Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Behold me--a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave LockWillow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensationto come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home incollege, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, tofeel at home in the world--as though I really belonged to it and hadnot just crept in on sufferance.
I don't suppose you understand in the least what I am trying to say. Aperson important enough to be a Trustee can't appreciate the feelingsof 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 havea 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 naturallyconservative 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, sheis going to be elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue you should seewhat politicians we are! Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get ourrights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours.Election comes next Saturday, and we're going to have a torchlightprocession in the evening, no matter who wins.
I am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. I've never seenanything like it before. Molecules and Atoms are the materialemployed, but I'll be in a position to discuss them more definitelynext 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 Professorwould not let me pass--as it was, I just managed to squeeze through theJune examination. But I will say that my high-school preparation wasnot very adequate.
There's one girl in the class who chatters away in French as fast asshe does in English. She went abroad with her parents when she was achild, and spent three years in a convent school. You can imagine howbright she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs are mereplaythings. I wish my parents had chucked me into a French conventwhen I was little instead of a foundling asylum. Oh no, I don'teither! Because then maybe I should never have known you. I'd ratherknow you than French.
Goodbye, Daddy. I must call on Harriet Martin now, and, havingdiscussed the chemical situation, casually drop a few thoughts on thesubject of our next president.
Yours in politics, J. Abbott