Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy (19 page)

We are getting the most dreadful lessons in philosophy—all of Schopenhauer
⁶¹
for to-morrow. The professor doesn't seem to realize that we are taking any other subject. He's a queer old duck; he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid earth. He tries to lighten his lectures with an occasional witticism—and we do our best to smile, but I assure you his jokes are no laughing matter. He spends his entire time between classes in trying to figure out whether matter really exists or whether he only thinks it exists.

I'm sure my sewing girl hasn't any doubt that it exists!

Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes that, what
would
be the judgment of a critical public?

 

Later.

I address you, Daddy, from a bed of pain. For two days I've been laid up with swollen tonsils; I can just swallow hot milk, and that is all. “What were your parents thinking of not to have those tonsils out when you were a baby?” the doctor wished to know. I'm sure I haven't an idea, but I doubt if they were thinking much about me.

Yours,
J.A.

 

 

Next morning.

I just read this over before sealing it. I don't know
why
I cast such a misty atmosphere over life. I hasten to assure you that I am young and happy and exuberant; and I trust you are the same. Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with
alivedness
of spirit, so even if your hair is gray, Daddy, you can still be a boy.

Affectionately,
JUDY.

 

 

Jan. 12th.

Your check for my family came yesterday. Thank you so much! I cut gymnasium and took it down to them right after luncheon, and you should have seen the girl's face! She was so surprised and happy and relieved that she looked almost young; and she's only twenty-four. Isn't it pitiful?

Anyway, she feels now as though all the good things were coming together. She has steady work ahead for two months—some one's getting married, and there's a trousseau to make.

“Thank the good Lord!” cried the mother, when she grasped the fact that the small piece of paper was one hundred dollars.

“It wasn't the good Lord at all,” said I, “it was Daddy-LongLegs.” (Mr. Smith, I called you.)

“But it was the good Lord who put it in his mind,” said she.

“Not at all! I put it in his mind myself,” said I.

But anyway, Daddy, I trust the good Lord will reward you suitably. You deserve ten thousand years out of purgatory.

Yours most gratefully,

JUDY ABBOTT.

Feb. 15th.

This morning I did eat my breakfast upon a cold turkey pie and a goose, and I did send for a cup of tee (a china drink) of which I had never drank before.

Don't be nervous, Daddy—I haven't lost my mind; I'm merely quoting Sam'l Pepys.
⁶²
We're reading him in connection with English History, original sources. Sallie and Julia and I converse now in the language of 1660. Listen to this:

“I went to Charing Cross to see Major Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered: he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.” And this: “Dined with my lady who is in handsome mourning for her brother who died yesterday of spotted fever.”

Seems a little early to commence entertaining, doesn't it? A friend of Pepys devised a very cunning manner whereby the king might pay his debts out of the sale to poor people of old decayed provisions. What do you, a reformer, think of that? I don't believe we're so bad to-day as the newspapers make out.

Samuel was as excited about his clothes as any girl; he spent five times as much on dress as his wife—that appears to have been the Golden Age of husbands. Isn't this a touching entry? You see he really was honest. “To-day came home my fine Cam-lett cloak with gold buttons, which cost me much money, and I pray God to make me able to pay for it.”

Excuse me for being so full of Pepys; I'm writing a special topic on him.

What do you think, Daddy? The Self-Government Association has abolished the ten-o'clock rule. We can keep our lights all night if we choose, the only requirement being that we do not disturb others—we are not supposed to entertain on a large scale. The result is a beautiful commentary on human nature. Now that we may stay up as long as we choose, we no longer choose. Our heads begin to nod at nine o'clock, and by nine-thirty the pen drops from our nerveless grasp. It's nine-thirty now. Good night.

Sunday.

Just back from church—preacher from Georgia. We must take care, he says, not to develop our intellects at the expense of our emotional natures—but methought it was a poor, dry sermon (Pepys again). It doesn't matter what part of the United States or Canada they come from, or what denomination they are, we always get the same sermon. Why on earth don't they go to men's colleges and urge the students not to allow their manly natures to be crushed out by too much mental application?

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 to-night 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.

To-morrow 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,
⁶³
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.

Affectionately,
JUDY.

 

 

 

LOCK WILLOW,
April 4th.

