Daddy Long Legs

Seventh hour--I must run to rehearsal. I'm to be in the Thanksgiving

theatricals. A prince in a tower with a velvet tunic and yellow curls.

Isn't that a lark?

Yours,

J. A.

Saturday.

Do you want to know what I look like? Here's a photograph of all three

that Leonora Fenton took.

The light one who is laughing is Sallie, and the tall one with her nose

in the air is Julia, and the little one with the hair blowing across

her face is Judy--she is really more beautiful than that, but the sun

was in her eyes.

'STONE GATE',

WORCESTER, MASS.,

31st December

|Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque,

but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don't seem

able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.

I bought a new gown--one that I didn't need, but just wanted. My

Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family just

sent love.

I've been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie. She

lives in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set back

from the street--exactly the kind of house that I used to look at so

curiously when I was in the John Grier Home, and wonder what it could

be like inside. I never expected to see with my own eyes--but here I

am! Everything is so comfortable and restful and homelike; I walk from

room to room and drink in the furnishings.

It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in; with

shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn, and

an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a

comfortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen, and

a nice, fat, sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years and

always saves out a piece of dough for the children to bake. Just the

sight of such a house makes you want to be a child all over again.

And as for families! I never dreamed they could be so nice. Sallie

has a father and mother and grandmother, and the sweetest

three-year-old baby sister all over curls, and a medium-sized brother

who always forgets to wipe his feet, and a big, good-looking brother

named Jimmie, who is a junior at Princeton.

We have the jolliest times at the table--everybody laughs and jokes and

talks at once, and we don't have to say grace beforehand. It's a

relief not having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. (I

dare say I'm blasphemous; but you'd be, too, if you'd offered as much

obligatory thanks as I have.) Such a lot of things we've done--I can't begin to tell you about them.

Mr. McBride owns a factory and Christmas eve he had a tree for the

employees' children. It was in the long packing-room which was

decorated with evergreens and holly. Jimmie McBride was dressed as

Santa Claus and Sallie and I helped him distribute the presents.