III. You hate girls.
I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl-Hater. Only that's rather
insulting to me. Or Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that's insulting to you, as
though money were the only important thing about you. Besides, being
rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you won't stay rich all
your life; lots of very clever men get smashed up in Wall Street. But
at least you will stay tall all your life! So I've decided to call you
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you won't mind. It's just a private pet
name we won't tell Mrs. Lippett.
The ten o'clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is
divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells.
It's very enlivening; I feel like a fire horse all of the time. There
it goes! Lights out. Good night.
Observe with what precision I obey rules--due to my training in the
John Grier Home.
Yours most respectfully,
Jerusha Abbott
To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith
1st October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I love college and I love you for sending me--I'm very, very happy, and
so excited every moment of the time that I can scarcely sleep. You
can't imagine how different it is from the John Grier Home. I never
dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling sorry for
everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here; I am sure the
college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been so nice.
My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward before
they built the new infirmary. There are three other girls on the same
floor of the tower--a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking
us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Sallie
McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a
turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Julia comes from one of the first
families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and
the Senior and I have singles. Usually Freshmen can't get singles;
they are very scarce, but I got one without even asking. I suppose the
registrar didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought-up
girl to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages!
My room is on the north-west corner with two windows and a view. After
you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty room-mates, it is
restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get
acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm going to like her.