15th September
Dear Daddy,
I was weighed yesterday on the flour scales in the general store at the
Comers. I've gained nine pounds! Let me recommend Lock Willow as a
health resort.
Yours ever,
Judy
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Behold me--a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave Lock
Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensation
to come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home in
college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to
feel at home in the world--as though I really belonged to it and had
not just crept in on sufferance.
I don't suppose you understand in the least what I am trying to say. A
person important enough to be a Trustee can't appreciate the feelings
of a person unimportant enough to be a foundling.
And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom do you think I am rooming with?
Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. It's the truth. We have
a study and three little bedrooms--VOILA!
Sallie and I decided last spring that we should like to room together,
and Julia made up her mind to stay with Sallie--why, I can't imagine,
for they are not a bit alike; but the Pendletons are naturally
conservative and inimical (fine word!) to change. Anyway, here we are.
Think of Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier Home for Orphans,
rooming with a Pendleton. This is a democratic country.
Sallie is running for class president, and unless all signs fail, she
is going to be elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue you should see
what politicians we are! Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get our
rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours.
Election comes next Saturday, and we're going to have a torchlight
procession in the evening, no matter who wins.
I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. I've never seen
anything like it before. Molecules and Atoms are the material
employed, but I'll be in a position to discuss them more definitely
next month.
I am also taking argumentation and logic.
Also history of the whole world.
Also plays of William Shakespeare.
Also French.
If this keeps up many years longer, I shall become quite intelligent.
I should rather have elected economics than French, but I didn't dare,
because I was afraid that unless I re-elected French, the Professor
would not let me pass--as it was, I just managed to squeeze through the
June examination. But I will say that my high-school preparation was
not very adequate.
There's one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast as
she does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she was a
child, and spent three years in a convent school. You can imagine how
bright she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs are mere
playthings. I wish my parents had chucked me into a French convent
when I was little instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no, I don't
either! Because then maybe I should never have known you. I'd rather
know you than French.