of the woods. The different members have houses made of logs dotted about among the trees, and they go canoeing on the lake, and take long walks through trails to other camps, and have dances once a week in the club house – Jimmie McBride is going to have a college friend visiting him part of the summer, so you see we shall have plenty of men to dance with.

Wasn’t it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask me? It appears that she liked me when I was there for Christmas.

Please excuse this being short. It isn’t a real letter; it’s just to let you know that I’m invited for the summer.

Yours,

In a VERY contented frame of mind,

Judy

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 an I can do lots of useful things. It’s a fine chance for me to learn housekeeping. Every woman ought to understand it, an I only know asylum-keeping.

There aren’t any girls our age at the camp, and Mrs. McBride wants me for a companion for Sallie. We are planning to do a lot of reading together. We are going to read all of the books for next year’s English and sociology. The Professor said it would be a great help if we would get our reading finished in the summer; and it’s so much easier to remember it if we read together and talk it over.

Just to live in the same house with Sallie’s mother is an education. She’s the most interesting, entertaining, companionable, charming woman in the world; she knows everything. Think how many summers I’ve spent with Mrs. Lippett and how I’ll appreciate the contrast. You needn’t be afraid that I’ll be crowding them. It’s going to be such a nice, healthy summer exercising out of doors every minute. Jimmie McBride is going to teach me how to ride horseback and paddle a canoe, and how to shoot and – oh, lots of things I ought to know. It’s the kind of nice, jolly, care-free time that I’ve never had; and I think every girl deserves it once in her life. Of course I’ll do exactly as you say, but please, PLEASE let me go, Daddy. I’ve never wanted anything so much.

This isn’t Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, writing to you. It’s just Judy – a girl.

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

Lock Willow Farm,

August Third

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

It has been nearly two months since I wrote, which wasn’t nice of me, 3rd I know, but I haven’t loved you much this summer – you see I’m being frank!

You can’t imagine how disappointed I was at having to give up the McBrides’ camp. Of course I know that you’re my guardian, and that I have to regard your wishes in all matters, but I couldn’t see any REASON. It was so distinctly the best thing that could have happened to me. If I had been Daddy, and you had been Judy, I should have said, “Bless you my child, run along and have a good time; see lots of new people and learn lots of new things; live out of doors, and get strong and well and rested for a year of hard work.”

But not at all! Just a curt line from your secretary ordering me to Lock Willow.

It’s the impersonality of your commands that hurts my feelings. It seems as though, if you felt the tiniest little bit for me the way I feel for you, you’d sometimes send me a message that you’d written with your own hand, instead of those beastly typewritten secretary’s notes. If there were the slightest hint that you cared, I’d do anything on earth to please you.

I know that I was to write nice, long, detailed letters without ever expecting any answer. You’re living up to your side of the bargain – I’m being educated – and I suppose you’re thinking I’m not living up to mine!

But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is, really. I’m so awfully lonely. You are the only person I have to care for, and you are so shadowy. You’re just an imaginary man that I’ve made up – and probably the real YOU isn’t a bit like my imaginary YOU. But you did once, when I was ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and now, when I am feeling awfully forgotten, I get out your card and read it over.

I don’t think I am telling you at all what I started to say, which was this:

Although my feelings are still hurt, for it is very humiliating to be picked up and moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable, omnipotent, invisible Providence, still, when a man has been as kind and generous and thoughtful as you have so far been towards me, I suppose he has a right to be an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable, invisible Providence if he chooses, and so – I’ll forgive you and be cheerful again. But I still don’t enjoy getting Sallie’s letters about the good times they are having in camp!

However – we will draw a veil over that and begin again.

I’ve been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finished and sent to four different magazines. So you see I’m trying to be an author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where Master Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom.

I’ll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.

We need rain.

Yours as ever,

Judy

August 10th

Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,

SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the pool in the pasture. I’ve been here for an hour.

If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven after a week of rain.

