Daddy Long Legs

Je-ru-sha Ab-bott

You are wan-ted

In the of-fice,

And I think you'd

Better hurry up!

Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and

down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F.

Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced the troubles of

life.

'Who wants me?' she cut into Tommy's chant with a note of sharp anxiety.

Mrs. Lippett in the office,

And I think she's mad.

Ah-a-men!

Tommy piously intoned, but his accent was not entirely malicious. Even

the most hardened little orphan felt sympathy for an erring sister who

was summoned to the office to face an annoyed matron; and Tommy liked

Jerusha even if she did sometimes jerk him by the arm and nearly scrub

his nose off.

Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow.

What could have gone wrong, she wondered. Were the sandwiches not thin

enough? Were there shells in the nut cakes? Had a lady visitor seen

the hole in Susie Hawthorn's stocking? Had--O horrors!--one of the

cherubic little babes in her own room F 'sauced' a Trustee?

The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, a

last Trustee stood, on the point of departure, in the open door that

led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha caught only a fleeting impression of

the man--and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. He was

waving his arm towards an automobile waiting in the curved drive. As

it sprang into motion and approached, head on for an instant, the

glaring headlights threw his shadow sharply against the wall inside.

The shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along

the floor and up the wall of the corridor. It looked, for all the

world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs.

Jerusha's anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by

nature a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be

amused. If one could derive any sort of entertainment out of the

oppressive fact of a Trustee, it was something unexpected to the good.

She advanced to the office quite cheered by the tiny episode, and

presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett. To her surprise the matron

was also, if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably affable; she

wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she donned for

visitors.

'Sit down, Jerusha, I have something to say to you.' Jerusha dropped

into the nearest chair and waited with a touch of breathlessness. An

automobile flashed past the window; Mrs. Lippett glanced after it.

'Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone?'