Do you observe the postmark? Sallie and I are embellishing Lock Willow with our presence during the Easter vacation. We decided that the best thing we could do with our ten days was to come where it is quiet. Our nerves had got to the point where they wouldn't stand another meal in Fergussen. Dining in a room with four hundred girls is an ordeal when you are tired. There is so much noise that you can't hear the girls across the table speak unless they make their hands into a megaphone and shout. That is the truth.

We are tramping over the hills and reading and writing, and having a nice, restful time. We climbed to the top of “Sky Hill” this morning where Master Jervie and I once cooked supper—it doesn't seem possible that it was nearly two years ago. I could still see the place where the smoke of our fire blackened the rock. It is funny how certain places get connected with certain people, and you never go back without thinking of them. I was quite lonely without him—for two minutes.

What do you think is my latest activity, Daddy? You will begin to believe that I am incorrigible—I am writing a book. I started it three weeks ago and am eating it up in chunks. I've caught the secret. Master Jervie and that editor man were right; you are most convincing when you write about the things you know. And this time it is about something that I do know—exhaustively. Guess where it's laid? In the John Grier Home! And it's good, Daddy, I actually believe it is—just about the tiny little things that happened every day. I'm a realist now. I've abandoned romanticism; I shall go back to it later though, when my own adventurous future begins.

This new book is going to get itself finished—and published! You see if it doesn't. If you just want a thing hard enough and keep on trying, you do get it in the end. I've been trying for four years to get a letter from you—and I haven't given up hope yet.

Good-by, Daddy dear,

(I like to call you Daddy dear; it's so alliterative.)

Affectionately,
JUDY.

 

P.S. I forgot to tell you the farm news, but it's very distressing. Skip this postscript if you don't want your sensibilities all wrought up.

Poor old Grove is dead. He got so he couldn't chew and they had to shoot him.

Nine chickens were killed by a weasel or a skunk or a rat last week.

One of the cows is sick, and we had to have the veterinary surgeon out from Bonnyrigg Four Corners. Amasai stayed up all night to give her linseed oil and whisky. But we have an awful suspicion that the poor sick cow got nothing but linseed oil.

Sentimental Tommy (the tortoise-shell cat) has disappeared; we are afraid he has been caught in a trap.

There are lots of troubles in the world!

 

 

May 17th.

This is going to be extremely short because my shoulder aches at the sight of a pen. Lecture notes all day, immortal novel all evening makes too much writing.

Commencement three weeks from next Wednesday. I think you might come and make my acquaintance—I shall hate you if you don't! Julia's inviting Master Jervie, he being her family, and Sallie's inviting Jimmie McB., he being her family, but who is there for me to invite? Just you and Mrs. Lippett, and I don't want her. Please come.

Yours, with love and writer's cramp.
JUDY.

 

 

 

LOCK WILLOW.
June 19th.

I'm educated! My diploma is in the bottom bureau drawer with my two best dresses. Commencement was as usual, with a few showers at vital moments. Thank you for your rosebuds. They were lovely. Master Jervie and Master Jimmie both gave me roses, too, but I left theirs in the bath tub and carried yours in the class procession.

Here I am at Lock Willow for the summer—forever maybe. The board is cheap; the surroundings quiet and conducive to a literary life. What more does a struggling author wish? I am mad about my book. I think of it every waking moment, and dream of it at night. All I want is peace and quiet and lots of time to work (interspersed with nourishing meals).

Master Jervie is coming up for a week or so in August, and Jimmie McBride is going to drop in sometime through the summer. He's connected with a bond house now, and goes about the country selling bonds to banks. He's going to combine the “Farmers' National” at the Corners and me on the same trip.

You see that Lock Willow isn't entirely lacking in society. I'd be expecting to have you come motoring through—only I know now that that is hopeless. When you wouldn't come to my commencement, I tore you from my heart and buried you forever.

JUDY ABBOTT, A.B.

 

 

 

July 24th.

Isn't it fun to work—or don't you ever do it? It's especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking.

I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third to-morrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest book you ever saw—it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm limp all over. Then I go out with Colin (the new sheep dog) and romp through the fields and get a fresh supply of ideas for the next day. It's the most beautiful book you ever saw—Oh, pardon—I said that before.

You don't think me conceited, do you, Daddy dear?

I'm not, really, only just now I'm in the enthusiastic stage. Maybe later on I'll get cold and critical and sniffy. No, I'm sure I won't! This time I've written a real book. Just wait till you see it.