 Section 1 of Daddy Long Legs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joe Carabass. Daddy Long Legs by Gene Webster. To You. Section 1. Blue Wednesday. The first Wednesday and 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. All ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say yes, sir, and no, sir, whenever a trustee spoke. It was a distressing time, and poor Jerusha Abbot, 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 tots, 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'd been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron. Mrs. Lipit, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of trustees and lady-visitors. Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron pailing that marked the confines of the asylum, doubt undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees. 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 were now 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 a 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 dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers, leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring, home to the driver. But on the door sill of her home the picture grew blurred. She had an imagination. An imagination, Mrs. Lipit told her, that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care. But keen 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 on their lives undiscommoded by orphans. Jerusha, Abbot, you are wanted in the office and I think you'd better hurry up. Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the steps and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched 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. Lipit in the office and I think she's mad. Tommy piously intoned, but his accent was not entirely malicious. Even the most hardened little orphan felt sympathy for an erring sister who was summoned to the office to face an annoyed matron. And Tommy liked Jerusha. Even if she did sometimes jerk him by the arm and nearly scrub his nose off. Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow. What could have gone wrong, she wondered? Were the sandwiches not thin enough? Were there shells in the nut cakes? Had a lady visitor seen the hole in Susie Hawthorne's stocking? Had, oh horrors, one of the cherubic little babes in her own room F sassed a trustee? 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 portico chair. Jerusha caught only a fleet 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, head on for an instant 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. Jerusha looked for all the world like a huge, wavering daddy long legs. Jerusha's anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by nature a sunny soul and had always snatched the tiny excuse to be amused. If one could derive any sort of entertainment out of the oppressive fact of a trustee it was something unexpected to the good. She advanced to the office quite cheered by the tiny episode and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lipit. To her surprise the matron was also, if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably affable. She wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she donned 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. An automobile flashed past the window. Mrs. Lipit glanced after it. Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone? I saw his back. He is one of our most affluential trustees and has given large sums of money towards the asylum's support. I'm not at liberty to mention his name. He expressly stipulated that he was to remain unknown. Jerusha's eyes widened slightly. She was not accustomed to being summoned 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 Fries? They were both sent through college by Mr. or this trustee. And both have repaid with hard work and success the money that was so generously expended. Other payment the gentleman does not wish. Here, too, for his philanthropies have been directed solely towards the boys. 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. Today, at the regular meeting, the question of your future was brought up. Mrs. Lippett allowed a moment of silence to fall, then resumed in a slow, placid manner, extremely trying to her hearers' suddenly tightened nerves. 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 determined 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 brought up, and your record was discussed. Thoroughly discussed. Mrs. Lippett brought accusing eyes to bear upon the prisoner in the dock, and the prisoner looked guilty because it seemed to be expected, not because she could remember any strikingly black pages in her record. Of course the usual disposition of 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 Prichard, who is on our visiting committee, is also on the school board, and she has been talking with your rhetoric teacher and to make a speech in your favour. She also read aloud an essay that you had written called Blue Wednesday. Jerush's guilty expression this time was not assumed. It seemed to me that you showed little gratitude in holding up 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 fortunately for you, Mr.—that is, the gentleman who has just gone appears to have an immoderate sense of humour. On the strength of that impertinent paper he has offered to send you to college. To college? Jerush's eyes grew big. Mrs. Lipit nodded. He waited to discuss the terms with me. They are unusual. The gentleman, I may say, is erratic. He believes that you have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become a writer. A writer? Jerush's mind was numbed. She could only repeat Mrs. Lipit'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. You are to remain here through the summer, and Mrs. Pritchard has kindly offered to superintend your outfit. 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 $35 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 acknowledgement 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. 