LOCK WILLOW FARM, 3rd August
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
It has been nearly two months since I wrote, which wasn't nice of me, Iknow, but I haven't loved you much this summer--you see I'm being frank!
You can't imagine how disappointed I was at having to give up theMcBrides' camp. Of course I know that you're my guardian, and that Ihave to regard your wishes in all matters, but I couldn't see anyREASON. It was so distinctly the best thing that could have happenedto me. If I had been Daddy, and you had been Judy, I should have said,'Bless you my child, run along and have a good time; see lots of newpeople and learn lots of new things; live out of doors, and get strongand well and rested for a year of hard work.'
But not at all! Just a curt line from your secretary ordering me toLock Willow.
It's the impersonality of your commands that hurts my feelings. Itseems as though, if you felt the tiniest little bit for me the way Ifeel for you, you'd sometimes send me a message that you'd written withyour own hand, instead of those beastly typewritten secretary's notes.If there were the slightest hint that you cared, I'd do anything onearth to please you.
I know that I was to write nice, long, detailed letters without everexpecting any answer. You're living up to your side of thebargain--I'm being educated--and I suppose you're thinking I'm notliving up to mine!
But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is, really. I'm so awfullylonely. You are the only person I have to care for, and you are soshadowy. You're just an imaginary man that I've made up--and probablythe real YOU isn't a bit like my imaginary YOU. But you did once, whenI was ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and now, when I amfeeling awfully forgotten, I get out your card and read it over.
I don't think I am telling you at all what I started to say, which wasthis:
Although my feelings are still hurt, for it is very humiliating to bepicked up and moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable,omnipotent, invisible Providence, still, when a man has been as kindand generous and thoughtful as you have heretofore been towards me, Isuppose he has a right to be an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable,invisible Providence if he chooses, and so--I'll forgive you and becheerful again. But I still don't enjoy getting Sallie's letters aboutthe good times they are having in camp!
However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again.
I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finishedand sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm trying to be anauthor. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where MasterJervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It's in a cool, breezycorner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a maple tree with afamily of red squirrels living in a hole.
I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.
We need rain.
Yours as ever, Judy