Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

of Julia; her uncle, in short (in long, perhaps I ought to say; he’s as tall as you.) Being in town on business, he decided to run out to the college and call on his niece. He’s her father’s youngest brother, but she doesn’t know him very intimately. It seems he glanced at her when she was a baby, decided he didn’t like her, and has never noticed her since.

Anyway, there he was, sitting in the reception room very proper with his hat and stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and Sallie with seventh-hour recitations that they couldn’t cut. So Julia dashed into my room and begged me to walk him about the campus and then deliver him to her when the seventh hour was over. I said I would, obligingly but unenthusiastically, because I don’t care much for Pendletons.

But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. He’s a real human being— not a Pendleton at all. We had a beautiful time; I’ve longed for an uncle ever since. Do you mind pretending you’re my uncle? I believe they’re superior to grandmothers.

Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of you, Daddy, as you were twenty years ago. You see I know you intimately, even if we haven’t ever met!

He’s tall and thinnish with a dark face all over lines, and the funniest underneath smile that never quite comes through but just wrinkles up the corners of his mouth. And he has a way of making you feel right off as though you’d known him a long time. He’s very companionable.

We walked all over the campus from the quadrangle to the athletic grounds; then he said he felt weak and must have some tea. He proposed that we go to College Inn—it’s just off the campus by the pine walk. I said we ought to go back for Julia and Sallie, but he said he didn’t like to have his nieces drink too much tea; it made them nervous. So we just ran away and had tea and muffins and marmalade and ice-cream and cake at a nice little table out on the balcony. The inn was quite conveniently empty, this being the end of the month and allowances low.

We had the jolliest time! But he had to run for his train the minute he got back and he barely saw Julia at all. She was furious with me for taking him off; it seems he’s an unusually rich and desirable uncle. It relieved my mind to find he was rich, for the tea and things cost sixty cents apiece.

This morning (it’s Monday now) three boxes of chocolates came by express for Julia and Sallie and me. What do you think of that? To be getting candy from a man!

I begin to feel like a girl instead of a foundling.

I wish you’d come and have tea some day and let me see if I like you. But wouldn’t it be dreadful if I didn’t? However, I know I should.

Bien! I make you my compliments. `Jamais je ne t’oublierai.’ Judy

 

PS. I looked in the glass this morning and found a perfectly new dimple that I’d never seen before. It’s very curious. Where do you suppose it came from?

9th June

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Happy day! I’ve just finished my last examination Physiology. And now:

Three months on a farm!

I don’t know what kind of a thing a farm is. I’ve never been on one in my life. I’ve never even looked at one (except from the car window), but I know I’m going to love it, and I’m going to love being FREE.

I am not used even yet to being outside the John Grier Home. Whenever I think of it excited little thrills chase up and down my back. I feel as though I must run faster and faster and keep looking over my shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippett isn’t after me with her arm stretched out to grab me back.

I don’t have to mind any one this summer, do I?

Your nominal authority doesn’t annoy me in the least; you are too far away to do any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead for ever, so far as I am concerned, and the Semples aren’t expected to overlook my moral welfare, are they? No, I am sure not. I am entirely grown up. Hooray!

I leave you now to pack a trunk, and three boxes of teakettles and dishes and sofa cushions and books. Yours ever, Judy

 

PS. Here is my physiology exam. Do you think you could have passed?

LOCK WILLOW FARM, Saturday night Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

I’ve only just come and I’m not unpacked, but I can’t wait to tell you how much I like farms. This is a heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY spot! The house is square like this: And OLD. A hundred years or so. It has a veranda on the side which I can’t draw and a sweet porch in front. The picture really doesn’t do it justice—those things that look like feather dusters are maple trees, and the prickly ones that border the drive are murmuring pines and hemlocks. It stands on the top of a hill and looks way off over miles of green meadows to another line of hills.

That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down.

The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a hired girl and two hired men. The hired people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples and Judy in the dining-room. We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and jelly-cake and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper— and a great deal of conversation. I have never been so entertaining in my life; everything I say appears to be funny. I suppose it is, because I’ve never been in the country before, and my questions are backed by an all-inclusive ignorance.

The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed, but the one that I occupy. It’s big and square and empty, with adorable old-fashioned furniture and windows that have to be propped up on sticks and green shades trimmed with gold that fall down if you touch them. And a big square mahogany table— I’m going to spend the summer with my elbows spread out on it, writing a novel.

Oh, Daddy, I’m so excited! I can’t wait till daylight to explore. It’s 8.30 now, and I am about to blow out my candle and try to go to sleep. We rise at five. Did you ever know such fun? I can’t believe this is really Judy. You and the Good Lord give me more than I deserve. I must be a very, very, VERY good person to pay. I’m going to be. You’ll see. Good night, Judy

 

PS. You should hear the frogs sing and the little pigs squeal and you should see the new moon! I saw it over my right shoulder.

 

LOCK WILLOW, 12th July Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That isn’t a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence? She still calls him `Master Jervie’ and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of his baby curls put away in a box, and it is red— or at least reddish!

Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much in her opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best introduction one can have at Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole family is Master Jervis— I am pleased to say that Julia belongs to an inferior branch.

The farm gets more and more entertaining. I rode on a hay wagon yesterday. We have three big pigs and nine little piglets, and you should see them eat. They are pigs! We’ve oceans of little baby chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls. You must be mad to live in a city when you might live on a farm.

It is my daily business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time, `Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell off that very same beam and scratched this very same knee.’

The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful. There’s a valley and a river and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the distance a tall blue mountain that simply melts in your mouth.

We churn twice a week; and we keep the cream in the spring house which is made of stone with the brook running underneath. Some of the farmers around here have a separator, but we don’t care for these new-fashioned ideas. It may be a little harder to separate the cream in pans, but it’s sufficiently better to pay. We have six calves; and I’ve chosen the names for all of them.

1. Sylvia, because she was born in the woods.

2. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus.

3. Sallie.

4. Julia—a spotted, nondescript animal.

5. Judy, after me.

6. Daddy-Long-Legs. You don’t mind, do you, Daddy? He’s pure Jersey and has a sweet disposition. He looks like this—you can see how appropriate the name is.

I haven’t had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm keeps me too busy. Yours always, Judy

 

PS. I’ve learned to make doughnuts.

PS. (2) If you are thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend Buff Orpingtons. They haven’t any pin feathers.

PS. (3) I wish I could send you a pat of the nice, fresh butter I churned yesterday. I’m a fine dairy-maid!

PS. (4) This is a picture of Miss Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, driving home the cows.

 

Sunday

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Isn’t it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon, but as far as I got was the heading, `Dear Daddy-Long-Legs’, and then I remembered I’d promised to pick some blackberries for supper, so I went off and left the sheet lying on the table, and when I came back today, what do you think I found sitting in the middle of the page? A real true Daddy-Long-Legs!

I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out of the window. I wouldn’t hurt one of them for the world. They always remind me of you.

We hitched up the spring wagon this morning and drove to the Centre to church. It’s a sweet little white frame church with a spire and three Doric columns in front (or maybe Ionic—I always get them mixed).

A nice sleepy sermon with everybody drowsily waving palm-leaf fans, and the only sound, aside from the minister, the buzzing of locusts in the trees outside. I didn’t wake up till I found myself on my feet singing the hymn, and then I was awfully sorry I hadn’t listened to the sermon; I should like to know more of the psychology of a man who would pick out such a hymn. This was it:

Come, leave your sports and earthly toys And join me in celestial joys. Or else, dear friend, a long farewell. I leave you now to