LOCK WILLOW FARM,
3rd August
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
It has been nearly two months since I
wrote, which wasn't nice of me,
I know, but I haven't loved you much this
summer--you see I'm
being frank!
You can't imagine how disappointed I was
at having to give up
the McBrides' camp. Of course I know that
you're my guardian,
and that I have to regard your wishes in
all matters, but I couldn't
see any REASON. It was so distinctly the
best thing that could
have happened to me. If I had been Daddy,
and you had been Judy,
I should have said, `Bless yo my child,
run along and have a
good time; see lots of new people and
learn lots of new things;
live out of doors, and get strong and
well and rested for a year
of hard work.'
But not at all! Just a curt line from
your secretary ordering me
to Lock Willow.
It's the impersonality of your commands
that hurts my feelings.
It seems as though, if you felt the
tiniest little bit for me the
way I feel for you, you'd sometimes send
me a message that you'd
written with your own hand, instead of
those beastly typewritten
secretary's notes. If there were the
slightest hint that you cared,
I'd do anything on earth to please you.
I know that I was to write nice, long,
detailed letters without ever
expecting any answer. You're living up to
your side of the bargain--
I'm being educated--and I suppose you're
thinking I'm not living up
to mine!
But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is,
really. I'm so awfully lonely.
You are the only person I have to care
for, and you are so shadowy.
You're just an imaginary man that I've
made up--and probably
the real YOU isn't a bit like my
imaginary YOU. But you did once,
when I was ill in the infirmary, send me
a message, and now,
when I am feeling awfully forgotten, I
get out your card and read
it over.
I don't think I am telling you at all
what I started to say,
which was this:
Although my feelings are still hurt, for
it is very humiliating
to be picked up and moved about by an
arbitrary, peremptory,
unreasonable, omnipotent, invisible
Providence, still, when a man
has been as kind and generous and
thoughtful as you have heretofore
been towards me, I suppose he has a right
to be an arbitrary,
peremptory, unreasonable, invisible
Providence if he chooses, and so--
I'll forgive you and be cheerful again.
But I still don't enjoy
getting Sallie's letters about the good
times they are having in camp!
However--we will draw a veil over that
and begin again.
I've been writing and writing this
summer; four short stories
finished and sent to four different
magazines. So you see I'm
trying to be an author. I have a workroom
fixed in a corner of the
attic where Master Jervie used to have
his rainy-day playroom.
It's in a cool, breezy corner with two
dormer windows, and shaded
by a maple tree with a family of red
squirrels living in a hole.
I'll write a nicer letter in a few days
and tell you all the farm news.
We need rain.
Yours as ever,
Judy
10th August
Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,
SIR: I address you from the second crotch
in the willow tree
by the pool in the pasture. There's a
frog croaking underneath,
a locust singing overhead and two little
`devil downheads'
darting up and down the trunk. I've been
here for an hour;
it's a very comfortable crotch,
especially after being upholstered
with two sofa cushions. I came up with a
pen and tablet hoping to
write an immortal short story, but I've
been having a dreadful time
with my heroine--I CAN'T make her behave
as I want her to behave;
so I've abandoned her for the moment, and
am writing to you.
(Not much relief though, for I can't make
you behave as I want
you to, either.)
If you are in that dreadful New York, I
wish I could send you some
of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook.
The country is Heaven
after a week of rain.
Speaking of Heaven--do you remember Mr.
Kellogg that I told you about
last summer?--the minister of the little
white church at the Corners.
Well, the poor old soul is dead--last
winter of pneumonia. I went
half a dozen times to hear him preach and
got very well acquainted
with his theology. He believed to the end
exactly the same things
he started with. It seems to me that a
man who can think straight
along for forty-seven years without
changing a single idea ought to
be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. I
hope he is enjoying his harp
and golden crown; he was so perfectly
sure of finding them! There's a
new young man, very consequential, in his
place. The congregation
is pretty dubious, especially the faction
led by Deacon Cummings.
