Daddy Long Legs

It was such a lark! Especially for me, because it was so awfully

different from the asylum--I feel like an escaped convict every time I

leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell the others what

an experience I was having. The cat was almost out of the bag when I

grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back. It's awfully hard for me

not to tell everything I know. I'm a very confiding soul by nature; if

I didn't have you to tell things to, I'd burst.

We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the house

matron of Fergussen to the left-behinds in the other halls. There were

twenty-two of us altogether, Freshmen and Sophomores and juniors and

Seniors all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is huge, with

copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone wall--the littlest

casserole among them about the size of a wash boiler. Four hundred

girls live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white cap and apron, fetched

out twenty-two other white caps and aprons--I can't imagine where he

got so many--and we all turned ourselves into cooks.

It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was finally

finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the door-knobs all

thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession and still in our caps and

aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan, we marched

through the empty corridors to the officers' parlour, where

half-a-dozen professors and instructors were passing a tranquil

evening. We serenaded them with college songs and offered

refreshments. They accepted politely but dubiously. We left them

sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless.

So you see, Daddy, my education progresses!

Don't you really think that I ought to be an artist instead of an

author?

Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the girls

again. My tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine people occupy a

house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle around a bit.

Eleven pages--poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be just a

short little thank-you note--but when I get started I seem to have a

ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me--I should be perfectly happy

except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations

come in February.

Yours with love,

Judy

PS. Maybe it isn't proper to send love? If it isn't, please excuse.

But I must love somebody and there's only you and Mrs. Lippett to

choose between, so you see--you'll HAVE to put up with it, Daddy dear,

because I can't love her.