Daddy Long Legs

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.