It looks as though there was going to be
an awful split in the church.
We don't care for innovations in religion
in this neighbourhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the
attic and had an orgy
of reading--Stevenson, mostly. He himself
is more entertaining
than any of the characters in his books;
I dare say he made himself
into the kind of hero that would look
well in print. Don't you
think it was perfect of him to spend all
the ten thousand dollars
his father left, for a yacht, and go
sailing off to the South Seas?
He lived up to his adventurous creed. If
my father had left me ten
thousand dollars, I'd do it, too. The
thought of Vailima makes
me wild. I want to see the tropics. I
want to see the whole world.
I am going to be a great author, or
artist, or actress, or playwright--
or whatever sort of a great person I turn
out to be. I have a
terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of
a map makes me want to put
on my hat and take an umbrella and start.
`I shall see before I die
the palms and temples of the South.'
Thursday evening at twilight,
sitting on the doorstep.
Very hard to get any news into this
letter! Judy is becoming
so philosophical of late, that she wishes
to discourse largely
of the world in general, instead of
descending to the trivial
details of daily life. But if you MUST
have news, here it is:
Our nine young pigs waded across the
brook and ran away last Tuesday,
and only eight came back. We don't want
to accuse anyone unjustly,
but we suspect that Widow Dowd has one
more than she ought to have.
Mr. Weaver has painted his barn and his
two silos a bright pumpkin yellow--
a very ugly colour, but he says it will
wear.
The Brewers have company this week; Mrs.
Brewer's sister and two
nieces from Ohio.
One of our Rhode Island Reds only brought
off three chicks
out of fifteen eggs. We can't imagine
what was the trouble.
Rhode island Reds, in my opinion, are a
very inferior breed.
I prefer Buff Orpingtons.
The new clerk in the post office at
Bonnyrigg Four Corners drank
every drop of Jamaica ginger they had in
stock--seven dollars'
worth--before he was discovered.
Old Ira Hatch has rheumatism and can't
work any more; he never saved
his money when he was earning good wages,
so now he has to live
on the town.
There's to be an ice-cream social at the
schoolhouse next
Saturday evening. Come and bring your
families.
I have a new hat that I bought for
twenty-five cents at the post office.
This is my latest portrait, on my way to
rake the hay.
It's getting too dark to see; anyway, the
news is all used up.
Good night,
Judy
Friday
Good morning! Here is some news! What do
you think? You'd never,
never, never guess who's coming to Lock
Willow. A letter to Mrs.
Semple from Mr. Pendleton. He's motoring
through the Berkshires,
and is tired and wants to rest on a nice
quiet farm--if he climbs
out at her doorstep some night will she
have a room ready for him?
Maybe he'll stay one week, or maybe two,
or maybe three; he'll see
how restful it is when he gets here.
Such a flutter as we are in! The whole
house is being cleaned and
all the curtains washed. I am driving to
the Corners this morning
to get some new oilcloth for the entry,
and two cans of brown floor
paint for the hall and back stairs. Mrs.
Dowd is engaged to come
tomorrow to wash the windows (in the
exigency of the moment, we waive
our suspicions in regard to the piglet).
You might think, from this
account of our activities, that the house
was not already immaculate;
but I assure you it was! Whatever Mrs.
Semple's limitations,
she is a HOUSEKEEPER.
But isn't it just like a man, Daddy? He
doesn't give the remotest
hint as to whether he will land on the
doorstep today, or two weeks
from today. We shall live in a perpetual
breathlessness until he comes--
and if he doesn't hurry, the cleaning may
all have to be done over again.
There's Amasai waiting below with the
buckboard and Grover.
I drive alone--but if you could see old
Grove, you wouldn't be
worried as to my safety.
With my hand on my heart--farewell.
Judy
PS. Isn't that a nice ending? I got it
out of Stevenson's
letters.
Saturday Good
morning again! I didn't get this
ENVELOPED yesterday before
the postman came, so I'll add some more.