During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgy of reading – Stevenson, mostly. He himself is more entertaining than any of the characters in his books.

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 his heroes makes me wild. I want to see the tropics. I want to see the whole world. I am going to be a great author, or artist, or actress, or playwright – or whatever sort of a great person I turn out to be. I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. “I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.”

Good night,

Judy

Friday

Good morning! Here is some news! What do you think? You’d never, never, never guess who’s coming to Lock Willow. A letter to Mrs. Semple from Mr. Pendleton. He’s motoring through the Berkshires, and is tired and wants to rest on a nice quiet farm – if he climbs out at her doorstep some night will she have a room ready for him? Maybe he’ll stay one week, or maybe two, or maybe three; he’ll see how restful it is when he gets here.

Such a state of excitement 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 oil cloth for the entry, and two cans of brown floor paint for the hall and back stairs. Mrs. Dowd is engaged to come tomorrow to wash the windows. You might think, from this account of our activities, that the house was not already cleaned; but I assure you it was! Whatever Mrs. Semple’s faults, she is a HOUSEKEEPER.

But isn’t it just like a man, Daddy? He doesn’t give the slightest hint as to whether he will land on the doorstep today, or two weeks from today. We shall live in a permanent breathlessness until he comes – and if he doesn’t hurry, the cleaning may all have to be done over again.

There’s Amasai waiting below with the cart and Grover. I drive alone – but if you could see old Grove, you wouldn’t be worried as to my safety.

With my hand on my heart – farewell.

Judy

Saturday

Good morning again! I didn’t get this ENVELOPED yesterday before the postman came, so I’ll add some more.

No sign yet of Master Jervie. But you should see how clean our house is – and with what anxiety we wipe our feet before we step in!

I hope he’ll come soon; I am longing for someone to talk to. Mrs. Semple, to tell you the truth, gets rather monotonous. She never lets ideas interrupt the easy flow of her conversation. It’s a funny thing about the people here. Their world is just this single hilltop. They are not a bit universal, if you know what I mean. It’s exactly the same as at the John Grier Home. Our ideas there were bounded by the four sides of the iron fence, only I didn’t mind it so much because I was younger, and was so awfully busy. By the time I’d got all my beds made and my babies’ faces washed and had gone to school and come home and had washed their faces again and darned their stockings and mended Freddie Perkins’s trousers (he tore them every day of his life) and learned my lessons in between – I was ready to go to bed, and I didn’t notice any lack of social intercourse. But after two years in a conversational college, I do miss it; and I shall be glad to see somebody who speaks my language.

I really believe I’ve finished, Daddy.

Yours always,

Judy

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 doesn’t show any signs of going. The way Mrs. Semple spoils that man is scandalous. If she indulged him as much when he was a baby, I don’t know how he ever turned out so well.

He and I eat at a little table set on the side porch, or sometimes under the trees, or – when it rains or is cold – in the best parlour. He just picks out the spot he wants to eat in and Carrie trots after him with the table. He is an awfully companionable sort of man, though you would never believe it to see him casually; he looks at first glance like a true Pendleton, but he isn’t in the least. He is just as simple and unaffected and sweet as he can be – that seems a funny way to describe a man, but it’s true.

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.

Wednesday

We went for a long walk this morning and got caught in a storm. Our clothes were drenched before we reached home but our spirits not even damp. You should have seen Mrs. Semple’s face when we dripped into her kitchen.

“Oh, Master Jervie – Miss Judy! You are soaked through. Dear! Dear! What shall I do? That nice new coat is perfectly ruined.”

She was awfully funny; you would have thought that we were ten years old, and she a distracted mother. I was afraid for a while that we weren’t going to get any jam for tea.

Sunday

It’s Sunday night now, about eleven o’clock. We got home at four and went driving at five and had dinner at seven, and at ten I was sent to bed and here I am, writing to you.

I am getting a little sleepy, though.

Good night.

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 social circles, and you are both interested in reforms and things – but I couldn’t, for I don’t know your real name.

