Daddy-Long-Legs | Page 8

that my last
paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those
were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the
eighteen years of training that I've had? The aim of the John Grier
Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the
ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.
The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early
age through drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippett on the woodshed

door.
I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my
youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too
impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn't a
very polite thing to say--but you can't expect me to have any manners;
a foundling asylum isn't a young ladies' finishing school.
You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college.
It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about;
their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one but me has shared. I'm
a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a
miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school the girls
would stand in groups and just look at me. I was queer and different
and everybody knew it. I could FEEL `John Grier Home' written on my
face. And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up
and saying something polite. I HATED EVERY ONE OF THEM--the
charitable ones most of all.
Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Sallie
McBride that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind old
gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true so far as it
goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, but I do want to be like
the other girls, and that Dreadful Home looming over my childhood is
the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out
the remembrance, I think, I might be just as desirable as any other girl.
I don't believe there's any real, underneath difference, do you?
Anyway, Sallie McBride likes me! Yours ever, Judy Abbott (Nee
Jerusha.)
Saturday morning
I've just been reading this letter over and it sounds pretty un-cheerful.
But can't you guess that I have a special topic due Monday morning
and a review in geometry and a very sneezy cold?
Sunday

I forgot to post this yesterday, so I will add an indignant postscript. We
had a bishop this morning, and WHAT DO YOU THINK HE SAID?
`The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this, "The poor ye
have always with you." They were put here in order to keep us
charitable.'
The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. If I
hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up after
service and told him what I thought.
25th October Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I'm in the basket-ball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left
shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Julia
Pendleton tried for the team, but she didn't get in. Hooray!
You see what a mean disposition I have.
College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers and the
classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice
a week and we never have corn-meal mush.
You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've
been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so
excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody;
and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; I'll settle
pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the
wastebasket. I promise not to write another till the middle of November.
Yours most loquaciously, Judy Abbott

15th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Listen to what I've learned to-day.

The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is
half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude
of either of its trapezoids.
It doesn't sound true, but it is--I can prove it!
You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six dresses,
all new and beautiful and bought for me--not handed down from
somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in
the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very,
VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated--but nothing
compared to the