8th hour, Monday
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I hope you aren't the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off--I wastold--with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee.
Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by thelaundry windows in the John Grier Home? Every spring when the hoptoadseason opened we used to form a collection of toads and keep them inthose window holes; and occasionally they would spill over into thelaundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days. We wereseverely punished for our activities in this direction, but in spite ofall discouragement the toads would collect.
And one day--well, I won't bore you with particulars--but somehow, oneof the fattest, biggest, JUCIEST toads got into one of those bigleather arm chairs in the Trustees' room, and that afternoon at theTrustees' meeting--But I dare say you were there and recall the rest?
Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say thatpunishment was merited, and--if I remember rightly--adequate.
I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring andthe reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct.The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the factthat no rule exists against it.
After chapel, Thursday
What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I changeevery three days. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte was quite youngwhen she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard.She had never known any men in her life; how COULD she imagine a manlike Heathcliffe?
I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John GrierAsylum--I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fearcomes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed,Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author? In the spring wheneverything is so beautiful and green and budding, I feel like turningmy back on lessons, and running away to play with the weather. Thereare such lots of adventures out in the fields! It's much moreentertaining to live books than to write them.
Ow ! ! ! ! ! !
That was a shriek which brought Sallie and Julia and (for a disgustedmoment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by a centipedelike this: only worse. Just as I had finished the last sentence andwas thinking what to say next--plump!--it fell off the ceiling andlanded at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea table in trying toget away. Sallie whacked it with the back of my hair brush--which Ishall never be able to use again--and killed the front end, but therear fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped.
This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full ofcentipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I'd rather find a tigerunder the bed.
Friday, 9.30 p.m.
Such a lot of troubles! I didn't hear the rising bell this morning,then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped mycollar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and also forfirst-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and myfountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the Professor and I had adisagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it up,I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie-plant forlunch--hate 'em both; they taste like the asylum. The post brought menothing but bills (though I must say that I never do get anything else;my family are not the kind that write). In English class thisafternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. This was it:
I asked no other thing, No other was denied. I offered Being for it; The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button Without a glance my way: But, madam, is there nothing else That we can show today?
That is a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. It wassimply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we wereordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought Ihad an idea--The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributesblessings in return for virtuous deeds--but when I got to the secondverse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemoussupposition, and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class wasin the same predicament; and there we sat for three-quarters of an hourwith blank paper and equally blank minds. Getting an education is anawfully wearing process!
But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come.
It rained so we couldn't play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead.The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got home tofind that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, and the skirtwas so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is sweeping day, and themaid had mixed all the papers on my desk. We had tombstone for dessert(milk and gelatin flavoured with vanilla). We were kept in chapeltwenty minutes later than usual to listen to a speech about womanlywomen. And then--just as I was settling down with a sigh ofwell-earned relief to The Portrait of a Lady, a girl named Ackerly, adough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to mein Latin because her name begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had namedme Zabriski), came to ask if Monday's lesson commenced at paragraph 69or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.
Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn'tthe big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to acrisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the pettyhazards of the day with a laugh--I really think that requires SPIRIT.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going topretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully andfairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders andlaugh--also if I win.
Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complainagain, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedesdrop off the wall.
Yours ever, Judy
Answer soon.