It’s the silliest thing I ever heard of, not to know your name. Mrs. Lippett warned me that you were eccentric. I should think so!

Affectionately,

Judy

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 taken away, it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing sort of sensation.

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 without much delay. But I don’t mind. It’s good practice. Master Jervie read them – he brought in the mail, so I couldn’t help his knowing – and he said they were DREADFUL. They showed that I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was talking about. (Master Jervie doesn’t let politeness interfere with truth.) But the last one I did – just a little sketch laid in college – he said wasn’t bad; and he had it typewritten, and I sent it to a magazine. They’ve had it two weeks; maybe they’re thinking it over.

You should see the sky! There’s the strangest orange-coloured light over everything. We’re going to have a storm.

Thursday

Daddy! Daddy! What do you think? The postman has just come with two letters.

1st. My story is accepted. $50.

ALORS¹! I’m an AUTHOR.

2nd. A letter from the college secretary. I’m to have a scholarship for two years that will cover board and tuition. It was founded for “marked knowledge in English with general excellency in other subjects.” And I’ve won it! I applied for it before I left, but I didn’t have an idea I’d get it, on account of my Freshman bad work in maths and Latin. But it seems I’ve made it up. I am awfully glad, Daddy, because now I won’t be such a burden to you. The monthly allowance will be all I’ll need, and maybe I can earn that with writing or tutoring or something.

I’m CRAZY to go back and begin work.

Yours ever,

Jerusha Abbott,

Author of When the Sophomores Won the Game. For sale at all news stands, price ten cents.

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 for settling.

We have new wall paper and oriental rugs and mahogany chairs – not painted mahogany which made us sufficiently happy last year, but real. It’s very gorgeous, but I don’t feel as though I belonged in it; I’m nervous all the time for fear I’ll get an ink spot in the wrong place.

And, Daddy, I found your letter waiting for me – pardon – I mean your secretary’s.

Will you kindly give 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 have me get a diploma, at the end.

But look at it just a second from my point of view. I shall owe my education to you just as much as though I let you pay for the whole of it, but I won’t be quite so much indebted. I know that you don’t want me to return the money, but nevertheless, I am going to want to do it, if I possibly can; and winning this scholarship makes it so much easier. I was expecting to spend the rest of my life in paying my debts, but now I shall only have to spend one-half of the rest of it.

I hope you understand my position and won’t be cross. The allowance I shall still most gratefully accept. It requires an allowance to live up to Julia and her furniture! I wish that she had been brought up in simpler tastes, or else that she were not my room-mate.

Good night, Daddy dear, and don’t be annoyed because your chick is wanting to earn for herself.

Affectionately,

Judy

September 30th

Dear Daddy,

Are you still referring to that scholarship? I never knew a man so obstinate, and stubborn and unreasonable, and bull-doggish, and unable-to-see-other-people’s-point-of-view, as you.

You prefer that I should not be accepting favors from strangers. Strangers! – And what are you, pray?

Is there anyone in the world that I know less? I shouldn’t recognize you if I met you in the street. Now, you see, if you had been a sensible person and had written nice, cheering fatherly letters to your little Judy, and had come occasionally and patted her on the head, and had said you were glad she was such a good girl – Then, perhaps, she wouldn’t have ignored you in your old age, but would have obeyed your slightest wish like the dutiful daughter she was meant to be.

I refuse, sir, to give up the scholarship; and if you make any more fuss, I won’t accept the monthly allowance either, but will wear myself into a nervous wreck tutoring stupid Freshmen. That is my ultimatum!

And listen – I have a further thought. Since you are so afraid that by taking this scholarship I am depriving someone else of an education, I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would have spent for me 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.

Yours,

Completely and Irrevocably

Jerusha Abbott

November 9th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Julia Pendleton has invited me to visit her for the Christmas holidays. How does that strike you, Mr. Smith? Fancy Jerusha Abbott, of the John Grier Home, sitting at the tables of the rich. I don’t know why Julia wants me – she seems to be getting quite fond of 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 obedience.