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 so fosters facility in literary expression as letter writing. Since you have no family with whom to correspond, he desires you to write in this way. Also, he wishes to keep track of your progress. He will never answer your letters, nor in the slightest particular take any notice of them. He detests letter writing and does not wish you to become a burden. If at any point should ever arise where an answer would seem to be imperative, such as in the event of your being expelled, which I trust will not occur, 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 punctilious 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 Greer home. Jerusha's eyes longingly sought the door. Her head was in a whirl of excitement and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippitt's platitudes and think. She rose and took a tentative step backwards. Mrs. Lippitt detained her with a gesture. It was an oratorical opportunity not to be slighted. I trust that you are properly grateful for this rare good fortune that has befallen you. 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' trousers. The door closed behind her and Mrs. Lippitt watched it with a dropped jaw. Her proration in mid-air. End of Section 1. Recording by Joe Carabas, Vallejo, California. Section 2 of Daddy Long Legs This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joe Carabas. Daddy Long Legs by Gene Webster. Section 2. Freshman Year. The letters of Mr. Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy Long Legs Smith, 215 Ferguson Hall. 24th September. Dear kind trustee who sends orphans to college. Here I am. I traveled yesterday for four hours in a train. It's a funny sensation, isn't it? I never wrote 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 muddled. 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. Seems queer to be writing letters to someone you don't know. It seems queer for me to be writing letters at all. I've never written more than three or four in my life. So please overlook it if these are not a model kind. Before leaving yesterday morning Mrs. Lippitt 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 might as well write letters to Dear Hitching Post or Dear Clothes Prop. I've 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 belong to somebody now and it's a very comfortable sensation 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. Number one, you are tall. Number two, you are rich. Number three, you hate girls. I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl Hater. Only that's rather insulting to me. Or Dear Mr. Rich Man. But that's insulting to you as though money were the only important thing about you. Besides, being rich is such an external quality. Maybe you won't stay rich all your life. Lots of very clever men get smashed up in Wall Street. But at least you will stay tall all your life. So I've decided to call you Dear Daddy Long Legs. I hope you won't mind. It's just a private pet name and 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 Greer home. Yours most respectfully, Jerusia Abbott. To Mr. Daddy Long Legs Smith, 1st October. Dear Daddy Long Legs, I love Collet and I love you for sending me. I'm very, very happy and so excited every moment of the time that I can scarcely sleep. You can't imagine how different it is from the John Greer home. I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling sorry for everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here. I'm sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been so nice. My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward before they built the new infirmary. There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower. A senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us to please be a little more quiet. And two freshmen named Sally McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sally has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly. Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and the senior and I have singles. Usually freshmen can't get singles. They are very scarce. But I got one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought up girl to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages. My room is on the northwest corner with two windows and a view. After you've lived in a ward for 18 years with 20 roommates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get acquainted with Jerusia Abbott. I think I'm going to like her. Do you think you are? Tuesday. They're organizing the freshman basketball team and there's just a chance I shall get in it. I'm little of course but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping about in the air I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's loads of fun practicing. Out in the athletic field in the afternoon with the trees all red and yellow and the air full of the smell of burning leaves and everybody laughing and shouting. These are the happiest girls I ever saw and I am the happiest of all. Oh I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning. Mrs. Lippet said you wanted to know but seventh hour has just rung and in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes. Don't you hope I'll get in the team? Yours always, Jerusha Abbott. P.S. nine o'clock. Sally McBride just poked her head in at my door. This is what she said. I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Don't you feel that way? I smiled a little and said no. I thought I could pull it through. At least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped. I never heard of anybody being asylum sick. Did you? 10th October. Dear Daddy Long Legs. Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo? He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in English literature seemed to know about him and the whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, doesn't he? