friend, a long farewell. I leave you now to sink to hell.
I find that it isn't safe to discuss religion with the Semples. Their God (whom they have inherited
intact from their remote Puritan ancestors) is a narrow, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful,
bigoted Person. Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I
wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding--and He
has a sense of humour.
I like the Semples immensely; their practice is so superior to their theory. They are better than
their own God. I told them so--and they are horribly troubled. They think I am
blasphemous--and I think they are! We've dropped theology from our conversation.
This is Sunday afternoon.
Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and some bright yellow buckskin gloves, very red and shaved,
has just driven off with Carrie (hired girl) in a big hat trimmed with red roses and a blue muslin
dress and her 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!
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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
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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
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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
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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
38
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,