Yours always,

Judy

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 dance² 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 irreproachable³.

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 called to a social event in this college, he is going to bring one of their Adirondack tents and pitch it on the campus.

The next morning we had a joyful 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 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.

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 couldn’t go without sending a word to let you know how much I appreciate my Christmas box.

Goodbye, and a very merry Christmas.

Yours always,

Judy

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 to such a family! The material atmosphere of that house was crushing; I didn’t draw a deep breath until I was on an express train coming back. All the furniture was carved and upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met were beautifully dressed and low-voiced and well-bred, but it’s the truth, Daddy, I never heard one word of real talk from the time we arrived until we left. I don’t think an idea ever entered the front door.

I only saw Master Jervie once when he called at tea time, and then I didn’t have a chance to speak to him alone. It was really disappointing after our nice time last summer. I don’t think he cares much for his relatives – and I am sure they don’t care much for him! Julia’s mother says he’s unbalanced.

I’ve seen a lot of theatres and hotels and beautiful houses. 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 sport hall and outdoor athletics.

Yours ever,

Judy

February 11th

Dear D.-L.-L.,

Don’t be insulted because this is so short. It isn’t a letter; it’s just a LINE to say that I’m going to write a letter pretty soon when examinations are over. It is not only necessary that I pass, but pass WELL. I have a scholarship to live up to.

Yours, studying hard,

J. A.

March 5th

My Dear Mr. Smith,

You will be pleased to hear that I passed successfully my mid-year examinations, and am now beginning work in the new semester.

I am attending the gymnasium very regularly of late. It 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.

The weather of late has been ideal – bright sunshine and clouds interspersed with a few welcome snow-storms. I and my companions have enjoyed our walks to and from classes – particularly from.

Trusting, my dear Mr. Smith, that this will find you in your usual good health,

I remain,

Most cordially yours,

Jerusha Abbott

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 didn’t ask you if I might go, because I had a feeling that your secretary would say no. But it was entirely regular; we had leave-of-absence from college, and Mrs. McBride chaperoned us. We had a charming time – but I shall have to omit details; they are too many and complicated.

Affectionately,

Judy

May 15th

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

The accompanying illustration is hereby reproduced for the first time. It looks like a spider on the end of a string, but it isn’t at all; it’s a picture of me learning to swim in the tank in the gymnasium.

The instructor hooks a rope into a ring in the back of my belt, and runs it through a pulley in the ceiling. It would be a beautiful system if one had perfect confidence in the honesty of one’s instructor.

I’m always afraid, though, that she will let the rope get slack, so I keep one anxious eye on her and swim with the other, and with this divided interest I do not make the progress that I otherwise might.

Very changeable weather we’re having of late. It was raining when I began and now the sun is shining. Sallie and I are going out to play tennis.

A week later

I should have finished this letter long ago, but I didn’t. You don’t mind, do you, Daddy, if I’m not very regular? I really do love to write to you; it gives me such a respectable feeling of having some family. Would you like me to tell you something? You are not the only man to whom I write letters. There are two others! I have been receiving beautiful long letters this winter from Master Jervie (with typewritten envelopes so Julia won’t recognize the writing). Did you ever hear anything so shocking? And every week or so a very poorly epistle, usually on yellow tablet paper, arrives from Princeton. All of which I answer with business-like promptness. So you see – I am not so different from other girls – I get mail, too.

Did I tell you that I have been elected a member of the Senior Dramatic Club? Very recherche⁴ organization. Only seventy-five members out of one thousand. Do you think as a consistent Socialist that I ought to belong?

There goes the gong for dinner. I’ll post this as I pass the box.

Affectionately,

J.

June 4th

Dear Daddy,

Very busy time – commencement⁵ in ten days, examinations tomorrow; lots of studying, lots of packing, and the outdoor world so lovely that it hurts you to stay inside.

