Daddy-Long-Legs | Page 7

and said no; I thought I could pull 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 the 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
Maeterlinck, 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--and brighter than some of them!
Do you care to know how I've 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 (second hand for
three dollars) 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 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!

Sallie McBride helped me choose the things at the Senior auction. She
has 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 five-dollar 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.
Sallie 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 room-mates. Sallie 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 be enemies.
And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear what I
am learning?
I. Latin: Second Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at
Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the
Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning.
Romans in retreat.
II. French: 24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation,
irregular verbs.
III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now doing cones.
IV. English: Studying exposition. My style improves daily in clearness
and brevity.
V. Physiology: Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas
next time. Yours, on the way to being educated, Jerusha Abbott
PS. 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 `Jerusha' 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 Freddy
Perkins used to call me before he could talk plainly.
I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing
babies' 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 Jerusha 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