It's a beautiful day--frozen and icy and clear. As soon as dinner is
over, Sallie and Julia and Marty Keene and Eleanor Pratt (friends of
mine, but you don't know them) and I are going to put on short skirts
and walk 'cross country to Crystal Spring Farm and have a fried chicken
and waffle supper, and then have Mr. Crystal Spring drive us home in
his buckboard. We are supposed to be inside the campus at seven, but
we are going to stretch a point tonight and make it eight.
Farewell, kind Sir.
I have the honour of subscribing myself,
Your most loyall, dutifull, faithfull and obedient servant,
J. Abbott
March Fifth
Dear Mr. Trustee,
Tomorrow is the first Wednesday in the month--a weary day for the John
Grier Home. How relieved they'll be when five o'clock comes and you
pat them on the head and take yourselves off! Did you (individually)
ever pat me on the head, Daddy? I don't believe so--my memory seems to
be concerned only with fat Trustees.
Give the Home my love, please--my TRULY love. I have quite a feeling
of tenderness for it as I look back through a haze of four years. When
I first came to college I felt quite resentful because I'd been robbed
of the normal kind of childhood that the other girls had had; but now,
I don't feel that way in the least. I regard it as a very unusual
adventure. It gives me a sort of vantage point from which to stand
aside and look at life. Emerging full grown, I get a perspective on
the world, that other people who have been brought up in the thick of
things entirely lack.
I know lots of girls (Julia, for instance) who never know that they are
happy. They are so accustomed to the feeling that their senses are
deadened to it; but as for me--I am perfectly sure every moment of my
life that I am happy. And I'm going to keep on being, no matter what
unpleasant things turn up. I'm going to regard them (even toothaches)
as interesting experiences, and be glad to know what they feel like.
'Whatever sky's above me, I've a heart for any fate.'
However, Daddy, don't take this new affection for the J.G.H. too
literally. If I have five children, like Rousseau, I shan't leave them
on the steps of a foundling asylum in order to insure their being
brought up simply.
Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Lippett (that, I think, is truthful;
love would be a little strong) and don't forget to tell her what a
beautiful nature I've developed.