Daddy-Long-Legs & Dear Enemy. Jean Webster
one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast as she does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she was a child, and spent three years in a convent school. You can imagine how bright she is compared with the rest of us—irregular verbs are mere playthings. I wish my parents had chucked me into a French convent when I was little instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no, I don’t either! Because then maybe I should never have known you. I’d rather know you than French.
Goodbye, Daddy. I must call on Harriet Martin now, and, having discussed the chemical situation, casually drop a few thoughts on the subject of our next president.
Yours in politics,
J. Abbott
17th October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Supposing the swimming tank in the gymnasium were filled full of lemon jelly, could a person trying to swim manage to keep on top or would he sink?
We were having lemon jelly for dessert when the question came up. We discussed it heatedly for half an hour and it’s still unsettled. Sallie thinks that she could swim in it, but I am perfectly sure that the best swimmer in the world would sink. Wouldn’t it be funny to be drowned in lemon jelly?
Two other problems are engaging the attention of our table.
1st. What shape are the rooms in an octagon house? Some of the girls insist that they’re square; but I think they’d have to be shaped like a piece of pie. Don’t you?
2nd. Suppose there were a great big hollow sphere made of looking-glass and you were sitting inside. Where would it stop reflecting your face and begin reflecting your back? The more one thinks about this problem, the more puzzling it becomes. You can see with what deep philosophical reflection we engage our leisure!
Did I ever tell you about the election? It happened three weeks ago, but so fast do we live, that three weeks is ancient history. Sallie was elected, and we had a torchlight parade with transparencies saying, ‘McBride for Ever’, and a band consisting of fourteen pieces (three mouth organs and eleven combs).
We’re very important persons now in ‘258’. Julia and I come in for a great deal of reflected glory. It’s quite a social strain to be living in the same house with a president.
Bonne nuit, cher Daddy.
Acceptez mez compliments, Très respectueux, je suis, Votre Judy
12th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
We beat the Freshmen at basket ball yesterday. Of course we’re pleased—but oh, if we could only beat the Juniors! I’d be willing to be black and blue all over and stay in bed a week in a witch-hazel compress.
Sallie has invited me to spend the Christmas vacation with her. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wasn’t it nice of her? I shall love to go. I’ve never been in a private family in my life, except at Lock Willow, and the Semples were grown-up and old and don’t count. But the McBrides have a houseful of children (anyway two or three) and a mother and father and grandmother, and an Angora cat. It’s a perfectly complete family! Packing your trunk and going away is more fun than staying behind. I am terribly excited at the prospect.
Seventh hour—I must run to rehearsal. I’m to be in the Thanksgiving theatricals. A prince in a tower with a velvet tunic and yellow curls. Isn’t that a lark?
Yours,
J. A.
Saturday
Do you want to know what I look like? Here’s a photograph of all three that Leonora Fenton took.
The light one who is laughing is Sallie, and the tall one with her nose in the air is Julia, and the little one with the hair blowing across her face is Judy—she is really more beautiful than that, but the sun was in her eyes.
‘Stone Gate’,
Worcester, Mass.,
31st December
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque, but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don’t seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.
I bought a new gown—one that I didn’t need, but just wanted. My Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family just sent love.
I’ve been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie. She lives in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set back from the street—exactly the kind of house that I used to look at so curiously when I was in the John Grier Home, and wonder what it could be like inside. I never expected to see with my own eyes—but here I am! Everything is so comfortable and restful and homelike; I walk from room to room and drink in the furnishings.
It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in; with shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn, and an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a comfortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen, and a nice, fat, sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years and always saves out a piece of dough for the children to bake. Just the sight of such a house makes you want to be a child all over again.
And as for families! I never dreamed they could be so nice. Sallie has a father and mother and grandmother, and the sweetest three-year-old baby sister all over curls, and a medium-sized brother who always forgets to wipe his feet, and a big, good-looking brother named Jimmie, who is a junior at Princeton.
We have the jolliest times at the table—everybody laughs and jokes and talks at once, and we don’t have to say grace beforehand. It’s a relief not having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. (I dare say I’m blasphemous; but you’d be, too, if you’d offered as much obligatory thanks as I have.)
Such a lot of things we’ve done—I can’t begin to tell you about them. Mr. McBride owns a factory and Christmas eve he had a tree for the employees’ children. It was in the long packing-room which was decorated with evergreens and holly. Jimmie McBride was dressed as Santa Claus and Sallie and I helped him distribute the presents.
Dear me, Daddy, but it was a funny sensation! I felt as benevolent as a Trustee of the John Grier home. I kissed one sweet, sticky little boy—but I don’t think I patted any of them on the head!
And two days after Christmas, they gave a dance at their own house for ME.
It was the first really true ball I ever attended—college doesn’t count where we dance with girls. I had a new white evening gown (your Christmas present—many thanks) and long white gloves and white satin slippers. The only drawback to my perfect, utter, absolute happiness was the fact that Mrs. Lippett couldn’t see me leading the cotillion with Jimmie McBride. Tell her about it, please, the next time you visit the J. G. H.
Yours ever,
Judy Abbott
P.S. Would you be terribly displeased, Daddy, if I didn’t turn out to be a Great Author after all, but just a Plain Girl?
6.30, Saturday
Dear Daddy,
We started to walk to town today, but mercy! how it poured. I like winter to be winter with snow instead of rain.
Julia’s desirable uncle called again this afternoon—and brought a five-pound box of chocolates. There are advantages, you see, about rooming with Julia.
Our innocent prattle appeared to amuse him and he waited for a later train in order to take tea in the study. We had an awful lot of trouble getting permission. It’s hard enough entertaining fathers and grandfathers, but uncles are a step worse; and as for brothers and cousins, they are next to impossible. Julia had to swear that he was her uncle before a notary public and then have the county clerk’s certificate attached.