Daddy-Long-Legs
case the house should catch. But it didn’t catch and we went back
to bed.
Everybody likes a few surprises; it’s a perfectly natural human
craving. But I never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me to the
office to tell me that Mr. John Smith was going to send me to
college. And then she broke the news so gradually that it just
barely shocked me.
You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any
person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put
themselves in other people’s places. It makes them kind and
sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in
children. But the John Grier Home instantly stamped out the
slightest flicker that appeared. Duty was the one quality that was
encouraged. I don’t think children ought to know the meaning of the
word; it’s odious, detestable. They ought to do everything from
love.
Wait until you see the orphan asylum that I am going to be the head
of! It’s my favorite play at night before I go to sleep. I plan it
out to the littlest detail--the meals and clothes and study and
amusements and punishments; for even my superior orphans are
sometimes bad.
But anyway, they are going to be happy. I think that every one, no
matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have
a happy childhood to look back upon. And if I ever have any children
of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let
them have any cares until they grow up.
(There goes the chapel bell--I’ll finish this letter sometime.)
Thursday.
When I came in from laboratory this afternoon, I found a squirrel
sitting on the tea table helping himself to almonds. These are the
kind of callers we entertain now that warm weather has come and the
window stays open--
Saturday morning.
Perhaps you think, last night being Friday, with no classes to-day,
that I passed a nice quiet, readable evening with the set of
Stevenson that I bought with my prize money? But if so, you’ve
never attended a girls’ college, Daddy dear. Six friends dropped in
to make fudge, and one of them dropped the fudge--while it was still
liquid--right in the middle of our best rug. We shall never be able
to clean up the mess.
I haven’t mentioned any lessons of late; but we are still having
them every day. It’s sort of a relief though, to get away from them
and discuss life in the large--rather one-sided discussions that you
and I hold, but that’s your own fault. You are welcome to answer
back any time you choose.
I’ve been writing this letter off and on for three days, and I fear
by now _vous êtes bien_ bored!
Good-by, nice Mr. Man,
JUDY.
_Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith._
SIR: Having completed the study of argumentation and the science of
dividing a thesis into heads, I have decided to adopt the following
form for letter-writing. It contains all necessary facts, but no
unnecessary verbiage.
I. We had written examinations this week in:
A. Chemistry.
B. History.
II. A new dormitory is being built.
A. Its material is:
(a) red brick.
(b) gray stone.
B. Its capacity will be:
(a) one dean, five instructors.
(b) two hundred girls.
(c) one housekeeper, three cooks, twenty waitresses, twenty
chambermaids.
III. We had junket for dessert to-night.
IV. I am writing a special topic upon the Sources of Shakespeare’s
Plays.
V. Lou McMahon slipped and fell this afternoon at basket ball,
and she:
A. Dislocated her shoulder.
B. Bruised her knee.
VI. I have a new hat trimmed with:
A. Blue velvet ribbon.
B. Two blue quills.
C. Three red pompons.
VII. It is half-past nine.
VIII. Good night.
JUDY.
June 2d.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
You will never guess the nice thing that has happened.
The McBrides have asked me to spend the summer at their camp in the
Adirondacks! They belong to a sort of club on a lovely little lake
in the middle of the woods. The different members have houses made
of logs dotted about among the trees, and they go canoeing on the
lake, and take long walks through trails to other camps, and have
dances once a week in the club house--Jimmie McBride is going to
have a college friend visiting him part of the summer, so you see we
shall have plenty of men to dance with.
Wasn’t it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask me? It appears that she
liked me when I was there for Christmas.
Please excuse this being short. It isn’t a real letter; it’s just
to let you know that I’m disposed of for the summer.
Yours,
In a _very_ contented frame of mind,
JUDY.
June 5th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
Your secretary man has just written to me saying that Mr. Smith
prefers that I should not accept Mrs. McBride’s invitation, but
should return to Lock Willow the same as last summer.
Why, why, _why_, Daddy?
You don’t understand about it. Mrs. McBride does want me, really and
truly. I’m not the least bit of trouble in the house. I’m a help.
They don’t take up many servants, and Sallie and I can do lots of
useful things. It’s a fine chance for me to learn housekeeping.
Every woman ought to understand it, and I only know asylum-keeping.
There aren’t any girls our age at the camp, and Mrs. McBride wants
me for a companion for Sallie. We are planning to do a lot of
reading together. We are going to read all of the books for next
year’s English and sociology. The Professor said it would be a great
help if we would get our reading finished in the summer; and it’s
so much easier to remember it, if we read together and talk it over.
Just to live in the same house with Sallie’s mother is an education.
She’s the most interesting, entertaining, companionable, charming
woman in the world; she knows everything. Think how many summers
I’ve spent with Mrs. Lippett and how I’ll appreciate the contrast.
You needn’t be afraid that I’ll be crowding them, for their house
is made of rubber. When they have a lot of company, they just
sprinkle tents about in the woods and turn the boys outside. It’s
going to be such a nice, healthy summer exercising out of doors
every minute. Jimmie McBride is going to teach me how to ride
horseback and paddle a canoe, and how to shoot and--oh, lots of
things I ought to know. It’s the kind of nice, jolly, care-free
time that I’ve never had; and I think every girl deserves it once
in her life. Of course I’ll do exactly as you say, but please,
_please_ let me go, Daddy. I’ve never wanted anything so much.
This isn’t Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, writing to you.
It’s just Judy--a girl.
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, 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
McBride’s camp. Of course I know that you’re my guardian, and that
I have to regard your wishes in all matters, but I 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 heretofore
been toward me, I suppose he has a right to be an arbitrary,
peremptory, unreasonable, invisible Providence if he chooses, and
so--I’ll forgive you and be cheerful again. But I still don’t enjoy
getting Sallie’s letters about the good times they are having in
camp!
However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again.
I’ve been writing and writing this summer; four short stories
finished and sent to four different magazines. So you see I’m
trying to be an author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the
attic where Master Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It’s
in a cool, breezy corner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a
maple tree with a family of red squirrels living in a hole.
I’ll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm
news.
We need rain.
Yours as ever,
JUDY.
August 10th.
_Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs_,
SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the
pool in the pasture. There’s a frog croaking underneath, a locust
singing overhead and two little “devil down-heads” darting up and
down the trunk. I’ve been here for an hour; it’s a very
comfortable crotch, especially after being upholstered with two sofa
cushions. I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an
immortal short story, but I’ve been having a dreadful time with my
heroine--I _can’t_ make her behave as I want her to behave; so I’ve
abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you. (Not much
relief though, for I can’t make you behave as I want you to,
either.)
If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some
of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven
after a week of rain.
Speaking of Heaven--do you remember Mr. Kellogg that I told you
about last summer?--the minister of the little white church at the
Corners. Well, the poor old soul is dead--last winter of pneumonia.
I went half-a-dozen times to hear him preach and got very well
acquainted with his theology. He believed to the end, exactly the
same things he started with. It seems to me that a man who can think
straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea
ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying
his harp and golden crown; he was so perfectly sure of finding them!
There’s a new young man, very up and coming, in his place. The
congregation is pretty dubious, especially the faction led by Deacon
Cummings. It looks as though there was going to be an awful split in
the church. We don’t care for innovations in religion in this
neighborhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgie of