Daddy-Long-Legs
those horrid Trustees, and the reason you are educating me is, not
because you care a bit about me, but from a sense of Duty.
I don’t know a single thing about you. I don’t even know your name.
It is very uninspiring writing to a Thing. I haven’t a doubt but
that you throw my letters into the waste-basket without reading
them. Hereafter I shall write only about work.
My reëxaminations in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed
them both and am now free from conditions.
Yours truly,
JERUSHA ABBOTT.
April 2d.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I am a BEAST.
Please forget about that dreadful letter I sent you last week--I was
feeling terribly lonely and miserable and sore-throaty the night I
wrote. I didn’t know it, but I was just coming down with tonsilitis
and grippe and lots of things mixed. I’m in the infirmary now, and
have been here for six days; this is the first time they would let
me sit up and have a pen and paper. The head nurse is _very bossy_.
But I’ve been thinking about it all the time and I shan’t get well
until you forgive me.
Here is a picture of the way I look, with a bandage tied around my
head in rabbit’s ears.
Doesn’t that arouse your sympathy? I am having sublingual gland
swelling. And I’ve been studying physiology all the year without
ever hearing of sublingual glands. How futile a thing is education!
I can’t write any more; I get sort of shaky when I sit up too long.
Please forgive me for being impertinent and ungrateful. I was badly
brought up.
Yours with love,
JUDY ABBOTT.
THE INFIRMARY.
April 4th.
_Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs_,
Yesterday evening just toward dark, when I was sitting up in bed
looking out at the rain and feeling awfully bored with life in a
great institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box
addressed to me, and filled with the _loveliest_ pink rosebuds. And
much nicer still, it contained a card with a very polite message
written in a funny little uphill back hand (but one which shows a
great deal of character). Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. Your
flowers make the first real, true present I ever received in my
life. If you want to know what a baby I am, I lay down and cried
because I was so happy.
Now that I am sure you read my letters, I’ll make them much more
interesting, so they’ll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape
around them--only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up.
I’d hate to think that you ever read it over.
Thank you for making a very sick, cross, miserable Freshman
cheerful. Probably you have lots of loving family and friends,
and you don’t know what it feels like to be alone. But I do.
Good-by--I’ll promise never to be horrid again, because now I know
you’re a real person; also I’ll promise never to bother you with
any more questions.
Do you still hate girls?
Yours forever,
JUDY.
8th hour, Monday.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I hope you aren’t the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off--I
was told--with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee.
Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by
the laundry windows in the John Grier Home? Every spring when the
hoptoad season opened we used to form a collection of toads and keep
them in those window holes; and occasionally they would spill over
into the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days.
We were severely punished for our activities in this direction, but
in spite of all discouragement the toads would collect.
And one day--well, I won’t bore you with particulars--but somehow,
one of the fattest, biggest, _juiciest_ toads got into one of those
big leather arm chairs in the Trustees’ room, and that afternoon at
the Trustees’ meeting-- But I dare say you were there and recall the
rest?
Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say that
punishment was merited, and--if I remember rightly--adequate.
I don’t know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring
and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive
instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is
the fact that no rule exists against it.
After chapel, Thursday.
What do you think is my favorite book? Just now, I mean; I change
every three days. “Wuthering Heights.” Emily Bronté was quite young
when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard.
She had never known any men in her life; how _could_ she imagine a
man like Heathcliffe?
I couldn’t do it, and I’m quite young and never outside the John
Grier Asylum--I’ve had every chance in the world. Sometimes a
dreadful fear comes over me that I’m not a genius. Will you be
awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don’t turn out to be a great
author? In the spring when everything is so beautiful and green and
budding, I feel like turning my back on lessons, and running away to
play with the weather. There are such lots of adventures out in the
fields! It’s much more entertaining to live books than to write
them.
Ow ! ! ! ! ! !
That was a shriek which brought Sallie and Julia and (for a
disgusted moment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by
a centipede like this:
only worse. Just as I had finished the last sentence and was
thinking what to say next--plump!--it fell off the ceiling and
landed at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea table in trying to
get away. Sallie whacked it with the back of my hair brush--which I
shall never be able to use again--and killed the front end, but the
rear fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped.
This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full of
centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I’d rather find a tiger
under the bed.
Friday, 9.30 P. M.
Such a lot of troubles! I didn’t hear the rising bell this morning,
then I broke my shoe-string while I was hurrying to dress and
dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and
also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper
and my fountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the Professor and I had
a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it
up, I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie-plant for
lunch--hate ’em both; they taste like the asylum. Nothing but bills
in my mail (though I must say that I never do get anything else; my
family are not the kind that write). In English class this afternoon
we had an unexpected written lesson. This was it:
I asked no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button
Without a glance my way:
But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?
That is a poem. I don’t know who wrote it or what it means. It was
simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were
ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought I
had an idea--The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributes
blessings in return for virtuous deeds--but when I got to the second
verse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous
supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class
was in the same predicament; and there we sat for three quarters of
an hour with blank paper and equally blank minds. Getting an
education is an awfully wearing process!
But this didn’t end the day. There’s worse to come.
It rained so we couldn’t play golf, but had to go to gymnasium
instead. The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club.
I got home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had
come, and the skirt was so tight that I couldn’t sit down. Friday
is sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk.
We had tombstone for dessert (milk and gelatin flavored with
vanilla). We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to
listen to a speech about womanly women. And then--just as I was
settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to “The Portrait
of a Lady,” a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly,
unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because
her name begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski),
came to ask if Monday’s lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and
stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.
Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn’t
the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to
a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the
petty hazards of the day with a laugh--I really think that requires
_spirit_.
It’s the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going
to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as
skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my
shoulders and laugh--also if I win.
Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain
again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes
drop off the wall.
Yours ever,
JUDY.
Answer soon.
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.
_Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes_,
_Vous etes un ^brick!^_
_Je suis tres heureuse ^about the farm^, parsque je n’ai jamais
^been on a farm^ dans ma vie ^and I’d hate to^ retourner chez ^John
Grier^, et ^wash dishes^ tout l’été. ^There would be danger of^
quelque chose affreuse ^happening^, parsque j’ai perdue ma humilité
d’autre fois et j’ai peur ^that I would just break out^ quelque jour
et ^smash every cup and saucer^ dans la maison._
_Pardon brièveté et ^paper^. Je ne peux pas ^send^ des mes nouvelles
parseque je suis dans ^French class^ et j’ai peur que Monsieur le
Professeur ^is going to call on me^ tout de suite._
He did!
_Au revoir,_
_Je vous aime beaucoup._
JUDY.
May 30th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
Did you ever see this campus? (That is merely a rhetorical question.
Don’t let it annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. All the
shrubs are in blossom and the trees are the loveliest young
green--even the old pines look fresh and new. The grass is dotted
with yellow dandelions and hundreds of girls in blue and white and
pink dresses. Everybody is joyous and care-free, for vacation’s
coming, and with that to look forward to, examinations don’t count.
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 nurse-maid or typewriter or bookkeeper (I should have
been, you know, except for you).
I’m sorry now for all my past badnesses.
I’m sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. Lippett.
I’m sorry I ever slapped Freddie Perkins.
I’m sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl with salt.
I’m sorry I ever made faces behind the Trustees’ backs.
I’m going to be good and sweet and kind to everybody because I’m
so happy. And this summer I’m going to write and write and write
and begin to be a great author. Isn’t that an exalted stand to
take? Oh, I’m developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit
under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.
That’s the way with everybody. I don’t agree with the theory that
adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The
happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness.
I have no faith in misanthropes. (Fine word! Just learned it.) You
are not a misanthrope are you, Daddy?