Mercy! how it keeps Pouring. We shall have to swim to chapel tonight.
Yours ever,
Judy
20th Jan.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Did you ever have a sweet baby girl who was stolen from the cradle
in infancy?
Maybe I am she! If we were in a novel, that would be the denouement,
wouldn't it?
It's really awfully queer not to know what one is--sort of
exciting and romantic. There are such a lot of possibilities.
Maybe I'm not American; lots of people aren't. I may be straight
descended from the ancient Romans, or I may be a Viking's daughter,
or I may be the child of a Russian exile and belong by rights
in a Siberian prison, or maybe I'm a Gipsy--I think perhaps I am.
I have a very WANDERING spirit, though I haven't as yet had much
chance to develop it.
Do you know about that one scandalous blot in my career the time I ran
away from the asylum because they punished me for stealing cookies?
It's down in the books free for any Trustee to read. But really,
Daddy, what could you expect? When you put a hungry little nine-year
girl in the pantry scouring knives, with the cookie jar at her elbow,
and go off and leave her alone; and then suddenly pop in again,
wouldn't you expect to find her a bit crumby? And then when you
jerk her by the elbow and box her ears, and make her leave the table
when the pudding comes, and tell all the other children that it's
because she's a thief, wouldn't you expect her to run away?
I only ran four miles. They caught me and brought me back;
and every day for a week I was tied, like a naughty puppy, to a stake
in the back yard while the other children were out at recess.
Oh, dear! There's the chapel bell, and after
chapel I have a committee meeting. I'm
sorry because I meant to write you a very entertaining letter this time.
Auf wiedersehen
Cher Daddy,
Pax tibi!
Judy
PS. There's one thing I'm perfectly sure of I'm not a Chinaman.
4th February
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Jimmie McBride has sent me a Princeton banner as big as one end
of the room; I am very grateful to him for remembering me, but I
don't know what on earth to do with it. Sallie and Julia won't
let me hang it up; our room this year is furnished in red, and you
can imagine what an effect we'd have if I added orange and black.
But it's such nice, warm, thick felt, I hate to waste it.
Would it be very improper to have it made into a bath robe?
My old one shrank when it was washed.
I've entirely omitted of late telling you what I am learning,
but though you might not imagine it from my letters, my time is
exclusively occupied with study. It's a very bewildering matter
to get educated in five branches at once.
`The test of true scholarship,' says Chemistry Professor,
`is a painstaking passion for detail.'
`Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail,' says History
Professor. `Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.'
You can see with what nicety we have to trim our sails between
chemistry and history. I like the historical method best.
If I say that William the Conqueror came over in 1492, and Columbus
discovered America in 1100 or 1066 or whenever it was, that's a mere
detail that the Professor overlooks. It gives a feeling of security
and restfulness to the history recitation, that is entirely lacking
in chemistry.
Sixth-hour bell--I must go to the laboratory and look into a little
matter of acids and salts and alkalis. I've burned a hole as big
as a plate in the front of my chemistry apron, with hydrochloric acid.
If the theory worked, I ought to be able to neutralize that hole
with good strong ammonia, oughtn't I?
Examinations next week, but who's afraid?
Yours ever,
Judy
5th March
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
There is a March wind blowing, and the sky is filled with heavy,
black moving clouds. The crows in the pine trees are making such
a clamour! It's an intoxicating, exhilarating, CALLING noise.
You want to close your books and be off over the hills to race with
the wind.
We had a paper chase last Saturday over five miles of squashy
'cross country. The fox (composed of three girls and a bushel or so
of confetti) started half an hour before the twenty-seven hunters.
I was one of the twenty-seven; eight dropped by the wayside;
we ended nineteen. The trail led over a hill, through a cornfield,
and into a swamp where we had to leap lightly from hummock to hummock.
of course half of us went in ankle deep. We kept losing the trail,
and we wasted twenty-five minutes over that swamp. Then up a hill
through some woods and in at a barn window! The barn doors were all
locked and the window was up high and pretty small. I don't call
that fair, do you?
But we didn't go through; we circumnavigated the barn and picked up
the trail where it issued by way of a low shed roof on to the top
of a fence. The fox thought he had us there, but we fooled him.
Then straight away over two miles of rolling meadow, and awfully
hard to follow, for the confetti was getting sparse. The rule is
that it must be at the most six feet apart, but they were the longest
six feet I ever saw. Finally, after two hours of steady trotting,
we tracked Monsieur Fox into the kitchen of Crystal Spring (that's
a farm where the girls go in bob sleighs and hay wagons for chicken
and waffle suppers) and we found the three foxes placidly eating milk
and honey and biscuits. They hadn't thought we would get that far;
they were expecting us to stick in the barn window.
Both sides insist that they won. I think we did, don't you?
Because we caught them before they got back to the campus.
Anyway, all nineteen of us settled like locusts over the furniture
and clamoured for honey. There wasn't enough to go round, but Mrs.
Crystal Spring (that's our pet name for her; she's by rights a Johnson)
brought up a jar of strawberry jam and a can of maple syrup--
just made last week--and three loaves of brown bread.
We didn't get back to college till half-past six--half an hour late
for dinner--and we went straight in without dressing, and with
perfectly unimpaired appetites! Then we all cut evening chapel,
the state of our boots being enough of an excuse.
I never told you about examinations. I passed everything with the
utmost ease--I know the secret now, and am never going to fail again.
I shan't be able to graduate with honours though, because of that
beastly Latin prose and geometry Freshman year. But I don't care.
Wot's the hodds so long as you're 'appy? (That's a quotation.
I've been reading the English classics.)