But never mind, vacation’s coming.

I am going to spend the summer at the seaside with a Mrs. Charles Paterson and tutor her daughter who is to enter college in the autumn. I met her through the McBrides, and she is a very charming woman. I am to give lessons in English and Latin to the younger daughter, too, but I shall have a little time to myself, and I shall be earning fifty dollars a month! Doesn’t that impress you as a perfectly big amount? She offered it; I should have blushed to ask for more than twenty-five.

I finish at Magnolia (that’s where she lives) the first of September, and shall probably spend the remaining three weeks at Lock Willow – I should like to see the Semples again and all the friendly animals.

How does my program strike you, Daddy? I am getting quite independent, you see. You have put me on my feet and I think I can almost walk alone by now.

Goodbye, Daddy. Have a nice summer and come back in the autumn rested and ready for another year of work. (That’s what you ought to be writing to me!) I haven’t any idea what you do in the summer, or how you amuse yourself.

Anyway, whatever it is, have a good time and don’t forget Judy.

June 10th

Dear Daddy,

This is the hardest letter I ever wrote, but I have decided what I must do, and there isn’t going to be any turning back. It is very sweet and generous and dear of you to wish to send me to Europe this summer – for the moment I was intoxicated by the idea; but sober second thoughts⁶ said no. It would be rather illogical of me to refuse to take your money for college, and then use it instead just for amusement! You mustn’t get me used to too many luxuries.

Magnolia,

Four days later

I’d got just that much written, when – what do you think happened? The maid arrived with Master Jervie’s card. He is going abroad too this summer; not with Julia and her family, but entirely by himself I told him that you had invited me to go with a lady who is chaperoning a party of girls. He knows about you, Daddy. That is, he knows that my father and mother are dead, and that a kind gentleman is sending me to college; I simply didn’t have the courage to tell him about the John Grier Home and all the rest. He thinks that you are my guardian and a perfectly legitimate old family friend. I have never told him that I didn’t know you – that would seem too queer!

Anyway, he insisted on my going to Europe. He said that it was a necessary part of my education and that I mustn’t think of refusing. Also, that he would be in Paris at the same time, and that we would run away from the chaperon occasionally and have dinner together at nice, funny, foreign restaurants.

Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I almost weakened; if he hadn’t been so dictatorial, maybe I should have entirely weakened. I can be tempted step by step, but I WON’T be forced. He said I was a silly, foolish, irrational, quixotic, idiotic, stubborn child (those are a few of his abusive adjectives; the rest escape me), and that I didn’t know what was good for me; I ought to let older people judge. We almost quarrelled – I am not sure but that we entirely did!

In any case, I packed my trunk fast and came up here. I thought I’d better see my bridges in flames behind me before I finished writing to you. Here I am at Cliff Top (the name of Mrs. Paterson’s cottage) with my trunk unpacked and Florence (the little one) already struggling with first declension nouns. And it bids fair to be a struggle!

She is a most uncommonly spoiled child; I shall have to teach her first how to study – she has never in her life concentrated on anything more difficult than ice-cream soda water.

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 Person. And when you look at me you can say, “I gave that Very Useful Person to the world.”

That sounds well, doesn’t it, Daddy? But I don’t wish to mislead you. The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable; it is fun to plan a career, but in all probability I shan’t turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person. I may end by marrying an undertaker and being an inspiration to him in his work.

Yours ever,

Judy

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.

A letter comes from Mr. Jervis Pendleton in Paris, rather a short expressive 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 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 haven’t I yet arrived at the place where I can do as I please? Yes, I am sure I have – I’m a Senior, you know. Having worked all summer, I feel like taking a little healthful recreation; I want to see 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!

Judy

Camp McBride,

September 6th

Dear Daddy,

Your letter didn’t come in time (I am pleased to say). If you wish your instructions to be obeyed, you must have your secretary transmit them in less than two weeks. As you observe, I am here, and have been for five days.

