hair curled as tight as it will curl. Amasai spent all the morning
washing the buggy; and Carrie stayed home from church ostensibly
to cook the dinner, but really to iron the muslin dress.
In two minutes more when this letter is finished I am going to settle
down to a book which I found in the attic. It's entitled, On the Trail,
and sprawled across the front page in a funny little-boy hand:
Jervis Pendleton
if this book should ever roam,
Box its ears and send it home.
He spent the summer here once after he had been ill, when he
was about eleven years old; and he left On the Trail behind.
It looks well read--the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent!
Also in a corner of the attic there is a water wheel and a windmill
and some bows and arrows. Mrs. Semple talks so constantly about him
that I begin to believe he really lives--not a grown man with a silk hat
and walking stick, but a nice, dirty, tousle-headed boy who clatters
up the stairs with an awful racket, and leaves the screen doors open,
and is always asking for cookies. (And getting them, too, if I
know Mrs. Semple!) He seems to have been an adventurous little soul--
and brave and truthful. I'm sorry to think he is a Pendleton;
he was meant for something better.
We're going to begin threshing oats tomorrow; a steam engine
is coming and three extra men.
It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup (the spotted cow with
one horn, Mother of Lesbia) has done a disgraceful thing. She got
into the orchard Friday evening and ate apples under the trees,
and ate and ate until they went to her head. For two days she
has been perfectly dead drunk! That is the truth I am telling.
Did you ever hear anything so scandalous?
Sir,
I remain,
Your affectionate orphan,
Judy Abbott
PS. Indians in the first chapter and highwaymen in the second.
I hold my breath. What can the third contain? `Red Hawk leapt
twenty feet in the air and bit the dust.' That is the subject of
the frontispiece. Aren't Judy and Jervie having fun?
15th September
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
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 on sufferance.
I don't suppose you understand in the least what I am trying to say.
A person important enough to be a Trustee can't appreciate the
feelings of a person unimportant enough to be a foundling.
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; but the Pendletons are naturally
conservative and inimical (fine word!) to change. Anyway, here we are.
Think of Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier Home for Orphans,
rooming with a Pendleton. This is a democratic country.
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.
I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. I've never seen
anything like it before. Molecules and Atoms are the material employed,
but I'll be in a position to discuss them more definitely next month.
I am also taking argumentation and logic.
Also history of the whole world.
Also plays of William Shakespeare.
Also French.
If this keeps up many years longer, I shall become quite intelligent.
I should rather have elected economics than French, but I
didn't dare, because I was afraid that unless I re-elected
French, the Professor would not let me pass--as it was,
I just managed to squeeze through the June examination.
But I will say that my high-school preparation was not very adequate.
There's one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast
as she does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she
was a child, and spent three years in a convent school. You can
imagine how bright she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs
are mere playthings. I wish my parents had chucked me into a French
convent when I was little instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no,
I don't either! Because then maybe I should never have known you.
I'd rather know you than French.
Goodbye, Daddy. I must call on Harriet Martin now,
and, having discussed the chemical situation,
casually drop a few thoughts on the subject of our next president.
Yours in politics,
J. Abbott
17th October
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?
Two other problems are engaging the attention of our table.
1st. What shape are the rooms in an octagon house?
Some of the girls insist that they're square;
but I think they'd have to be shaped like a piece of pie. Don't you?
2nd. Suppose there were a great big hollow sphere made of
looking-glass and you were sitting inside. Where would it stop
reflecting your face and begin reflecting your back? The more
one thinks about this problem, the more puzzling it becomes.
You can see with what deep philosophical reflection we engage our leisure!
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 for Ever,' 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
12th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
We beat the Freshmen at basket ball 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 houseful of children (anyway two
or three) and a mother and father and grandmother, and an Angora cat.
It's a perfectly complete family! Packing your trunk and going
away is more fun than staying behind. 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 lark?
Yours,
J. A.
Saturday
Do you want to know what I look like? Here's a photograph of all
three that Leonora Fenton took.
The light one who is laughing is Sallie, and the tall one with her
nose in the air is Julia, and the little one with the hair blowing
across her face is Judy--she is really more beautiful than that,
but the sun was in her eyes.
`STONE GATE',
WORCESTER, MASS.,
31st December
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 absorbing, and I don't
seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.
I bought a new gown--one that I didn't need, but just wanted.
My Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family
just sent love.
I've been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie.
She lives in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set
back from the street--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.
It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in;
with shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn,
and an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a
comfortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen,
and a nice, fat, sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years
and always saves out a piece of dough for the children to bake.
Just the sight of such a house makes you want to be a child all
over again.
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.
(I dare say I'm blasphemous; but you'd be, too, if you'd offered as
much obligatory thanks as I have.)
Such a lot of things we've done--I can't begin to tell you about them.
Mr. McBride owns a factory and Christmas eve he had a tree for
the employees' children. It was in the long packing-room which was
decorated with evergreens and holly. Jimmie McBride was dressed
as Santa Claus and Sallie and I helped him distribute the presents.
Dear me, Daddy, but it was a funny sensation! I felt as benevolent
as a Trustee of the John Grier home. I kissed one sweet,
sticky little boy--but I don't think I patted any of them on the head!
And 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
PS. 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 prattle 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; and as for brothers
and cousins, they are next to impossible. Julia had to swear
that he was her uncle before a notary public and then have the
county clerk's certificate attached. (Don't I know a lot of law?)
And even then I doubt if we could have had our tea if the Dean
had chanced to see how youngish and good-looking Uncle Jervis is.
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 asked if they still kept doughnuts in a yellow crock with a blue
plate over it on the bottom shelf of the pantry--and they do!
He wanted to know if there was still a woodchuck's hole under the pile
of rocks in the night pasture--and there is! Amasai caught a big,
fat, grey one there this summer, the twenty-fifth great-grandson
of the one Master Jervis caught when he was a little boy.
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. They purr if you rub them the
right way and spit if you don't. (That isn't a very elegant metaphor.
I mean it figuratively.)
We're reading Marie Bashkirtseff's journal. Isn't it amazing?
Listen to this: `Last night I was seized by a fit of despair
that found utterance in moans, and that finally drove me to throw
the dining-room clock into the sea.'
It makes me almost hope I'm not a genius; they must be very wearing
to have about--and awfully destructive to the furniture.