We have one mail a day
at twelve o'clock. Rural delivery is a
blessing to the farmers!
Our postman not only delivers letters,
but he runs errands for us
in town, at five cents an errand.
Yesterday he brought me some
shoe-strings and a jar of cold cream (I
sunburned all the skin
off my nose before I got my new hat) and
a blue Windsor tie and a
bottle of blacking all for ten cents.
That was an unusual bargain,
owing to the largeness of my order.
Also he tells us what is happening in the
Great World.
Several people on the route take daily
papers, and he reads them as he
jogs along, and repeats the news to the
ones who don't subscribe.
So in case a war breaks out between the
United States and Japan,
or the president is assassinated, or Mr.
Rockefeller leaves a million
dollars to the John Grier Home, you
needn't bother to write;
I'll hear it anyway.
No sign yet of Master Jervie. But you
should see how clean our
house is--and with what anxiety we wipe
our feet before we step in!
I hope he'll come soon; I am longing for
someone to talk to.
Mrs. Semple, to tell you the truth, gets
rather monotonous.
She never lets ideas interrupt the easy
flow of her conversation.
It's a funny thing about the people here.
Their world is just
this single hilltop. They are not a bit
universal, if you know
what I mean. It's exactly the same as at
the John Grier Home.
Our ideas there were bounded by the four
sides of the iron fence,
only I didn't mind it so much because I
was younger, and was so
awfully busy. By the time I'd got all my
beds made and my babies'
faces washed and had gone to school and
come home and had washed their
faces again and darned their stockings
and mended Freddie Perkins's
trousers (he tore them every day of his
life) and learned my lessons
in between--I was ready to go to bed, and
I didn't notice any lack
of social intercourse. But after two
years in a conversational college,
I do miss it; and I shall be glad to see
somebody who speaks
my language.
I really believe I've finished, Daddy.
Nothing else occurs to me
at the moment--I'll try to write a longer
letter next time.
Yours always,
Judy
PS. The lettuce hasn't done at all well
this year. It was so dry
early in the season.
25th August
Well, Daddy, Master Jervie's here. And
such a nice time as
we're having! At least I am, and I think
he is, too--he has been
here ten days and he doesn't show any
signs of going. The way
Mrs. Semple pampers that man is
scandalous. If she indulged him
as much when he was a baby, I don't know
how he ever turned out so well.
He and I eat at a little table set on the
side porch, or sometimes
under the trees, or--when it rains or is
cold--in the best parlour.
He just picks out the spot he wants to
eat in and Carrie trots
after him with the table. Then if it has
been an awful nuisance,
and she has had to carry the dishes very
far, she finds a dollar
under the sugar bowl.
He is an awfully companionable sort of
man, though you would never
believe it to see him casually; he looks
at first glance like a
true Pendleton, but he isn't in the
least. He is just as simple
and unaffected and sweet as he can
be--that seems a funny way
to describe a man, but it's true. He's
extremely nice with the
farmers around here; he meets them in a
sort of man-to-man fashion
that disarms them immediately. They were
very suspicious at first.
They didn't care for his clothes! And I
will say that his clothes
are rather amazing. He wears
knickerbockers and pleated jackets
and white flannels and riding clothes
with puffed trousers.
Whenever he comes down in anything new,
Mrs. Semple, beaming with pride,
walks around and views him from every
angle, and urges him to be careful
where he sits down; she is so afraid he
will pick up some dust.
It bores him dreadfully. He's always
saying to her:
`Run along, Lizzie, and tend to your
work. You can't boss me
any longer. I've grown up.'
It's awfully funny to think of that great
big, long-legged man (he's
nearly as long-legged as you, Daddy) ever
sitting in Mrs. Semple's lap
and having his face washed. Particularly
funny when you see her lap!
She has two laps now, and three chins.
But he says that once she
was thin and wiry and spry and could run
faster than he.
Such a lot of adventures we're having!