The woods are fine, and so is the camp, and so is the weather, and so are the McBrides, and so is the whole world. I’m very happy!

There’s Jimmie calling for me to come canoeing. Goodbye – sorry to have disobeyed, but why are you so persistent about not wanting me to play a little? When I’ve worked all the summer I deserve two weeks. You are awfully dog-in-the-mangerish⁷. However – I love you still, Daddy, in spite of all your faults.

Judy

October 3rd

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Back at college and a Senior – also editor of the Monthly. It doesn’t seem possible, does it, that so sophisticated a person, just four years ago, was an inmate of the John Grier Home? We do arrive fast in America!

What do you think of this? A note from Master Jervie directed to Lock Willow and forwarded here. He’s sorry, but he finds that he can’t get up there this autumn; he has accepted an invitation to go yachting with some friends. Hopes I’ve had a nice summer and am enjoying the country.

And he knew all the time that I was with the McBrides, for Julia told him so! You men ought to leave intrigue to women; you haven’t a light enough touch.

Yours ever,

Judy

March Fifth

Dear Mr. Trustee,

Tomorrow is the first Wednesday in the month – a weary day for the John Grier Home. How relieved they’ll be when five o’clock comes and you pat them on the head and take yourselves off⁸! 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 mist of four years.

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.

However, Daddy, don’t take this new affection for the J.G.H. too literally⁹. If I have five children, I shan’t leave them on the steps of a foundling asylum in order to bring them up simply.

Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Lippett (that, I think, is truthful; love would be a little strong) and don’t forget to tell her what a beautiful nature I’ve developed.

Affectionately,

Judy

Lock Willow,

April 4th

Dear Daddy,

Do you observe the postmark? Sallie and I are embellishing Lock Willow with our presence during the Easter Vacation¹⁰. We decided that the best thing we could do with our ten days was to come where it is quiet. Our nerves had got to the point where they wouldn’t stand another meal in Fergussen. Dining in a room with four hundred girls is an ordeal when you are tired. There is so much noise that you can’t hear the girls across the table speak unless they make their hands into a megaphone and shout. That is the truth.

We are tramping over the hills and reading and writing, and having a nice, restful time. We climbed to the top of “Sky Hill” this morning where Master Jervie and I once cooked supper. It is funny how certain places get connected with certain people, and you never go back without thinking of them. I was quite lonely without him – for two minutes.

What do you think is my latest activity, Daddy? You will begin to believe that I am incorrigible – I am writing a book. I started it three weeks ago and am eating it up in chunks. I’ve caught the secret. Master Jervie and that editor man were right; you are most convincing when you write about the things you know. And this time it is about something that I do know – exhaustively. Guess where it’s laid? In the John Grier Home!

And it’s good, Daddy, I actually believe it is – just about the tiny little things that happened every day. I’m a realist now. I’ve abandoned romanticism; I shall go back to it later though, when my own adventurous future begins.

This new book is going to get itself finished – and published! You see if it doesn’t. If you just want a thing hard enough and keep on trying, you do get it in the end. I’ve been trying for four years to get a letter from you – and I haven’t given up hope yet.

Goodbye, Daddy dear, (I like to call you Daddy dear.)

Affectionately,

Judy

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.

You see that Lock Willow isn’t entirely lacking in society. I’d be expecting to have you come motoring through – only I know now that that is hopeless. When you wouldn’t come to my commencement, I tore you from my heart and buried you forever.

Judy Abbott, A.B.

July 24th

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

Isn’t it fun to work – or don’t you ever do it? It’s especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you’d rather do more than anything else in the world. I’ve been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren’t long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I’m thinking.

I’ve finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It’s the sweetest book you ever saw – it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can hardly wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I’m so tired that I’m limp all over. Then I go out with Colin (the new sheep dog) and tramp 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. Mr. James McBride spent last Sunday with us. Fried chicken and ice-cream for dinner, both of which he appeared to appreciate.

I was awfully glad to see him; he brought a momentary reminder that the world at large exists.