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's very embarrassing at times. But now when girls talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia. I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Materlink and I asked if she was a freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others, brighter than some of them. Do you care to know how I furnished my room? It's a symphony in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff and I've bought yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk, secondhand for $3 and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot. The windows are up high. You can't look out from an ordinary seat. But I've unscrewed the looking glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top and moved it up against the window. It's just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like steps and walk up. Very comfortable. Sally McBride helped me choose the things at the senior auction. She's lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing. You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real $5 bill and get some change when you've never had more than a few cents in your life. I assure you, Daddy, dear, I do appreciate that allowance. Sally is the most entertaining person in the world and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It's queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of roommates. Sally thinks everything is funny, even flunking. And Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. She believes that if you are a Pendleton that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Julia and I were born to the enemies. And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear what I'm learning. Number one, Latin. Second Punic War. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trazamanus last night. They prepared an embiscade for the Romans and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. Romans in Retreat. Number two, French. 24 pages of the three musketeers and third conjugation irregular verbs. Number three, Geometry. Finished cylinders, now doing cones. Number four, English. Studying Exposition. My style improves daily in clearness and brevity. Number five, Physiology. Reached the digestive system. Bile in the pancreas next time. Yours on the way to being educated. Jarusha Abbott. P.S., I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy. It does dreadful things to your liver. Wednesday. Dear Daddy Long Legs. I've changed my name. I'm still Jarusha in the catalogue, but I'm Judy everywhere else. It's really too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had? I didn't quite make up the Judy, though. That's what Freddie Perkins used to call me before he could talk plainly. I wish Mrs. Lipit could use a little more ingenuity about choosing baby's names. She gets the last names out of the telephone book. You'll find Abbott on the first page. And she picks the Christian names up anywhere. She got Jarusha from a tombstone. I've always hated it, but I rather like Judy. It's such a silly name. It belongs to the kind of girl I'm not. A sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through life without any cares. Wouldn't it be nice to be like that? Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family. But it's great fun to pretend I've been. In the future, please always address me as Judy. Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes. Dinner bell, goodbye! Friday. What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. Doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I've had. The aim of the John Greer home, as you doubtlessly know and heartily approve of, is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins. The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early age through drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippet on the woodshed door. I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth, but you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent you can always stop payment of your checks. That isn't a polite thing to say, but you can't expect me to have any manners. A foundling asylum isn't a young lady's finishing school. You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that's going to be hard in college, it's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about. Their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. They were queer and different and everybody knew it. I could feel John Greer home written on my face. And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. I hated every one of them, the charitable ones most of all. Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Sally McBride that my mother and father were dead and that kind old gentleman was sending me to college. Which is entirely true as far as it goes. I don't want you to think that I'm a coward but I do want to be like the other girls. And that dreadful home looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance I think I might be just as desirable as any other girl. I don't believe there's any real underneath difference. Do you? Anyway, Sally McBride likes me. Yours ever. Judy Abbott. Me, Jerusha. Saturday morning. I've just been reading this letter over and it sounds pretty un-cheerful. But can't you guess that I have a special topic due Monday morning and a review in geometry of the very sneezy cold? Sunday. I forgot to post this yesterday so I will add an indignant post-script. We had a bishop this morning and what do you think he said? The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this. The poor ye have always with you. They were put here in order to keep us charitable. The poor, please observe. It's a sort of useful domestic animal. If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady I should have gone up after service and told him what I thought. 25th October. Dear Daddy Long Legs I'm in the basketball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Julia Pendleton tried for the team but she didn't get in. Hooray! Oh, you see what a mean disposition I have? College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice cream twice a week and I never have cornmeal mush. You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days. But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I must talk to somebody and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance. I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promised not to write another until the middle of November. The tour is most loquaciously Judy Abbott. 