Daddy Long Legs

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 dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. Miss Pritchard,

who is on the visiting committee, picked them out--not Mrs. Lippett,

thank goodness. I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk (I'm

perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner

dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me look like a

Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, and a grey street suit,

and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big

wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha

Abbott--Oh, my!