We've explored the country
for miles, and I've learned to fish with
funny little flies made
of feathers. Also to shoot with a rifle
and a revolver. Also to
ride horseback--there's an astonishing
amount of life in old Grove.
We fed him on oats for three days, and he
shied at a calf and almost
ran away with me.
Wednesday
We climbed Sky Hill Monday afternoon.
That's a mountain near here;
not an awfully high mountain, perhaps--no
snow on the summit--but at
least you are pretty breathless when you
reach the top. The lower slopes
are covered with woods, but the top is
just piled rocks and open moor.
We stayed up for the sunset and built a
fire and cooked our supper.
Master Jervie did the cooking; he said he
knew how better than me
and he did, too, because he's used to
camping. Then we came down
by moonlight, and, when we reached the
wood trail where it was dark,
by the light of an electric bulb that he
had in his pocket.
It was such fun! He laughed and joked all
the way and talked
about interesting things. He's read all
the books I've ever read,
and a lot of others besides. It's
astonishing how many different
things he knows.
We went for a long tramp this morning and
got caught in a storm.
Our clothes were drenched before we
reached home but our spirits not
even damp. You should have seen Mrs.
Semple's face when we dripped
into her kitchen.
`Oh, Master Jervie--Miss Judy! You are
soaked through. Dear! Dear!
What shall I do? That nice new coat is
perfectly ruined.'
She was awfully funny; you would have
thought that we were ten
years old, and she a distracted mother. I
was afraid for a while
that we weren't going to get any jam for
tea.
Saturday
I started this letter ages ago, but I
haven't had a second to finish it.
Isn't this a nice thought from Stevenson?
The world is so full of a number of
things,
I am sure we should all be as happy as
kings.
It's true, you know. The world is full of
happiness, and plenty
to go round, if you are only willing to
take the kind that comes
your way. The whole secret is in being
PLIABLE. In the country,
especially, there are such a lot of
entertaining things.
I can walk over everybody's land, and
look at everybody's view,
and dabble in everybody's brook; and
enjoy it just as much
as though I owned the land--and with no
taxes to pay!
It's Sunday night now, about eleven
o'clock,
and I am supposed to be getting some
beauty
sleep, but I had black coffee for dinner,
so--no beauty sleep for me!
This morning, said Mrs. Semple to Mr.
Pendleton, with a very
determined accent:
`We have to leave here at a quarter past
ten in order to get
to church by eleven.'
`Very well, Lizzie,' said Master Jervie,
`you have the buggy ready,
and if I'm not dressed, just go on
without waiting.' 'We'll wait,'
said she.
`As you please,' said he, `only don't
keep the horses standing
too long.'
Then while she was dressing, he told
Carrie to pack up a lunch,
and he told me to scramble into my
walking clothes; and we slipped
out the back way and went fishing.
It discommoded the household dreadfully,
because Lock Willow of
a Sunday dines at two. But he ordered
dinner at seven--he orders meals
whenever he chooses; you would think the
place were a restaurant--
and that kept Carrie and Amasai from
going driving. But he said it
was all the better because it wasn't
proper for them to go driving
without a chaperon; and anyway, he wanted
the horses himself to take
me driving. Did you ever hear anything so
funny?
And poor Mrs. Semple believes that people
who go fishing on Sundays go
afterwards to a sizzling hot hell! She is
awfully troubled to think
that she didn't train him better when he
was small and helpless
and she had the chance. Besides--she
wished to show him off in church.
Anyway, we had our fishing (he caught
four little ones) and we cooked
them on a camp-fire for lunch. They kept
falling off our spiked
sticks into the fire, so they tasted a
little ashy, but we ate them.
We got home at four and went driving at
five and had dinner at seven,
and at ten I was sent to bed and here I
am, writing to you.
I am getting a little sleepy, though.
Good night.
Here is a picture of the one fish I
caught.
Ship Ahoy, Cap'n Long-Legs!
Avast! Belay! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of
rum. Guess what I'm reading?
Our conversation these past two days has
been nautical and piratical.
