215 FERGUSSEN HALL 24th September

Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,


Here I am! I travelled yesterday for four hours in a train.
It's a funny sensation, isn't it? I never rode in one before.

College is the biggest, most bewildering place--I get lost whenever
I leave my room. I will write you a description later when I'm
feeling less muddled; also I will tell you about my lessons.
Classes don't begin until Monday morning, and this is Saturday night.
But I wanted to write a letter first just to get acquainted.

It seems queer to be writing letters to somebody you don't know.
It seems queer for me to be writing letters at all--I've never
written more than three or four in my life, so please overlook it
if these are not a model kind.

Before leaving yesterday morning, Mrs. Lippett and I had a very
serious talk. She told me how to behave all the rest of my life,
and especially how to behave towards the kind gentleman who is doing
so much for me. I must take care to be Very Respectful.

But how can one be very respectful to a person who
wishes to be called John Smith? Why couldn't you
have picked out a name with a little personality?
I might as well write letters to Dear Hitching-Post or Dear Clothes-Prop.

I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having
somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me
feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I
belonged to somebody now, and it's a very comfortable sensation.
I must say, however, that when I think about you, my imagination
has very little to work upon. There are just three things that
I know:

I. You are tall.

II. You are rich.

III. You hate girls.

I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl-Hater. Only that's rather
insulting to me. Or Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that's insulting
to you, as though money were the only important thing about you.
Besides, being rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you
won't stay rich all your life; lots of very clever men get smashed
up in Wall Street. But at least you will stay tall all your life!
So I've decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you won't mind.
It's just a private pet name we won't tell Mrs. Lippett.

The ten o'clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is
divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells.
It's very enlivening; I feel like a fire horse all of the time.
There it goes! Lights out. Good night.

Observe with what precision I obey rules--due to my training
in the John Grier Home.
Yours most respectfully,
Jerusha Abbott
To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith



1st October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,


I love college and I love you for sending me--I'm very, very happy,
and so excited every moment of the time that I can scarcely sleep.
You can't imagine how different it is from the John Grier Home.
I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling
sorry for everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here; I am
sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been
so nice.

My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward
before they built the new infirmary. There are three other girls
on the same floor of the tower--a Senior who wears spectacles
and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two
Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton.
Sallie has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly;
Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't
noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles.
Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very scarce, but I got
one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn't think it would
be right to ask a properly brought-up girl to room with a foundling.
You see there are advantages!

My room is on the north-west corner with two windows and a view.
After you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty
room-mates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance
I've ever had to get acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm
going to like her.

Do you think you are?

Tuesday

They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there's
just a chance that I shall get in it. I'm little of course,
but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping
about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball.
It's loads of fun practising--out in the athletic field in the
afternoon with the trees all red and yellow and the air full of
the smell of burning leaves, and everybody laughing and shouting.
These are the happiest girls I ever saw--and I am the happiest
of all!

I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning
(Mrs. Lippett said you wanted to know), but 7th hour has just rung,
and in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes.
Don't you hope I'll get in the team?

Yours always,
Jerusha Abbott

PS. (9 o'clock.)


Sallie McBride just poked her head in at my door. This is what
she said:

`I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Do you feel that way?'

I smiled a little and said no; I thought I could pull through.
At least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped! I never heard
of anybody being asylum-sick, did you?