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 am not used even yet to being outside
the John Grier 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. Lippett isn't after
me with her arm stretched out to grab me
back.
I don't have to mind any one this summer,
do I?
Your nominal authority doesn't annoy me
in the least; you are too
far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is
dead for ever, so far as I
am concerned, and the Semples aren't
expected to overlook my moral
welfare, are they? No, I am sure not. I
am entirely grown up. Hooray!
I leave you now to pack a trunk, and
three boxes of teakettles
and dishes and sofa cushions and books.
Yours ever,
Judy
PS. Here is 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. This is a
heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY spot!
The house is square like this: And OLD. A
hundred years or so.
It has a veranda on the 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 and looks way off
over miles of green meadows
to another line of hills.
That is the way Connecticut goes, in a
series of Marcelle 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 Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a
hired girl and two hired men.
The hired people eat in the kitchen, and
the Semples and 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 have
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 an all-inclusive 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 spread out on it,
writing a novel.
Oh, Daddy, I'm so excited! I can't wait
till daylight to explore.
It's 8.30 now, and I am about to blow out
my candle and try to go
to sleep. We rise at five. 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
PS. 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-Long-Legs,
How did your secretary come to know about
Lock Willow?
(That isn't a rhetorical question. I am
awfully curious to know.)
For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton
used to own this farm,
but now he has 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 is red--
or at least reddish!
Since she discovered that I know him, I
have 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 am 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 big pigs
and nine little piglets,
and you should see them eat. They are
pigs! We've 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 is 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,
Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel,
murmuring all the time,
`Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that
Master Jervie fell off
that very same beam and scratched this
very same knee.'
The scenery around here is perfectly
beautiful. There's a valley
and a river and a lot of wooded hills,
and way in the distance
a tall blue mountain that simply melts in
your mouth.
We churn twice a week; and we 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 in pans, but it's
sufficiently better to pay.
We have six calves; and I've chosen the
names for all of them.
1. Sylvia, because she was born in the
woods.
2. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus.
3. Sallie.
4. Julia--a spotted, nondescript animal.
5. Judy, after me.
6. 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 to begin my
immortal novel; the farm
keeps me too busy.
Yours always,
Judy
PS. I've learned to make doughnuts.
PS. (2) If you are thinking of raising
chickens, let me recommend
Buff Orpingtons. They haven't any pin
feathers.
PS. (3) I wish I could send you a pat of
the nice, fresh butter
I churned yesterday. I'm a fine
dairy-maid!
PS. (4) This is a picture of Miss Jerusha
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'd 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 in the middle
of the page? A real true Daddy-Long-Legs!
I picked him up very gently 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 Centre
to church. It's a sweet little white
frame church with a spire
and three Doric columns in front (or
maybe Ionic--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
in the trees outside. I didn't wake up
till I found myself on
my feet singing the hymn, and then I was
awfully sorry 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 Semples.
Their God (whom they have inherited
intact from their remote
Puritan ancestors) is a narrow,
irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful,
bigoted Person. Thank heaven I don't
inherit God from anybody!
I am free to make mine up as I wish Him.
He's kind and sympathetic
and imaginative and forgiving and
understanding--and He has a sense
of humour.
I like the Semples immensely; their
practice is so superior to
their theory. They are better than their
own God. I told them so--
and they are horribly troubled. They
think I am blasphemous--
and I think they are! We've dropped
theology from our conversation.
This is Sunday afternoon.
Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and
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 and a
blue muslin dress and her
hair curled as tight as it will curl.
Amasai 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 am 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 once after he
had been ill, when he
was about eleven years old; and he left
On the Trail behind.
It looks well read--the marks of his
grimy little hands are frequent!
Also in a corner of the attic there is 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 stairs 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 is 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 that Buttercup
(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! That is
the truth I am telling.
Did you ever hear anything so scandalous?
Sir,
I remain,
Your affectionate orphan,
Judy Abbott
PS. 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 is the subject of
the frontispiece. Aren't Judy and Jervie
having fun?
15th September
Dear Daddy,
I was weighed yesterday on the flour
scales in the general store
at the Comers. I've gained nine pounds!
Let me recommend Lock
Willow as a health resort.
Yours ever,
Judy
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Behold me--a Sophomore! I came up last
Friday, sorry to leave
Lock Willow, but glad to see the campus
again. It is a pleasant
sensation to come back to something
familiar. I am beginning to feel
at home in college, and in command of the
situation; I am beginning,
in fact, to feel at home in the world--as
though I really belonged
to it and had not just crept in on
sufferance.
I don't suppose you understand in the
least what I am trying to say.
A person important enough to be a Trustee
can't appreciate the
feelings of a person unimportant enough
to be a foundling.
And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom do
you think I am rooming with?
Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge
Pendleton. It's the truth.
We have a study and three little
bedrooms--VOILA!
Sallie and I decided last spring that we
should like to room together,
and Julia made up her mind to stay with
Sallie--why, I can't imagine,
for they are not a bit alike; but the
Pendletons are naturally
conservative and inimical (fine word!) to
change. Anyway, here we are.
Think of Jerusha Abbott, late of the John
Grier Home for Orphans,
rooming with a Pendleton. This is a
democratic country.
Sallie is running for class president,
and unless all signs fail,
she is going to be elected. Such an
atmosphere of intrigue you should
see what politicians we are! Oh, I tell
you, Daddy, when we women get
our rights, you men will have to look
alive in order to keep yours.
Election comes next Saturday, and we're
going to have a torchlight
procession in the evening, no matter who
wins.
I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual
study. I've never seen
anything like it before. Molecules and
Atoms are the material employed,
but I'll be in a position to discuss them
more definitely next month.
I am also taking argumentation and logic.
Also history of the whole world.
Also plays of William Shakespeare.
Also French.
If this keeps up many years longer, I
shall become quite intelligent.
I should rather have elected economics
than French, but I
didn't dare, because I was afraid that
unless I re-elected
French, the Professor would not let me
pass--as it was,
I just managed to squeeze through the
June examination.
But I will say that my high-school
preparation was not very adequate.
There's 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