Speaking of classics, have you ever read Hamlet? If you haven't,
do it right off. It's PERFECTLY CORKING. I've been hearing about
Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well;
I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation.
I have a beautiful play that I invented a long time ago when I first
learned to read. I put myself to sleep every night by pretending
I'm the person (the most important person) in the book I'm reading
at the moment.
At present I'm Ophelia--and such a sensible Ophelia! I keep
Hamlet amused all the time, and pet him and scold him and make him
wrap up his throat when he has a cold. I've entirely cured him
of being melancholy. The King and Queen are both dead--an accident
at sea; no funeral necessary--so Hamlet and I are ruling in Denmark
without any bother. We have the kingdom working beautifully.
He takes care of the governing, and I look after the charities.
I have just founded some first-class orphan asylums. If you
or any of the other Trustees would like to visit them, I shall be
pleased to show you through. I think you might find a great many
helpful suggestions.
I remain, sir,
Yours most graciously,
OPHELIA,
Queen of Denmark.
24th March,
maybe the 25th
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I don't believe I can be going to Heaven--I am getting such a lot
of good things here; it wouldn't be fair to get them hereafter too.
Listen to what has happened.
Jerusha Abbott has won the short-story contest (a twenty-five
dollar prize) that the Monthly holds every year. And she's a Sophomore!
The contestants are mostly Seniors. When I saw my name posted,
I couldn't quite believe it was true. Maybe I am going to be an author
after all. I wish Mrs. Lippett hadn't given me such a silly name--
it sounds like an author-ess, doesn't it?
Also I have been chosen for the spring dramatics--As You Like It
out of doors. I am going to be Celia, own cousin to Rosalind.
And lastly: Julia and Sallie and I are going to New York next Friday
to do some spring shopping and stay all night and go to the theatre
the next day with `Master Jervie.' He invited us. Julia is going
to stay at home with her family, but Sallie and I are going to stop
at the Martha Washington Hotel. Did you ever hear of anything
so exciting? I've never been in a hotel in my life, nor in a theatre;
except once when the Catholic Church had a festival and invited
the orphans, but that wasn't a real play and it doesn't count.
And what do you think we're going to see? Hamlet. Think of that!
We studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare class and I know it
by heart.
I am so excited over all these prospects that I can scarcely sleep.
Goodbye, Daddy.
This is a very entertaining world.
Yours ever,
Judy
PS. I've just looked at the calendar. It's the 28th.
Another postscript.
I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue.
Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story?
7th April
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Mercy! Isn't New York big? Worcester is nothing to it. Do you
mean to tell me that you actually live in all that confusion?
I don't believe that I shall recover for months from the bewildering
effect of two days of it. I can't begin to tell you all the amazing
things I've seen; I suppose you know, though, since you live
there yourself.
But aren't the streets entertaining? And the people? And the shops?
I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows.
It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes.
Sallie and Julia and I went shopping together Saturday morning.
Julia went into the very most gorgeous place I ever saw, white and
gold walls and blue carpets and blue silk curtains and gilt chairs.
A perfectly beautiful lady with yellow hair and a long black silk
trailing gown came to meet us with a welcoming smile. I thought we
were paying a social call, and started to shake hands, but it seems
we were only buying hats--at least Julia was. She sat down in front
of a mirror and tried on a dozen, each lovelier than the last,
and bought the two loveliest of all.
I can't imagine any joy in life greater than sitting down in front
of a mirror and buying any hat you choose without having first
to consider the price! There's no doubt about it, Daddy; New York
would rapidly undermine this fine stoical character which the John
Grier Home so patiently built up.
And after we'd finished our shopping, we met Master Jervie
at Sherry's. I suppose you've been in Sherry's? Picture that,
then picture the dining-room of the John Grier Home with its
oilcloth-covered tables, and white crockery that you CAN'T break,
and wooden-handled knives and forks; and fancy the way I felt!
I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but the waiter very kindly gave
me another so that nobody noticed.
And after luncheon we went to the theatre--it was dazzling,
marvellous, unbelievable--I dream about it every night.
Isn't Shakespeare wonderful?
Hamlet is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in class;
I appreciated it before, but now, clear me!
I think, if you don't mind, that I'd rather be an actress than
a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a
dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances,
and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose
in your buttonhole, please, so I'll surely smile at the right man.
It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out the wrong one.
We came back Saturday night and had our dinner in the train,
at little tables with pink lamps and negro waiters. I never heard
of meals being served in trains before, and I inadvertently said so.
`Where on earth were you brought up?' said Julia to me.
`In a village,' said I meekly, to Julia.
`But didn't you ever travel?' said she to me.
`Not till I came to college, and then it was only a hundred
and sixty miles and we didn't eat,' said I to her.
She's getting quite interested in me, because I say such funny things.
I try hard not to, but they do pop out when I'm surprised--
and I'm surprised most of the time. It's a dizzying experience,
Daddy, to pass eighteen years in the John Grier Home, and then
suddenly to be plunged into the WORLD.
But I'm getting acclimated. I don't make such awful mistakes as I did;
and I don't feel uncomfortable any more with the other girls. I used
to squirm whenever people looked at me. I felt as though they saw
right through my sham new clothes to the checked ginghams underneath.
But I'm not letting the ginghams bother me any more. Sufficient unto
yesterday is the evil thereof.
I forgot to tell you about our flowers. Master Jervie gave us each
a big bunch of violets and lilies-of-the-valley. Wasn't that sweet
of him? I never used to care much for men--judging by Trustees--
but I'm changing my mind.
Eleven pages--this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop.
Yours always,
Judy
10th April
Dear Mr. Rich-Man,
Here's your cheque for fifty dollars. Thank you very much,
