The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith

Blue Wednesday

The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day – a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” whenever a Trustee spoke.

It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the asylum’s guests, and turned upstairs to accomplish her regular work. Her special care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied eleven little cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly and willing line towards the dining-room to engage themselves for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding.

Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody’s bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron, Mrs. Lippett.

The day was ended – quite successfully, so far as she knew. The Trustees and the visiting committee had made their rounds, and read their reports, and drunk their tea, and now were hurrying home to their own cheerful firesides, to forget their bothersome little charges for another month. Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity – and a touch of wistfulness – the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses standing along the hillside.

Jerusha had an imagination – an imagination, Mrs. Lippett told her, that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care – but strong as it was, it could not carry her beyond the front porch of the houses she would enter. Poor, eager, adventurous little Jerusha, in all her seventeen years, had never stepped inside an ordinary house; she could not picture the daily routine of those other human beings who carried on their lives undisturbed by orphans.

Je-ru-sha Ab-bott

You are wan-ted

In the of-fice,

And I think you’d

Better hurry up!

Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha tore herself from the window and refaced the troubles of life.

“Who wants me?” she cut into Tommy’s chant with a note of sharp anxiety.

Mrs. Lippett in the office,

And I think she’s mad.

Ah-a-men!

Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow. What could have gone wrong, she wondered.

The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, a last Trustee stood, on the point of departure, in the open door that led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha caught only a slight impression of the man – and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. He was waving his arm towards an automobile waiting in the curved drive. As it sprang into motion and approached, the glaring headlights threw his shadow sharply against the wall inside. The shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along the floor and up the wall of the corridor. It looked, for all the world, like a big, wavering daddy-long-legs.

Jerusha’s anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always taken the smallest excuse to be amused. She advanced to the office quite cheered by the episode, and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett. To her surprise the matron was also, if not exactly smiling, at least noticeably friendly; she wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she used for visitors.

“Sit down, Jerusha, I have something to say to you.”

Jerusha dropped into the nearest chair and waited with a touch of breathlessness.

“Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone?”

“I saw his back.”

“He is one of our richest Trustees, and has given large sums of money for the asylum’s support. I am not at liberty to mention his name; he insisted on remaining unknown.”

Jerusha’s eyes widened slightly; she was not accustomed to being called to the office to discuss the eccentricities of Trustees with the matron.

“This gentleman has taken an interest in several of our boys. You remember Charles Benton and Henry Freize? They were both sent to college by Mr. – er – this Trustee, and both have repaid with hard work and success the money that was so generously spent. Other payment the gentleman does not wish. I have never been able to interest him in the slightest degree in any of the girls in the institution, no matter how deserving.

He does not, I may tell you, care for girls.”

“No, ma’am,” Jerusha murmured, since some reply seemed to be expected at this point.

“To-day at the regular meeting, the question of your future was raised.

Usually, as you know, the children are not kept after they are sixteen, but an exception was made in your case. You had finished our school at fourteen, and having done so well in your studies – not always, I must say, in your conduct – it was decided to let you go on in the village high school. Now you are finishing that, and of course the asylum cannot be responsible any longer for your support. As it is, you have had two years more than most.”

Mrs. Lippett overlooked the fact that Jerusha had worked hard for her board during those two years, that the convenience of the asylum had come first and her education second; that on days like the present she was kept at home to scrub.

“As I say, the question of your future was raised and your record was discussed – thoroughly discussed. Of course the usual way for one in your place would be to put you in a position where you could begin to work, but you have done well in school in certain branches; it seems that your work in English has even been brilliant. Miss Pritchard, who is on our visiting committee, is also on the school board; she made a speech in your favor. She also read aloud an essay that you had written entitled, “Blue Wednesday”.

It seemed to me that you showed little gratitude in trying to ridicule the institution that has done so much for you. Had you not managed to be funny I doubt if you would have been forgiven. But luckily for you, Mr. – , that is, the gentleman who has just gone – appears to have a good sense of humor. On the strength of that impertinent paper, he has offered to send you to college.”

“To college?” Jerusha’s eyes grew big.

Mrs. Lippett nodded.

“He waited to discuss the terms with me. They are unusual. The gentleman, I may say, is wrong. He believes that you have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become a writer.”

“A writer?” Jerusha’s mind was numbed. She could only repeat Mrs. Lippett’s words.

“That is his wish. Whether anything will come of it, the future will show. He is giving you a very liberal allowance, almost, for a girl who has never had any experience in taking care of money, too liberal. But he planned the matter in detail, and I did not feel free to make any suggestions. Your board and tuition will be paid directly to the college, and you will receive in addition during the four years you are there, an allowance of thirty-five dollars a month. This will enable you to enter on the same standing as the other students. The money will be sent to you by the gentleman’s private secretary once a month, and in return, you will write a letter of acknowledgment once a month. That is – you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn’t care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life. Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living.

These letters will be addressed to Mr. John Smith and will be sent in care of the secretary. The gentleman’s name is not John Smith, but he prefers to remain unknown. To you he will never be anything but John Smith. His reason in requiring the letters is that he thinks nothing helps better to become a writer than letter-writing. Since you have no family with whom to correspond, he wants you to write in this way; also, he wishes to be informed of your progress. He will never answer your letters, nor take any notice of them. He hates letter-writing and does not wish you to become a burden. If any point should ever arise where an answer would seem to be necessary – you may correspond with Mr. Griggs, his secretary. These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory on your part; they are the only payment that Mr. Smith requires, so you must be as accurate in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training. You must remember that you are writing to a Trustee of the John Grier Home.”

Jerusha’s eyes longingly looked for the door. Her head was in a whirl of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett’s dull remarks, and think. She rose and took a step backwards. Mrs. Lippett stopped her with a gesture:

“Not many girls in your position ever have such an opportunity to rise in the world. You must always remember – ”

“I – yes, ma’am, thank you. I think, if that’s all, I must go and sew a patch on Freddie Perkins’s trousers.” The door closed behind her, and Mrs. Lippett watched it with dropped jaw, her last words in mid-air.

The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith

Fergussen Hall

September 24th

Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,

Here I am! I travelled yesterday for four hours in a train. It’s a funny sensation, isn’t it? I never rode in one before.

College is the biggest, most bewildering place – I get lost whenever I leave my room. I will write you a description later when I’m feeling less confused; also I will tell you about my lessons. Classes don’t begin until Monday morning, and this is Saturday night. But I wanted to write a letter first just to get acquainted.

It seems strange to be writing letters to somebody you don’t know. It seems strange for me to be writing letters at all – I’ve never written more than three or four in my life, so please excuse me if these are not a model kind.

Before leaving yesterday morning, Mrs. Lippett and I had a very serious talk. She told me how to behave all the rest of my life, and especially how to behave towards the kind gentleman who is doing so much for me. I must take care to be Very Respectful.

But how can one be very respectful to a person who wishes to be called John Smith? Why couldn’t you have picked out a name with a little personality?

I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I belonged to somebody now, and it’s a very comfortable feeling. I must say, however, that when I think about you, my imagination has very little to work upon. There are just three things that I know:

I. You are tall.

II. You are rich.

III. You hate girls.

I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl-Hater. Only that’s sort of insulting to me. Or Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that’s insulting to you, as though money were the only important thing about you. So I’ve decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you won’t mind. It’s just a private pet name we won’t tell Mrs. Lippett.

The ten o’clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells. It’s very enlivening; I feel like a fire horse all of the time. There it goes! Lights out. Good night.

Observe with what precision I obey rules – due to my training in the John Grier Home.

Yours most respectfully,

Jerusha Abbott.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 2147