Daddy-Long-Legs
meals whenever he chooses; you would think the place were a
restaurant--and that kept Carrie and Amasai from going driving. But
he said it was all the better because it wasn’t proper for them to
go driving without a chaperon; and anyway, he wanted the horses
himself to take me driving. Did you ever hear anything so funny?
And poor Mrs. Semple believes that people who go fishing on Sundays,
go afterwards to a sizzling hot hell! She is awfully troubled to
think that she didn’t train him better when he was small and
helpless and she had the chance. Besides--she wished to show him off
in church.
Anyway, we had our fishing (he caught four little ones) and we
cooked them on a camp-fire for lunch. They kept falling off our
spiked sticks into the fire, so they tasted a little ashy, but we
ate them. We got home at four and went driving at five and had
dinner at seven, and at ten I was sent to bed--and here I am,
writing to you.
I am getting a little sleepy though.
Good night.
Here is a picture of the one fish I caught.
_Ship ahoy, Cap’n Long-Legs!_
Avast! Belay! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. Guess what I’m
reading? Our conversation these past two days has been nautical and
piratical. Isn’t “Treasure Island” fun? Did you ever read it, or
wasn’t it written when you were a boy? Stevenson only got thirty
pounds for the serial rights--I don’t believe it pays to be a great
author. Maybe I’ll teach school.
Excuse me for filling my letters so full of Stevenson; my mind is
very much engaged with him at present. He comprises Lock Willow’s
library.
I’ve been writing this letter for two weeks, and I think it’s
about long enough. Never say, Daddy, that I don’t give details.
I wish you were here, too; we’d all have such a jolly time
together. I like my different friends to know each other. I wanted
to ask Mr. Pendleton if he knew you in New York--I should think he
might; you must move in about the same exalted social circles, and
you are both interested in reforms and things--but I couldn’t, for
I don’t know your real name.
It’s the silliest thing I ever heard of, not to know your name.
Mrs. Lippett warned me that you were eccentric. I should think so!
Affectionately,
JUDY.
P. S. On reading this over, I find that it isn’t all Stevenson.
There are one or two glancing references to Master Jervie.
September 10th.
_Dear Daddy_,
He has gone, and we are missing him! When you get accustomed to
people or places or ways of living, and then have them suddenly
snatched away, it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing sort of
sensation. I’m finding Mrs. Semple’s conversation pretty unseasoned
food.
College opens in two weeks and I shall be glad to begin work again.
I have worked quite a lot this summer though--six short stories and
seven poems. Those I sent to the magazines all came back with the
most courteous promptitude. But I don’t mind. It’s good practice.
Master Jervie read them--he brought in the mail, so I couldn’t help
his knowing--and he said they were _dreadful_. They showed that I
didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was talking about. (Master
Jervie doesn’t let politeness interfere with truth.) But the last
one I did--just a little sketch laid in college--he said wasn’t
bad; and he had it typewritten, and I sent it to a magazine.
They’ve had it two weeks; maybe they’re thinking it over.
You should see the sky! There’s the queerest orange-colored light
over everything. We’re going to have a storm.
* * * * *
It commenced just that moment with drops as big as quarters and all
the shutters banging. I had to run to close windows, while Carrie
flew to the attic with an armful of milk pans to put under the
places where the roof leaks--and then, just as I was resuming my
pen, I remembered that I’d left a cushion and rug and hat and
Matthew Arnold’s poems under a tree in the orchard, so I dashed out
to get them, all quite soaked. The red cover of the poems had run
into the inside; “Dover Beach” in the future will be washed by pink
waves.
A storm is awfully disturbing in the country. You are always having
to think of so many things that are out of doors and getting
spoiled.
Thursday.
Daddy! Daddy! What do you think? The postman has just come with two
letters.
1st.--My story is accepted. $50.
_Alors!_ I’m an AUTHOR.
2d.--A letter from the college secretary. I’m to have a scholarship
for two years that will cover board and tuition. It was founded by
an alumna for “marked proficiency in English with general excellency
in other lines.” And I’ve won it! I applied for it before I left,
but I didn’t have an idea I’d get it, on account of my Freshman
bad work in math. 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 of settling.
We have new wall paper and Oriental rugs and mahogany chairs--not
painted mahogany which made us sufficiently happy last year, but
real. It’s very gorgeous, but I don’t feel as though I belonged in
it; I’m nervous all the time for fear I’ll get an ink spot in the
wrong place.
And, Daddy, I found your letter waiting for me--pardon--I mean your
secretary’s.
Will you kindly convey to me a comprehensible reason why I should
not accept that scholarship? I don’t understand your objection in
the least. But anyway, it won’t do the slightest good for you to
object, for I’ve already accepted it--and I am not going to change!
That sounds a little impertinent, but I don’t mean it so.
I suppose you feel that when you set out to educate me, you’d like
to finish the work, and put a neat period, in the shape of a
diploma, at the end.
