Daddy Long-Legs. Джин Уэбстер

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      Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

      Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo?

      He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him and the whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, does n’t he? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you ’ve never learned. It ’s very embarrassing at times. But now, when the girls talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.

      I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I ’m just as bright in class as any of the others—and brighter than some of them!

      Do you care to know how I ’ve furnished my room? It ’s a symphony in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I ’ve bought yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand for three dollars) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot.

      The windows are up high; you can’t look out from an ordinary seat. But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top, and moved it up against the window. It ’s just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like steps and walk up. Very comfortable!

      Sallie McBride helped me choose the things at the Senior auction. She has lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing. You can’t imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar bill and get some change—when you ’ve never had more than a nickel in your life. I assure you, Daddy dear, I do appreciate that allowance.

      Sallie is the most entertaining person in the world—and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It ’s queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates. Sallie thinks everything is funny—even flunking—and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. She believes that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Julia and I were born to be enemies.

      And now I suppose you ’ve been waiting very impatiently to hear what I am learning?

      I. Latin: Second Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. Romans in retreat.

      II. French: 24 pages of the “Three Musketeers” and third conjugation, irregular verbs.

      III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now doing cones.

      IV. English: Studying exposition. My style improves daily in clearness and brevity.

      V. Physiology: Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas next time. Yours, on the way to being educated,

      P. S. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy?

      It does dreadful things to your liver.

Wednesday.

      Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

      I ’ve changed my name.

      I ’m still “Jerusha” in the catalogue, but I ’m “Judy” every place else. It ’s sort of too bad, is n’t it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had? I did n’t quite make up the Judy though. That ’s what Freddie Perkins used to call me before he could talk plain.

      I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing babies’ names. She gets the last names out of the telephone book—you ’ll find Abbott on the first page—and she picks the Christian names up anywhere; she got Jerusha from a tombstone. I ’ve always hated it; but I rather like Judy. It ’s such a silly name. It belongs to the kind of girl I ’m not—a sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through life without any cares. Would n’t it be nice to be like that? Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family! But it ’s sort of fun to pretend I ’ve been. In the future please always address me as Judy.

      Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I ’ve had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It ’s all I can do not to wear them to classes.

      (Dinner bell. Good-by.)

      JUDY AND THE ORPHANS AT JOHN GRIER HOME.

Friday.

      What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It does n’t seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I ’ve had? The aim of the John Grier Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.

      The СКАЧАТЬ