The Christmas vacation.

Exact date unknown

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is covered in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It’s late afternoon – the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I’m not used to receiving Christmas presents. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold’s poems.

III. A hot-water bottle.

IV. A rug. (My tower is cold.)

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I’m going to start being an author pretty soon.)

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author’s vocabulary.)

VII. (I don’t much like to confess this last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don’t tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings every night. But just wait – as soon as she gets back from vacation I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I’m honest; and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn’t perfect, didn’t you?

And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested in my education as such?

The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny as Jerusha, isn’t it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride; I shall never like any one so much as Sallie – except you. I must always like you the best of all, because you’re my whole family. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked cross country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighbourhood. Once we walked into town – four miles – and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner. It was such a fun! Especially for me, because it was so awfully different from the asylum.

Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely…

Eleven pages – poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be just a short little thank-you note – but when I get started I seem to have a ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me – I should be perfectly happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations come in February.

Yours with love,

Judy

P.S. Maybe it isn’t proper to send love? If it isn’t, please excuse. But I must love somebody and there’s only you and Mrs. Lippett to choose between, so you see – you’ll HAVE to put up with it, Daddy dear, because I can’t love her.

On the Eve

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You should see the way this college is studying!

We’ve forgotten we ever had a vacation. Fifty-seven irregular verbs have I introduced to my brain in the past four days – I’m only hoping they’ll stay till after examinations.

Some of the girls sell their text-books when they’re through with them, but I intend to keep mine. Then after I’ve graduated I shall have my whole education in a row in the bookcase, and when I need to use any detail, I can turn to it without the slightest hesitation. So much easier and more accurate than trying to keep it in your head.

Julia Pendleton dropped in this evening to pay a social call, and stayed a full hour. She got started on the subject of family, and I COULDN’T switch her off. She wanted to know what my mother’s maiden name was – did you ever hear such an impertinent question to ask of a person from a foundling asylum? I didn’t have the courage to say I didn’t know, so I just miserably mentioned the first name I could think of, and that was Montgomery. Then she wanted to know whether I belonged to the Massachusetts Montgomerys or the Virginia Montgomerys.

Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father’s side they date back further than Adam.

I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter tonight, but I’m too sleepy – and frightened. The Freshman’s lot is not a happy one.

Yours, about to be examined,

Judy Abbott

Sunday

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

I have some awful, awful, awful news to tell you, but I won’t begin with it; I’ll try to get you in a good humour first.

Jerusha Abbott has commenced to be an author. A poem entitled, “From my Tower”, appears in the February Monthly – on the first page, which is a very great honour for a Freshman. I will send you a copy in case you care to read it.

Let me see if I can’t think of something else pleasant – Oh, yes! I’m learning to skate, and can glide about quite respectably all by myself. Also I’ve learned how to slide down a rope from the roof of the gymnasium, and I can vault a bar three feet and six inches high – I hope shortly to pull up to four feet.

This is the sunniest, most blinding winter afternoon, with icicles dripping from the fir trees and all the world bending under a weight of snow – except me, and I’m bending under a weight of sorrow.

Now for the news – courage, Judy! – you must tell.

Are you SURELY in a good humour? I failed in mathematics and Latin prose. I am tutoring in them, and will take another examination next month. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but otherwise I don’t care a bit because I’ve learned such a lot of things not mentioned in the catalogue. I’ve read seventeen novels and lot of poetry – really necessary novels like “Vanity Fair” and “Alice in Wonderland”.

So you see, Daddy, I’m much more intelligent than if I’d just learnt only Latin. Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to fail again?

Yours in sackcloth and ashes,

Judy

The Ides of March

Dear D.-L.-L.,

I am studying Latin prose composition. My re-examination comes the 7th hour next Tuesday, and I am going to pass or BUST. So you may expect to hear from me next, whole and happy and free from conditions, or in fragments.

I will write a respectable letter when it’s over. Tonight I have a pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute.

Yours – in evident haste,

J. A.

March 26th

Mr. D.-L.-L. Smith,

SIR: You never answer any questions; you never show the slightest interest in anything I do. You are probably the horridest one of all 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 dull writing to a Thing. I haven’t a doubt but that you throw my letters into the waste-basket without reading them.

In future I shall write only about work. My re-examinations in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed them both and am now free from conditions.

Yours truly,

Jerusha Abbott

April 2nd

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 tonsillitis 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 can’t write any more; I get rather 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 towards 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.

Goodbye – 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 for ever,

Judy

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 944