and a lot of others besides. It's astonishing how many different
things he knows.
We went for a long tramp 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.
Saturday
I started this letter ages ago, but I haven't had a second to finish it.
Isn't this a nice thought from Stevenson?
The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings.
It's true, you know. The world is full of happiness, and plenty
to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes
your way. The whole secret is in being PLIABLE. In the country,
especially, there are such a lot of entertaining things.
I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view,
and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much
as though I owned the land--and with no taxes to pay!
It's Sunday night now, about eleven o'clock,
and I am supposed to be getting some beauty
sleep, but I had black coffee for dinner, so--no beauty sleep for me!
This morning, said Mrs. Semple to Mr. Pendleton, with a very
determined accent:
`We have to leave here at a quarter past ten in order to get
to church by eleven.'
`Very well, Lizzie,' said Master Jervie, `you have the buggy ready,
and if I'm not dressed, just go on without waiting.' 'We'll wait,'
said she.
`As you please,' said he, `only don't keep the horses standing
too long.'
Then while she was dressing, he told Carrie to pack up a lunch,
and he told me to scramble into my walking clothes; and we slipped
out the back way and went fishing.
It discommoded the household dreadfully, because Lock Willow of
a Sunday dines at two. But he ordered dinner at seven--he orders 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 be a school-teacher.
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
PS. On reading this over, I find that it isn't all Stevenson.
There are one or two glancing references to Master Jervie.
10th September
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 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 post, 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-coloured light
over everything. We're going to have a storm.
It commenced just that moment with tremendously big drops and all
the shutters banging. I had to run to close the 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.
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 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 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 LONGING 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.
26th September
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 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 portieres (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
30th September
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-point-of-view,
as you.
You prefer that I should not be accepting favours 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 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 favour; 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 someone else of an education,
I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would have spent
for me towards 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
9th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I started down town today 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 archaeopteryx is? It's a bird. And a stereognathus?