I hope you appreciate the fact that this is a long letter from a person with writer’s inspiration. But I still love you, Daddy dear, and I’m very happy.

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.

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 settle 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 there and we could be together in the evenings. Evenings are very long when there’s no one but the Semples to talk to. I know in advance 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 doesn’t happen soon, I shall throw myself into the silo pit¹¹ out of sheer desperation.

This letter sounds as though I have gone off my head but I haven’t. I just want some family.

Goodbye, my dearest Daddy.

I wish I knew you.

Judy

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. Wouldn’t it be possible for me to see you? It’s so much easier to talk than to write; and I’m afraid your secretary might open the letter.

Judy

P.S. I’m very unhappy.

Lock Willow,

October 3rd

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Your note written in your own hand – and a pretty uneven wobbly hand! – came this morning. I am so sorry that you have been ill; I wouldn’t have bothered you with my affairs if I had known. Yes, I will tell you the trouble, but it’s sort of complicated to write, and VERY PRIVATE. Please don’t keep this letter, but burn it.

Before I begin – here’s a check for one thousand dollars. It seems funny, doesn’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 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 installments. 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 practical advice, whether you think I’ll like it or not.

You know that I’ve always had a very special feeling towards you; you sort of represented my whole family; but you won’t mind, will you, if I tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for another man? You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. I suspect that my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a very long time.

I wish I could make you understand what he is like and how entirely companionable we are. We think the same about everything – I am afraid I have a tendency to make over my ideas to match his! But he is almost always right; he ought to be, you know, for he has fourteen years’ start of me. In other ways, though, he’s just an overgrown boy, and he does need looking after – he hasn’t any sense about wearing rubbers when it rains.

And he is – Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it’s beautiful and he isn’t here to see it with me. But maybe you’ve loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don’t need to explain; if you haven’t, I can’t explain.

Anyway, that’s the way I feel – and I’ve refused to marry him.

I didn’t tell him why; I was just dumb and miserable. I couldn’t think of anything to say. And now he has gone away imagining that I want to marry Jimmie McBride – I don’t in the least, I wouldn’t think of marrying Jimmie; he isn’t grown up enough. But Master Jervie and I got into a dreadful state of misunderstanding and we both hurt each other’s feelings. The reason I sent him away was not because I didn’t care for him, but because I cared for him so much. I was afraid he would regret it in the future – and I couldn’t stand that! It didn’t seem right for a person of my lack of antecedents to marry into any such family as his. I never told him about the orphan asylum, and I hated to explain that I didn’t know who I was. I may be DREADFUL, you know. And his family are proud – and I’m proud, too!

Also, I felt sort of bound to you. After having been educated to be a writer, I must at least try to be one; it would scarcely be fair to accept your education and then go off and not use it. But now that I am going to be able to pay back the money, I feel that I have partially paid that debt – besides, I suppose I could keep on being a writer even if I did marry. The two professions are not necessarily exclusive.

I’ve been thinking very hard about it. Of course he is a Socialist, and he has unconventional ideas; maybe he wouldn’t mind marrying into the proletariat so much as some men might. Perhaps when two people are exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when apart, they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them. Of course I WANT to believe that! But I’d like to get your unemotional opinion. You probably belong to a Family also, and will look at it from a worldly point of view and not just a sympathetic, human point of view – so you see how brave I am to lay it before you.

Suppose I go to him and explain that the trouble isn’t Jimmie, but is the John Grier Home – would that be a dreadful thing for me to do? It would take a great deal of courage. I’d almost rather be miserable for the rest of my life.

This happened nearly two months ago; I haven’t heard a word from him since he was here. I was just getting sort of acclimated to the feeling of a broken heart, when a letter came from Julia that stirred me all up again. She said – very casually – that “Uncle Jervis” had been caught out all night in a storm when he was hunting in Canada, and had been ill ever since with pneumonia. And I never knew it. I was feeling hurt because he had just disappeared into blankness without a word. I think he’s pretty unhappy, and I know I am!

