But this didn’t end the day. There’s worse to come.
It rained so we couldn’t play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead. The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, and the skirt was so tight that I couldn’t sit down. Friday is sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk. We had tombstone for dessert (milk and gelatin flavoured with vanilla). We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to listen to a speech about womanly women. And then—just as I was settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to ‘The Portrait of a Lady’, a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), came to ask if Monday’s lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.
Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit.
It’s the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win.
Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes drop off the wall.
Yours ever,
Judy
Answer soon.
27th May
Daddy-Long-Legs, Esq.
Dear Sir: I am in receipt of a letter from Mrs. Lippett. She hopes that I am doing well in deportment and studies. Since I probably have no place to go this summer, she will let me come back to the asylum and work for my board until college opens.
I HATE THE JOHN GRIER HOME.
I’d rather die than go back.
Yours most truthfully,
Jerusha Abbott
Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes,
Vous etes un brick!
Je suis tres heureuse about the farm, parceque je n’ai jamais been on a farm dans ma vie and I’d hate to retourner chez John Grier, et wash dishes tout l’été. There would be danger of quelque chose affreuse happening, parceque j’ai perdue ma humilité d’autre fois et j’ai peur that I would just break out quelque jour et smash every cup and saucer dans la maison.
Pardon brièveté et paper. Je ne peux pas send des mes nouvelles parceque je suis dans French class et j’ai peur que Monsieur le Professeur is going to call on me tout de suite.
He did!
Au revoir, je vous aime beaucoup. Judy
30th May
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Did you ever see this campus? (That is merely a rhetorical question. Don’t let it annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. All the shrubs are in blossom and the trees are the loveliest young green—even the old pines look fresh and new. The grass is dotted with yellow dandelions and hundreds of girls in blue and white and pink dresses. Everybody is joyous and carefree, for vacation’s coming, and with that to look forward to, examinations don’t count.
Isn’t that a happy frame of mind to be in? And oh, Daddy! I’m the happiest of all! Because I’m not in the asylum any more; and I’m not anybody’s nursemaid or typewriter or bookkeeper (I should have been, you know, except for you).
I’m sorry now for all my past badnesses.
I’m sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. Lippett.
I’m sorry I ever slapped Freddie Perkins.
I’m sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl with salt.
I’m sorry I ever made faces behind the Trustees’ backs.
I’m going to be good and sweet and kind to everybody because I’m so happy. And this summer I’m going to write and write and write and begin to be a great author. Isn’t that an exalted stand to take? Oh, I’m developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.
That’s the way with everybody. I don’t agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. I have no faith in misanthropes. (Fine word! Just learned it.) You are not a misanthrope are you, Daddy?
I started to tell you about the campus. I wish you’d come for a little visit and let me walk you about and say:
‘That is the library. This is the gas plant, Daddy dear. The Gothic building on your left is the gymnasium, and the Tudor Romanesque beside it is the new infirmary.’
Oh, I’m fine at showing people about. I’ve done it all my life at the asylum, and I’ve been doing it all day here. I have honestly.
And a Man, too!
That’s a great experience. I never talked to a man before (except occasional Trustees, and they don’t count). Pardon, Daddy, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings when I abuse Trustees. I don’t consider that you really belong among them. You just tumbled on to the Board by chance. The Trustee, as such, is fat and pompous and benevolent. He pats one on the head and wears a gold watch chain.
That looks like a June bug, but is meant to be a portrait of any Trustee except you.
However—to resume:
I have been walking and talking and having tea with a man. And with a very superior man—with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of the House of Julia; her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; he’s as tall as you). Being in town on business, he decided to run out to the college and call on his niece. He’s her father’s youngest brother, but she doesn’t know him very intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he didn’t like her, and has never noticed her since.
Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper with his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie with seventh-hour recitations that they couldn’t cut. So Julia dashed into my room and begged me to walk him about the campus and then deliver him to her when the seventh hour was over. I said I would, obligingly but unenthusiastically, because I don’t care much for Pendletons.
But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. He’s a real human being—not a Pendleton at all. We had a beautiful time; I’ve longed for an uncle ever since. Do you mind pretending you’re my uncle? I believe they’re superior to grandmothers.
Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of you, Daddy, as you were twenty years ago. You see I know you intimately, even if we haven’t ever met!
He’s tall and thinnish with a dark face all over lines, and the funniest underneath smile that never quite comes through but just wrinkles up the corners of his mouth. And he has a way of making you feel right off as though you’d known him a long time. He’s very companionable.
We walked all over the campus from the quadrangle to the athletic grounds; then he said he felt weak and must have some tea. He proposed that we go to College Inn—it’s just off the campus by the pine walk. I said we ought to go back for Julia and Sallie, but he said he didn’t like to have his nieces drink too much tea; it made them nervous. So we just ran away and had tea and muffins and marmalade and ice-cream and cake at a nice little table out on the balcony. The inn was quite conveniently empty,