5th March
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
There is a March wind blowing, and the sky is filled with heavy, blackmoving clouds. The crows in the pine trees are making such a clamour!It's an intoxicating, exhilarating, CALLING noise. You want to closeyour books and be off over the hills to race with the wind.
We had a paper chase last Saturday over five miles of squashy 'crosscountry. The fox (composed of three girls and a bushel or so ofconfetti) started half an hour before the twenty-seven hunters. I wasone of the twenty-seven; eight dropped by the wayside; we endednineteen. The trail led over a hill, through a cornfield, and into aswamp where we had to leap lightly from hummock to hummock. of coursehalf of us went in ankle deep. We kept losing the trail, and we wastedtwenty-five minutes over that swamp. Then up a hill through some woodsand in at a barn window! The barn doors were all locked and the windowwas up high and pretty small. I don't call that fair, do you?
But we didn't go through; we circumnavigated the barn and picked up thetrail where it issued by way of a low shed roof on to the top of afence. The fox thought he had us there, but we fooled him. Thenstraight away over two miles of rolling meadow, and awfully hard tofollow, for the confetti was getting sparse. The rule is that it mustbe at the most six feet apart, but they were the longest six feet Iever saw. Finally, after two hours of steady trotting, we trackedMonsieur Fox into the kitchen of Crystal Spring (that's a farm wherethe girls go in bob sleighs and hay wagons for chicken and wafflesuppers) and we found the three foxes placidly eating milk and honeyand biscuits. They hadn't thought we would get that far; they wereexpecting us to stick in the barn window.
Both sides insist that they won. I think we did, don't you? Becausewe caught them before they got back to the campus. Anyway, allnineteen of us settled like locusts over the furniture and clamouredfor honey. There wasn't enough to go round, but Mrs. Crystal Spring(that's our pet name for her; she's by rights a Johnson) brought up ajar of strawberry jam and a can of maple syrup--just made lastweek--and three loaves of brown bread.
We didn't get back to college till half-past six--half an hour late fordinner--and we went straight in without dressing, and with perfectlyunimpaired appetites! Then we all cut evening chapel, the state of ourboots being enough of an excuse.
I never told you about examinations. I passed everything with theutmost ease--I know the secret now, and am never going to fail again.I shan't be able to graduate with honours though, because of thatbeastly Latin prose and geometry Freshman year. But I don't care.Wot's the hodds so long as you're 'appy? (That's a quotation. I'vebeen reading the English classics.)
Speaking of classics, have you ever read Hamlet? If you haven't, do itright off. It's PERFECTLY CORKING. I've been hearing aboutShakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; Ialways suspected him of going largely on his reputation.
I have a beautiful play that I invented a long time ago when I firstlearned to read. I put myself to sleep every night by pretending I'mthe person (the most important person) in the book I'm reading at themoment.
At present I'm Ophelia--and such a sensible Ophelia! I keep Hamletamused all the time, and pet him and scold him and make him wrap up histhroat when he has a cold. I've entirely cured him of beingmelancholy. The King and Queen are both dead--an accident at sea; nofuneral necessary--so Hamlet and I are ruling in Denmark without anybother. We have the kingdom working beautifully. He takes care of thegoverning, and I look after the charities. I have just founded somefirst-class orphan asylums. If you or any of the other Trustees wouldlike to visit them, I shall be pleased to show you through. I thinkyou might find a great many helpful suggestions.
I remain, sir, Yours most graciously, OPHELIA, Queen of Denmark.