What seems to you the right thing for me to do?

Judy

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, and if one opens the door I shall faint upon the step. What can I say to him? You didn’t tell me your name. Shall I ask for Mr. Smith?

Thursday Morning

My Very Dearest Master-Jervie-Daddy-Long-Legs Pendleton-Smith,

Did you sleep last night? I didn’t. Not a single wink. I was too amazed and excited and bewildered and happy. I don’t believe I ever shall sleep again – or eat either. But I hope you slept; you must, you know, because then you will get well faster and can come to me.

Dear Man, I can’t bear to think how ill you’ve been – and all the time I never knew it. When the doctor came down yesterday to put me in the cab, he told me that for three days they gave you up. Oh, dearest, if that had happened, the light would have gone out of the world for me.

Please get well – fast – fast – fast. I want to have you close by where I can touch you and make sure you are real. Such a little half hour we had together! I’m afraid maybe I dreamed it.

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 got into my head was, “I am going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!” I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen. All the way in the train the rails kept singing, “You’re going to see Daddy-Long-Legs.” It made me feel secure. I had such faith in Daddy’s ability to set things right. And I knew that somewhere another man – dearer than Daddy – was wanting to see me, and somehow I had a feeling that before the journey ended I should meet him, too. And you see!

When I came to the house on Madison Avenue it looked so big and brown and forbidding that I didn’t dare go in, so I walked around the block to get up my courage. But I needn’t have been a bit afraid; your butler is such a nice, fatherly old man that he made me feel at home at once. He told me to wait in the drawing-room. I sat down on the edge of a big upholstered chair and kept saying to myself:

“I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs! I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!”

Then presently the man came back and asked me please to step up to the library. I was so excited that really and truly my feet would hardly take me up. Outside the door he turned and whispered, “He’s been very ill, Miss. This is the first day he’s been allowed to sit up. You’ll not stay long enough to excite him?” I knew from the way he said it that he loved you – an I think he’s an old dear!

Then he knocked and said, “Miss Abbott,” and I went in and the door closed behind me.

It was so dim coming in from the brightly lighted hall that for a moment I could scarcely make out anything; then I saw a big easy chair before the fire and a shining tea table with a smaller chair beside it. And I realized that a man was sitting in the big chair propped up by pillows with a rug over his knees. Before I could stop him he rose – rather shakily – and steadied himself by the back of the chair and just looked at me without a word. And then – and then – I saw it was you!

Then you laughed and held out your hand and said, “Dear little Judy, couldn’t you guess that I was Daddy-Long-Legs?”

In an instant it flashed over me. Oh, but I have been stupid! A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits. I wouldn’t make a very good detective, would I, Daddy? Jervie? What must I call you? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, and I can’t be disrespectful to you!

It was a very sweet half hour before your doctor came and sent me away. I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a train for St Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give me any tea. But we’re both very, very happy, aren’t we? I drove back to Lock Willow in the dark but oh, how the stars were shining! And this morning I’ve been out with Colin visiting all the places that you and I went to together, and remembering what you said and how you looked. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie dear, but it’s a happy kind of missing; we’ll be together soon. We belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn’t it seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, very sweet. And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.

Yours, forever and ever,

Judy

P.S. This is the first love-letter I ever wrote. Isn’t it funny that I know how?

The End

1^ Alors! – (фр.) Итак!

2^ the Founder’s dance – бал в честь основателя колледжа

3^ socially irreproachable – безупречный по своему общественному положению

4^ recherche – (фр.) изысканное

5^ commencement – день выдачи дипломов и присуждения ученых степеней в США и Великобритании

6^ sober second thoughts – последующее, более трезвое размышление

7^ dog-in-the-mangerish – собака на сене

8^ to take yourselves off – отбывать

9^ too literally – буквально

10^ Easter Vacation – пасхальные каникулы

11^ the silo pit – силосная яма