Isn't Treasure Island fun? Did you ever
read it, or wasn't it
written when you were a boy? Stevenson
only got thirty pounds for
the serial rights--I don't believe it
pays to be a great author.
Maybe I'll be a school-teacher.
Excuse me for filling my letters so full
of Stevenson; my mind
is very much engaged with him at present.
He comprises Lock
Willow's library.
I've been writing this letter for two
weeks, and I think it's
about long enough. Never say, Daddy, that
I don't give details.
I wish you were here, too; we'd all have
such a jolly time together.
I like my different friends to know each
other. I wanted to ask
Mr. Pendleton if he knew you in New
York--I should think he might;
you must move in about the same exalted
social circles, and you are
both interested in reforms and
things--but I couldn't, for I don't know
your real name.
It's the silliest thing I ever heard of,
not to know your name.
Mrs. Lippett warned me that you were
eccentric. I should think so!
Affectionately,
Judy
PS. On reading this over, I find that it
isn't all Stevenson.
There are one or two glancing references
to Master Jervie.
10th September
Dear Daddy,
He has gone, and we are missing him! When
you get accustomed to
people or places or ways of living, and
then have them snatched away,
it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing
sort of sensation.
I'm finding Mrs. Semple's conversation
pretty unseasoned food.
College opens in two weeks and I shall be
glad to begin work again.
I have worked quite a lot this summer
though--six short stories and
seven poems. Those I sent to the
magazines all came back with the
most courteous promptitude. But I don't
mind. It's good practice.
Master Jervie read them--he brought in
the post, so I couldn't
help his knowing--and he said they were
DREADFUL. They showed
that I didn't have the slightest idea of
what I was talking about.
(Master Jervie doesn't let politeness
interfere with truth.)
But the last one I did--just a little
sketch laid in college--
he said wasn't bad; and he had it
typewritten, and I sent it
to a magazine. They've had it two weeks;
maybe they're thinking
it over.
You should see the sky! There's the
queerest orange-coloured light
over everything. We're going to have a
storm.
It commenced just that moment with
tremendously big drops and all
the shutters banging. I had to run to
close the windows, while Carrie
flew to the attic with an armful of milk
pans to put under the places
where the roof leaks and then, just as I
was resuming my pen,
I remembered that I'd left a cushion and
rug and hat and Matthew
Arnold's poems under a tree in the
orchard, so I dashed out to get them,
all quite soaked. The red cover of the
poems had run into the inside;
Dover Beach in the future will be washed
by pink waves.
A storm is awfully disturbing in the
country. You are always having
to think of so many things that are out
of doors and getting spoiled.
Thursday
Daddy! Daddy! What do you think? The
postman has just come
with two letters.
1st. My story is accepted. $50.
ALORS! I'm an AUTHOR.
2nd. A letter from the college secretary.
I'm to have a scholarship
for two years that will cover board and
tuition. It was founded
for `marked proficiency in English with
general excellency in
other lines.' And I've won it! I applied
for it before I left,
but I didn't have an idea I'd get it, on
account of my Freshman
bad work in maths and Latin. But it seems
I've made it up. I am
awfully glad, Daddy, because now I won't
be such a burden to you.
The monthly allowance will be all I'll
need, and maybe I can earn
that with writing or tutoring or
something.
I'm LONGING to go back and begin work.
Yours ever,
Jerusha Abbott,
Author of When the Sophomores Won
the Game. For sale at all news
stands, price ten cents.
26th September
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Back at college again and an upper
classman. Our study is better
than ever this year--faces the South with
two huge windows and oh!
so furnished. Julia, with an unlimited
allowance, arrived two days
early and was attacked with a fever for
settling.
We have new wall paper and oriental rugs
and mahogany chairs--
not painted mahogany which made us
sufficiently happy last year,
but real. It's very gorgeous, but I don't
feel as though I belonged
in it; I'm nervous all the time for fear
I'll get an ink spot in the
wrong place.
And, Daddy, I found your letter waiting
for me--pardon--I mean
your secretary's.
