no other thing,

No other was denied.

I offered Being for it;

The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button

Without a glance my way:

But, madam, is there nothing else

That we can show to-day?

That is 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 did n’t end the day. There ’s worse to come.

It rained so we could n’t play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead. The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, and the skirt was so tight that I could n’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 settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to “The Portrait of a Lady,” a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), came to ask if Monday’s lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.

Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It is n’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit.

It ’s the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win.

Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes drop off the wall.

Yours ever,

Judy.

Answer soon.

May 27th.

Daddy-Long-Legs, Esq.

Dear Sir: I am in receipt of a letter from Mrs. Lippett. She hopes that I am doing well in deportment and studies. Since I probably have no place to go this summer, she will let me come back to the asylum and work for my board until college opens.

I HATE THE JOHN GRIER HOME.

I ’d rather die than go back.

Yours most truthfully,

Jerusha Abbott.

Cher Daddy-Jambes-Longes,

Vous etes un brick!

Je suis tres heureuse about the farm, parsque je n’ai jamais been on a farm dans ma vie and I ’d hate to retourner chez John Grier, et wash dishes tout l’été. There would be danger of quelque chose affreuse happening, parsque j’ai perdue ma humilité d’autre fois et j’ai peur that I would just break out quelque jour et smash every cup and saucer dans la maison.

Pardon brièveté et paper. Je ne peux pas send des mes nouvelles parseque je suis dans French class et j’ai peur que Monsieur le Professeur is going to call on me tout de suite.

He did!

Au revoir,

Je vous aime beaucoup.

Judy.

May 30th.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Did you ever see this campus? (That is merely a rhetorical question. Don’t let it annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. All the shrubs are in blossom and the trees are the loveliest young green—even the old pines look fresh and new. The grass is dotted with yellow dandelions and hundreds of girls in blue and white and pink dresses. Everybody is joyous and care-free, for vacation ’s coming, and with that to look forward to, examinations don’t count.

Is n’t that a happy frame of mind to be in? And oh, Daddy! I ’m the happiest of all! Because I ’m not in the asylum any more; and I ’m not anybody’s nurse-maid or typewriter or bookkeeper (I should have been, you know, except for you).

I ’m sorry now for all my past badnesses.

I ’m sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. Lippett.

I ’m sorry I ever slapped Freddie Perkins.

I ’m sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl with salt.

I ’m sorry I ever made faces behind the Trustees’ backs.

I ’m going to be good and sweet and kind to everybody because I ’m so happy. And this summer I ’m going to write and write and write and begin to be a great author. Is n’t that an exalted stand to take? Oh, I ’m developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.

That ’s the way with everybody. I don’t agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. I have no faith in misanthropes. (Fine word! Just learned it.) You are not a misanthrope are you, Daddy?

I started to tell you about the campus. I wish you ’d come for a little visit and let me walk you about and say:

“That is the library. This is the gas plant, Daddy dear. The Gothic building on your left is the gymnasium, and the Tudor Romanesque beside it is the new infirmary.”

Oh, I ’m fine at showing people about. I ’ve done it all my life at the asylum, and I ’ve been doing it all day here. I have honestly.

And a Man, too!

That ’s a great experience. I never talked to a man before (except occasional Trustees, and they don’t count). Pardon, Daddy. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings when I abuse Trustees. I don’t consider that you really belong among them. You just tumbled onto the Board by chance. The Trustee, as such, is fat and pompous and benevolent. He pats one on the head and wears a gold watch chain.

That looks like a June bug, but is meant to be a portrait of any Trustee except you.

However—to resume:

I have been walking and talking and having tea with a man. And with a very superior man—with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of the House of Julia; her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; he ’s as tall as you). Being in town on business, he decided to run out to the college and call on his niece. He ’s her father’s youngest brother, but she does n’t know him very intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he did n’t like her, and has never noticed her since.

Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper with his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie with seventh-hour recitations that they could n’t cut. So Julia dashed into my room and begged me to walk him about the campus and then deliver him to her when the seventh hour was over. I said I would, obligingly but unenthusiastically, because I don’t care much for Pendletons.

But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. He ’s a real human being—not a Pendleton at all. We had a beautiful time; I ’ve longed for an uncle ever since. Do you mind pretending you ’re my uncle? I believe they ’re superior to grandmothers.

Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of you, Daddy, as you were twenty years ago. You see I know you intimately, even if we have n’t ever met!

He ’s tall and thinnish with a dark face all over lines, and the funniest underneath smile that never quite comes through but just wrinkles up the corners of his mouth. And he has a way of making you feel right off as though you ’d known him a long time. He ’s very companionable.

We walked all over the campus from the quadrangle to the athletic grounds; then he said he felt weak and must have some tea. He proposed that we go to College Inn—it ’s just off the campus by the pine walk. I said we ought to go back for Julia and Sallie, but he said he did n’t like to have his nieces drink too much tea; it made them nervous. So we just ran away and had tea and muffins and marmalade and ice-cream and cake at a nice little table out on the balcony. The inn was quite conveniently empty, this being the end of the month and allowances low.

We 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 sixty cents apiece.

This morning (it ’s Monday now) three boxes of chocolates came by express for Julia and Sallie and me. What do you think of that? To be getting candy from a man!

I begin to feel like a girl instead of a foundling.

I wish you ’d come and take tea some day and let me see if I like you. But would n’t it be dreadful if I did n’t? However, I know I should.

Bien! I make you my compliments.

“Jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

Judy.

P. S. I looked in the glass this morning and found a perfectly new dimple that I ’d never seen before. It ’s very curious. Where do you suppose it came from?

June 9th.

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 is n’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 does n’t annoy me in the least; you are too far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead forever, so far as I am concerned, and the Semples are n’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.

P. S. 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 does n’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.

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,

July 12th.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That is n’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