But look at it just a second from my point of view. I shall owe my
education to you just as much as though I let you pay for the whole
of it, but I won’t be quite so much indebted. I know that you don’t
want me to return the money, but nevertheless, I am going to want to
do it, if I possibly can; and winning this scholarship makes it so
much easier. I was expecting to spend the rest of my life in paying
my debts, but now I shall only have to spend one-half of the rest of
it.
I hope you understand my position and won’t be cross. The allowance
I shall still most gratefully accept. It requires an allowance to
live up to Julia and her furniture! I wish that she had been reared
to simpler tastes, or else that she were not my room-mate.
This isn’t much of a letter; I meant to have written a lot--but
I’ve been hemming four window curtains and three portières (I’m
glad you can’t see the length of the stitches) and polishing a brass
desk set with tooth powder (very uphill work) and sawing off picture
wire with manicure scissors, and unpacking four boxes of books, and
putting away two trunkfuls of clothes (it doesn’t seem believable
that Jerusha Abbott owns two trunks full of clothes, but she does!)
and welcoming back fifty dear friends in between.
Opening day is a joyous occasion!
Good night, Daddy dear, and don’t be annoyed because your chick is
wanting to scratch for herself. She’s growing up into an awfully
energetic little hen--with a very determined cluck and lots of
beautiful feathers (all due to you).
Affectionately,
JUDY.
September 30th.
_Dear Daddy_,
Are you still harping on that scholarship? I never knew a man so
obstinate and stubborn and unreasonable, and tenacious, and
bull-doggish, and unable-to-see-other-people’s-points-of-view as
you.
You prefer that I should not be accepting favors from strangers.
Strangers!--And what are you, pray?
Is there any one in the world that I know less? I shouldn’t
recognize you if I met you on the street. Now, you see, if you had
been a sane, sensible person and had written nice, cheering,
fatherly letters to your little Judy, and had come occasionally and
patted her on the head, and had said you were glad she was such a
good girl--Then, perhaps, she wouldn’t have flouted you in your old
age, but would have obeyed your slightest wish like the dutiful
daughter she was meant to be.
Strangers indeed! You live in a glass house, Mr. Smith.
And besides, this isn’t a favor; it’s like a prize--I earned it by
hard work. If nobody had been good enough in English, the committee
wouldn’t have awarded the scholarship; some years they don’t.
Also--But what’s the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr.
Smith, to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into
line, there are just two methods: one must either coax or be
disagreeable. I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must
be disagreeable.
I refuse, sir, to give up the scholarship; and if you make any more
fuss, I won’t accept the monthly allowance either, but will wear
myself into a nervous wreck tutoring stupid Freshmen.
That is my ultimatum!
And listen--I have a further thought. Since you are so afraid that
by taking this scholarship, I am depriving some one else of an
education, I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would
have spent for me, toward educating some other little girl from the
John Grier Home. Don’t you think that’s a nice idea? Only, Daddy,
_educate_ the new girl as much as you choose, but please don’t
_like_ her any better than me.
I trust that your secretary won’t be hurt because I pay so little
attention to the suggestions offered in his letter, but I can’t help
it if he is. He’s a spoiled child, Daddy. I’ve meekly given in to
his whims heretofore, but this time I intend to be FIRM.
Yours,
With a Mind,
Completely and Irrevocably and World-without-End Made-up.
JERUSHA ABBOTT.
[Plate: “I LIKE MY DIFFERENT FRIENDS TO KNOW EACH OTHER.”]
November 9th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I started down town to-day to buy a bottle of shoe blacking and some
collars and the material for a new blouse and a jar of violet cream
and a cake of Castile soap--all very necessary; I couldn’t be happy
another day without them--and when I tried to pay the car fare,
I found that I had left my purse in the pocket of my other coat. So
I had to get out and take the next car, and was late for gymnasium.
It’s a dreadful thing to have no memory and two coats!
Julia Pendleton has invited me to visit her for the Christmas
holidays. How does that strike you, Mr. Smith? Fancy Jerusha Abbott,
of the John Grier Home, sitting at the tables of the rich. I don’t
know why Julia wants me--she seems to be getting quite attached to
me of late. I should, to tell the truth, very much prefer going to
Sallie’s, but Julia asked me first, so if I go anywhere, it must be
to New York instead of to Worcester. I’m rather awed at the
prospect of meeting Pendletons _en masse_, and also I’d have to get
a lot of new clothes--so, Daddy dear, if you write that you would
prefer having me remain quietly at college, I will bow to your
wishes with my usual sweet docility.
I’m engaged at odd moments with the “Life and Letters of Thomas
Huxley”--it makes nice, light reading to pick up between times. Do
you know what an archæopteryx is? It’s a bird. And a stereognathus?
I’m not sure myself but I think it’s a missing link, like a bird