15th November Dear Daddy Long Legs listen to what I've learned today. The area of the convex surface of the frustrum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids. Doesn't sound true but it is. You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six dresses all new and beautiful and bought for me not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in the career of an orphan. You gave them to me and I am very, very much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. Ms. Pritchard, who was on the visiting committee, picked them out. Not Mrs. Lipit, thank goodness. I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk. I'm perfectly beautiful in that. And a blue church dress and a dinner dress of red veiling with oriental trimming makes me look like a gypsy. And another of rose-colored shallots and a grey street dress and an everyday dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott. Oh, my! I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast she is and what a waste of money to educate a girl. But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed and checked a gingham's all your life, you'd appreciate how I feel. And when I started high school, I entered upon another period even worse than the checked gingham's. The poor box. You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar. Latest war bulletin. News from the scene of action. At the fourth watch on Thursday, the 13th of November, Hannibal routed the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces over the mountains into the plains of Casillinum. A cohort of light-armed Amidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus, two battles and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses. I have the honour of being your special correspondent from the front, J. Abbott. P.S. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this once, are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It's very difficult thinking about you in the abstract, like a theorem in geometry, given a tall, rich man who hates girls but is very generous to one quite impertinent girl. What does he look like? RSVP. 19th December. Dear Daddy Long Legs, you never answered my question, and it is very important. Are you bald? I have it planned exactly what you look like, very satisfactorily, until I reach the top of your head. And then I am stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair, or sort of sprinkly gray hair, or maybe none at all. Here is your portrait. But the problem is, shall I add some hair? Would you like to know what color your eyes are? They're gray, and your eyebrows stick out like a portrait, beatling their called in novels. And your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know. You're a snappy old thing with a temper. Chapel bell. 9.45 p.m. I have a new unbreakable rule. Never, never to study at night, no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books. I have to, you know, because there are 18 blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what a great abyss of ignorance my mind is. I'm just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption I've never heard of. For example, I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Bluebeard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry VIII was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R.L.S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Elliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the Mona Lisa and it's true, but you won't believe it. I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes. Now I know all of these things and a lot of others besides but you can see how much I need to catch up. Oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening and then I put an engaged on the door and get into my nice red bathrobe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch like the brass student lamp at my elbow and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's plain tales and Don't Laugh, Little Women. I find that I'm the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on Little Women. I haven't told anybody though. That would stamp me as queer. I just quietly went and bought it with a dollar twelve of my last month's allowance and the next time someone mentions pickled limes I'll know what she's talking about. Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter. Saturday. Sir, I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. Friday last we abandon our former works in parallelepipes and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill. Sunday. The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation. There's a fresh man who lives in Texas staying behind and we're planning to take long walks and if there's any ice, learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read and three empty weeks to do it in. Goodbye, Daddy. I hope you are feeling as happy as I am. Yours ever, Judy. P.S., don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing have your secretary telegraph. He can just say, Mr. Smith is quite bald or Mr. Smith is not bald or Mr. Smith has white hair and you can deduct the 25 cents out of my allowance. Goodbye till January and Merry Christmas towards the end of 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 draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as popcorns. It's a late afternoon, the sun is just setting, a cold yellow color behind some colder violet hills and I'm 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. You've already given me such lots of things. Everything I have, you know, that I don't quite feel that I deserve extra. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know what I bought with my money? Number one, a silver watch and a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations on time. Number two, Matthew Arnold's poems. Number three, a hot water bottle. Number four, a steamer rug. My tower is cold. Number five, 500 sheets of yellow manuscript paper. I'm going to commence being an author pretty soon. Number six, a dictionary of synonyms to enlarge the author's vocabulary. Number seven, I don't much like to confess this last item, but I will, a pair of silk stockings. And now Daddy don't say I don't tell all. It was a very low motive, if you must know, 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? To capitulate. That's the way the English instructor begins every other sentence. I am very much obliged for my seven presents. I'm pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family in California. The watch is from Father. The rug from Mother. The hot water bottle from Grandmother, who was always worrying for fear I should catch cold in this climate. And the yellow paper from my little brother Harry. My sister Isabelle gave me the silk stockings. And Aunt Susan, the Matthew Arnold Poems. Uncle Harry, little Harry's named after him, gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates, but I