Will you kindly convey to me a
comprehensible reason why I should
not accept that scholarship? I don't
understand your objection
in the least. But anyway, it won't do the
slightest good for you
to object, for I've already accepted it
and I am not going to change!
That sounds a little impertinent, but I
don't mean it so.
I suppose you feel that when you set out
to educate me, you'd like to
finish the work, and put a neat period,
in the shape of a diploma,
at the end.
But look at it just a second from my
point of view. I shall owe my
education to you just as much as though I
let you pay for the whole of it,
but I won't be quite so much indebted. I
know that you don't want me
to return the money, but nevertheless, I
am going to want to do it,
if I possibly can; and winning this
scholarship makes it so much easier.
I was expecting to spend the rest of my
life in paying my debts,
but now I shall only have to spend
one-half of the rest of it.
I hope you understand my position and
won't be cross. The allowance
I shall still most gratefully accept. It
requires an allowance
to live up to Julia and her furniture! I
wish that she had been
reared to simpler tastes, or else that
she were not my room-mate.
This isn't much of a letter; I meant to
have written a lot--but I've
been hemming four window curtains and
three portieres (I'm glad you
can't see the length of the stitches),
and polishing a brass desk
set with tooth powder (very uphill work),
and sawing off picture
wire with manicure scissors, and
unpacking four boxes of books,
and putting away two trunkfuls of clothes
(it doesn't seem believable
that Jerusha Abbott owns two trunks full
of clothes, but she does!)
and welcoming back fifty dear friends in
between.
Opening day is a joyous occasion!
Good night, Daddy dear, and don't be
annoyed because your
chick is wanting to scratch for herself.
She's growing up
into an awfully energetic little
hen--with a very determined
cluck and lots of beautiful feathers (all
due to you).
Affectionately,
Judy
30th September
Dear Daddy,
Are you still harping on that
scholarship? I never knew a man
so obstinate, and stubborn and
unreasonable, and tenacious,
and bull-doggish, and
unable-to-see-other-people's-point-of-view,
as you.
You prefer that I should not be accepting
favours from strangers.
Strangers!--And what are you, pray?
Is there anyone in the world that I know
less? I shouldn't recognize
you if I met you in the street. Now, you
see, if you had been a sane,
sensible person and had written nice,
cheering fatherly letters to your
little Judy, and had come occasionally
and patted her on the head,
and had said you were glad she was such a
good girl--Then, perhaps,
she wouldn't have flouted you in your old
age, but would have obeyed
your slightest wish like the dutiful
daughter she was meant to be.
Strangers indeed! You live in a glass
house, Mr. Smith.
And besides, this isn't a favour; it's
like a prize--I earned it by
hard work. If nobody had been good enough
in English, the committee
wouldn't have awarded the scholarship;
some years they don't. Also--
But what's the use of arguing with a man?
You belong, Mr. Smith,
to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To
bring a man into line,
there are just two methods: one must
either coax or be disagreeable.
I scorn to coax men for what I wish.
Therefore, I must be disagreeable.
I refuse, sir, to give up the
scholarship; and if you make any
more fuss, I won't accept the monthly
allowance either, but will
wear myself into a nervous wreck tutoring
stupid Freshmen.
That is my ultimatum!
And listen--I have a further thought.
Since you are so afraid that by
taking this scholarship I am depriving
someone else of an education,
I know a way out. You can apply the money
that you would have spent
for me towards educating some other
little girl from the John Grier Home.
Don't you think that's a nice idea? Only,
Daddy, EDUCATE the new
girl as much as you choose, but please
don't LIKE her any better than me.
I trust that your secretary won't be hurt
because I pay so little
attention to the suggestions offered in
his letter, but I can't
help it if he is. He's a spoiled child,
Daddy. I've meekly given
in to his whims heretofore, but this time
I intend to be FIRM.
Yours,
With a mind,
Completely and Irrevocably and
World-without-End Made-up,
Jerusha Abbott
