Daddy Long Legs

I like the Semples immensely; their practice is so superior to their

theory. They are better than their own God. I told them so--and they

are horribly troubled. They think I am blasphemous--and I think they

are! We've dropped theology from our conversation.

This is Sunday afternoon.

Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and some bright yellow buckskin

gloves, very red and shaved, has just driven off with Carrie (hired

girl) in a big hat trimmed with red roses and a blue muslin dress and

her hair curled as tight as it will curl. Amasai spent all the morning

washing the buggy; and Carrie stayed home from church ostensibly to

cook the dinner, but really to iron the muslin dress.

In two minutes more when this letter is finished I am going to settle

down to a book which I found in the attic. It's entitled, On the

Trail, and sprawled across the front page in a funny little-boy hand: J

Jervis Pendleton

if this book should ever roam,

Box its ears and send it home.

He spent the summer here once after he had been ill, when he was about

eleven years old; and he left On the Trail behind. It looks well

read--the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent! Also in a

corner of the attic there is a water wheel and a windmill and some bows

and arrows. Mrs. Semple talks so constantly about him that I begin to

believe he really lives--not a grown man with a silk hat and walking

stick, but a nice, dirty, tousle-headed boy who clatters up the stairs

with an awful racket, and leaves the screen doors open, and is always

asking for cookies. (And getting them, too, if I know Mrs. Semple!) He

seems to have been an adventurous little soul--and brave and truthful.

I'm sorry to think he is a Pendleton; he was meant for something better.

We're going to begin threshing oats tomorrow; a steam engine is coming

and three extra men.

It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup (the spotted cow with one

horn, Mother of Lesbia) has done a disgraceful thing. She got into the

orchard Friday evening and ate apples under the trees, and ate and ate

until they went to her head. For two days she has been perfectly dead

drunk! That is the truth I am telling. Did you ever hear anything so

scandalous?

Sir,

I remain,

Your affectionate orphan,

Judy Abbott

PS. Indians in the first chapter and highwaymen in the second. I hold

my breath. What can the third contain? 'Red Hawk leapt twenty feet in

the air and bit the dust.' That is the subject of the frontispiece.

Aren't Judy and Jervie having fun?