insisted on synonyms. You don't object, do you, to playing the part of a composite family? And now shall I tell you about my vacation? Or are you only interested in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the delicate shade of meaning in as such. It is the latest addition to my vocabulary. The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton, almost as funny as Jerusha, isn't it? I like her, but not so much as Sally McBride. I shall never like anyone so much as Sally, except you. I must always like you the best of all, because you're my whole family rolled into one. Leonora and I, and two sophomores, have walked cross-country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighborhood dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying shiny sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town, four miles, and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner, broiled lobster, 35 cents, and for dessert, buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, 15 cents, nourishing and cheap. It was such a lark, especially for me, because it was so awfully different from the asylum. I feel like an escaped convict every time I leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell the others what an experience I was having. The cat was almost out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back. It's awfully hard for me not to tell everything I know. I'm a very confiding soul by nature. If I didn't have you to tell things to, I'd burst. We had a molasses candy pole last Friday evening, given by the house matron of Ferguson to the left behinds in the other halls. There were twenty-two of us altogether, freshman and sophomores and juniors and seniors, all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is huge, with copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone wall. The littlest casserole among them about the size of a wash boiler. Four hundred girls live in Ferguson. The chef, in a white cap and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons. I can't imagine where he got so many, and we all turned ourselves into cooks. It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was finally finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the doorknobs all thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession, and still in our caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan, we marched through the empty corridors to the officer's parlor, where half a dozen professors and instructors were passing a tranquil evening. We serenaded them with college songs and offered refreshments. They accepted politely, but dubiously. We left them sucking chunks of molasses, candy, sticky, and speechless. So you see, Daddy, my education progresses. Don't you really think that I ought to be an artist instead of an author? Vacation will be over in two days, and I shall be glad to see the girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely. When nine people occupy a house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle around a bit. 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. Lippet to choose between. So you see, you will 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 I have 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 textbooks 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, 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 solid 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. I just miserably plumped on the first name I could think of and that was Montgomery. Then she wanted to know whether I belonged to the Massachusetts Montgomery's or the Virginia Montgomery's. Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the Ark and were connected by marriage with Henry VIII. On her father's side, they date back farther than Adam. On the topmost branches of her family tree, there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine, silky hair and extra long tails. I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter tonight, but I'm too sleepy and scared. 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 news to tell you, but I won't begin with it. I'll try to get you in a good humor 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 honor for a freshman. My English instructor stopped me on the way out from chapel last night and said it was a charming piece of work except for the sixth line, which had too many feet. 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. We had a very inspiring sermon this morning preached by the Bishop of Alabama. His text was, Judge Not That You Be Not Judged. It was about the necessity of overlooking mistakes in others and not discouraging people by harsh judgments. I wish you might have heard it. 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, I'm bending under a weight of sorrow. Now for the news. Courage, Judy, you must tell. Are you surely in a good humor? I failed in mathematics and Latin prose. I'm 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 catalog. I've read 17 novels and bushels of poetry, really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverell and Alice in Wonderland. Also, Emerson's essays and Lockhart's Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbons' Roman Empire and half of Ben Venuto's Selene's life. Wasn't he entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast. So you see, Daddy, I'm much more intelligent than if I just stuck to Latin. Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to fail again? Yours in sackcloth, Judy. Dear Daddy Long Legs, this is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy. All the lights are out in campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep. I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sally, Julia and Leonora Fenton and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sally stayed to help wash the dishes. I might, very usefully, put some time on Latin tonight, but there's no doubt about it. I am a very languid Latin scholar. We've finished Livy and Die Senectut and are now engaged with Die Amichitia, pronounced Damichitia. Should you mind just for a little while pretending you're my grandmother? Sally has one and Julia and Leonora each two and they were all comparing them tonight. I can't think of anything I'd rather have. It's such a respectable relationship. So if you really don't object, when I went into town yesterday I saw the sweetest cap of Cluny Lace trimmed with lavender ribbon. I'm going to make you a present of it on your 83rd birthday. BOOM! That's the clock in the chapel tower striking 12. I believe I am sleepy after all. Good night, Granny. I love you dearly. Judy. End of Section 2. Recording by Joe Carabass. Valeo, California. Section 3 of Daddy Long Legs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joe Carabass. Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster. Section 3. Freshman year continued. The Ides of March. Dear DLL. I am studying Latin Pro's composition. I have been studying it. I shall be studying it. I shall be about to have been studying it. 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. In evident haste, J.A. 26th March. Mr. DLL 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 uninspiring writing to a thing. I haven't a doubt but that you throw my letters into the wastebasket without reading them. Hereafter I shall only write about work. My re-examinations in Latin and Geometry came last week. I passed them both, and am now free from conditions. Yours truly, J.A. 2nd April. 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 sickening for tonsillitis and grip 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's a picture of the way I look with a bandage tied around my head and rabbit's ears. Doesn't that arouse your sympathy? I'm having sublingual gland swelling, and I've been studying physiology all the year without ever hearing of sublingual glands. How futile a thing is education. 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, Fourth April. 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 and a great institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box addressed to me and filled with the loveliest pink rose buds. And much nicer still, it contained a card with a very polite message written in a funny little uphill backhand, 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'm 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 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 forever, Judy. Eighth hour Monday. Dear Daddy Long Legs, I hope you aren't the trustee who sat on the toad. It went off, I was told, with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter trustee. Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by the laundry windows in the John Greer home? Every spring when the hot toad season opened, we used to form a collection of toads and keep them in those window holes, and occasionally they would spill over into the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days. We were severely punished for our activities in this direction, but in spite of all discouragement, the toads would collect. And one day, well, I won't bore you with particulars, but somehow one of the fattest, biggest, juiciest toads got into one of those big leather armchairs in the trustee's room. And that afternoon at the trustee's meeting, well, but I daresay you were there and recall the rest. Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say the punishment was merited, and, if I remember rightly, adequate. I don't know why I'm in such a reminiscent mood, except that spring and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the fact that no rule exists against it. Afterchapel Thursday. What do you think is my favorite book? Just now, I mean. I change every three days. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Hawthorne Churchyard. She had never known any men in her life. How could she imagine a man like Heathcliff? I couldn't do it. And I'm quite young and never outside the John Greer Asylum. I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author? In the spring, when everything is so beautiful and green and budding, I feel like turning my back on lessons and running away to play with the weather. There are such lots of adventures out in the fields. It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them. Ow! That was a shriek which brought Sally and Julia and, for a disgusted moment, the senior from across the hall. It was caused by a centipede like this. Only worse. Just as I had finished the last sentence and was thinking what to say next, it fell off the ceiling and landed at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea table and trying to get away. Sally whacked it with the back of my hairbrush, which I shall never be able to use again, and killed the front end. But the rear fifty ran under the bureau and escaped. Ugh! This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full of centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I'd rather find a tiger under the bed. Friday, 9.30 p.m. Such a lot of troubles. I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and my fountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the professor and I had a disagreement, touching a little matter of logarithms. I'm looking it up. I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie plant for lunch. I hate them both. They taste like the asylum. The post brought me nothing but bills, but I must say that I never do get anything else. My family are not the kinds that write. In English class this afternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. It was this. I asked no other thing, no other was denied. I offered being for it the mighty merchant's smile. Brazil, he twirled a button without a glance my way. But madam, is there nothing else that we can show today? That's a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. It was simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought I had an idea. The mighty merchant was a divinity who distributes blessings in return for virtuous deeds. But when I got to the second verse and found him twirling a button it seemed a blasphemous supposition and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class was in the same predicament and there we sat for three-quarters of an hour with blank paper and equally blank minds. Getting an education is an awfully wearing process. But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come. It rained so we couldn't play golf and had to go to the 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 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 flavored 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 sitting down with a sigh of well-earned relief to the portrait of a lady, a girl named Akerly, a doe-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A. I wish Mrs. Lippin had named me Zabrisky. 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 I am going to develop. I'm going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I'm going to shrug my shoulders and laugh. Also, if I win. Anyway, I'm going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain again, Daddy Deer, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes drop off the wall. Yours ever, Judy. Answer soon. 27th May. Daddy Long Legs Esquire. Dear sir, I am in receipt of a letter from Mrs. Lippin. 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 Greer home. I'd rather die than go back. Yours most truthfully, Jerusha Abbott. Cher Daddy Jean Long. Vous êtes un brick. Je suis très heureux about the farm parce que je n'ai jamais been on a farm dans ma vie and I'd hate to return a change John Greer and wash dishes too late day. There would be danger of something after this happening. Parce que j'ai perdu ma humilité d'autrefois et j'ai peur that I would just break out quelque jour et smash every cup and saucer dans le maison. Pardon breveté et papier. Je ne peux pas s'en donner nouvelles parce que 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, Jules. 30th May. Dear Daddy Long, didn't 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 vacations 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 anymore 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. Lippitt. 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 kindness. I have no faith in misanthropes. Fine word, just learned it. You're not a misanthrop, 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 tutor 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 tumble onto the board by chance. A 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 it's meant to be a portrait of any trustee except you. However, to resume, I've 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. And 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 intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he didn't like her and 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 Sally 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 20 years ago. You see, I know you intimately, 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 in. It's just off the campus by the pine walk. I said we ought to go back for Julia and Sally 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 and a nice little table out on the balcony. The inn was quite conveniently empty, this being the end of month and allowance is low. He had the jolliest time but he had to run for his train the minute he got back and he barely saw Julia at all. She was furious with me for taking him off. It seems he's an unusually rich and desirable uncle. It relieved my mind to find he was rich for the tea and things cost 60 cents apiece. This morning it's Monday now. Three boxes of chocolates came by express for Julia and Sally and me. What do you think of that? To be getting candy from a man. I began to feel like a girl instead of a foundling. I wish you'd come and have tea someday and let me see if I like you. But wouldn't it be dreadful if I didn't? However, I know I should. Bien, I make you my compliments. Jamais je ne t'oublierais Judy P.S. I looked in the glass this morning and I found a perfectly new dimple that I'd never seen before. It's very curious. Where do you suppose it came from? 9th June Dear Daddy Long Legs Happy Day! I've just finished my last examination physiology and now three months on a farm. I don't know what kind of a thing a farm is. I've never been on one in my life. I've never even looked at one except from the car window but I know I'm going to love it and I'm going to love being free. I'm not used even yet to being outside the John Greer home. Whenever I think of it excited little thrills chase up and down my back. I feel as though I must run faster and faster and keep looking over my shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippitt with her arms stretched out to grab me back. I don't have to mind anyone this summer, do I? Your nominal authority doesn't annoy me in the least. You are too far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippitt is dead forever as far as I'm concerned and the samples aren't expected to overlook my moral welfare, are they? No, I'm sure not. I am entirely grown up. Today I leave you now to pack a trunk and three boxes of tea kettles and dishes and sofa cushions and books. Yours ever, Judy. P.S., here's my physiology exam. Do you think you could have passed? Lock Willow Farm Saturday Night Dearest Daddy Long Legs I've only just come and I'm not unpacked but I can't wait to tell you how much I like farms. They're heavenly, heavenly spot. The house is square like this and old, a hundred years or so. It has a veranda on one side which I can't draw and a sweet porch in front. The picture really doesn't do it justice. Those things that look like feather dusters are maple trees and the prickly ones that border the drive are murmuring pines and hemlocks. It stands on the top of a hill way off over miles of green meadows to another line of hills. That is the way Connecticut goes in a series of Marcell waves and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down. The people are mystery misses simple and a hired girl and two hired men. The hired people eat in the kitchen and the samples in Judy in the dining room. We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and jelly cake and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper and a great deal of conversation. I've never been so entertaining in my life. Everything I say appears to be funny. I suppose it is because I've never been in the country before and my questions are backed by exclusive ignorance. The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed but the one that I occupy. It's big and square and empty with adorable old fashioned furniture and windows that have to be propped up on sticks and green shades trimmed with gold that fall down if you touch them and a big square mahogany table. I'm going to spend the summer with my elbows out on it writing a novel. Daddy, I'm so excited I can't wait till daylight to explore. It's 8.30 now and I'm about to blow out my candle and try to go to sleep. We rise at 5. Did you ever know such fun? I can't believe this is really Judy. You and the good Lord give me more than I deserve. I must be a very, very, very good person to pay. I'm going to be. You'll see. Good night, Judy. P.S. You should hear the frogs sing and the little pigs squeal and you should see the new moon. I saw it over my right shoulder. Lock Willow, 12th July. Dear Daddy Longlegs, how did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? That isn't a rhetorical question. I'm awfully curious to know. For listen to this. Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he's given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence? She still calls him Master Jervie and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of his baby curls put away in a box and it's red, or at least red-ish. Since she discovered that I know him, I've risen very much in her opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best introduction one can have at Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole family is Master Jervis. I'm pleased to say that Julia belongs to an inferior branch. The farm gets more and more entertaining. I rode on a hay wagon yesterday. We have three little pigs and nine little piglets and you should see them eat. They are pigs. We have oceans of little baby chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls. You must be mad to live in a city when you might live on a farm. It's my daily business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the barn loft yesterday while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee this is simple, bound it up with witch hazel, murmuring all the time dear, dear, it seems only yesterday that Master Jervis fell off that very same beam and scratched his very same knee. The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful. There's a valley and a river and a lot of wooded hills and away in the distance a tall blue mountain that simply melts in your mouth. We churn twice a week to keep the cream in the spring house which is made of stone with the brook running underneath. Some of the farmers around here have a separator but we don't care for these new-fashioned ideas. It may be a little harder to separate the cream and pans but it's sufficiently better to pay. We have six calves and I've chosen the names for all of them. One, Sylvia, because she was born in the woods. Sylvia, after the Lesbians and Catalysts. Three, Sally. Four, Julia, a spotted, non-descript animal. Five, Judy, after me. Six, Daddy Long Legs. You don't mind, do you, Daddy? He's pure Jersey and has a sweet disposition. He looks like this. You can see how appropriate the name is. I haven't had time yet for my immortal novel. The farm keeps me too busy. Yours always, Judy. P.S. I've learned to make donuts. P.S. 2. If you're thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend a buff orpingtons. They haven't to any pin feathers. P.S. 3. I wish I could send you a pat of the nice fresh or butter I churned yesterday. I'm a fine daring name. P.S. 4. Here's a picture of Miss Jerusia Abbott, the future great author driving home the cows. Sunday. Dear Daddy Long Legs. Isn't it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon. But as far as I got was the heading Dear Daddy Long Legs. And then I remembered I promised to pick some blackberries for supper. So I went off and left the sheet lying on the table. And when I came back today, what do you think I found sitting on the page? A true Daddy Long Legs. I picked him up very carefully by one leg and dropped him out of the window. I wouldn't hurt one of them for the world. They always remind me of you. We hitched up the spring wagon this morning and drove to the center to church. It's a sweet little white frame church with a spire and three Doric columns in front. Or maybe Ionic. And I always get them mixed. A nice sleepy sermon with everybody drowsily waving palm leaf fans. And the only sound, aside from the minister, the buzzing of locusts and the trees outside. I didn't wake up till I found myself on my feet singing the hymn. And then I was awfully sorry that I hadn't listened to the sermon. I should like to know more of the psychology of a man who would pick out such a hymn. This was it. Come, leave your sports and earthly toys. And join me in celestial joys. Or else, dear friend, a long farewell I leave you now to sink to hell. I find that it isn't safe to discuss religion with the samples. Their god whom they have inherited intact from their remote, pure and ancestors is a narrow, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful, complicated person. I think Heaven I don't inherit God from anybody. I'm free to make up mine as I wish him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding. And he has a sense of humor. I like the samples immensely. Their practice is so superior to their theory. They are better than their own God. I told them so and they were horribly troubled. They think I'm blasphemous and I think they are. We've dropped theology from our conversation. This is Sunday afternoon. I'm a sigh hired man and a purple tie had 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 blue muslin dress and her hair curled as tight as it will curl. I'm a sigh 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'm 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 one time after he had been ill when he was about eleven years old and he left on the trail behind looks well read the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent. Also in a corner of the attic there's 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 steps 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 was as unkey as 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 the Buttercop 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. It's the truth I'm telling did you ever hear anything so scandalous? Sir, I remain your affectionate orphan Judy Abbott. P.S. 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's the subject of the front space aren't Judy and Jervie having fun? 15th September Dear Daddy I was weighed yesterday on the flower scales in the general store at the commerce I've gained nine pounds let me recommend Lock Willow as a health resort yours ever Judy End of Section 3 Recording by Joe Carabas Vallejo, California