Exact date unknown

Towards the end of
the Christmas vacation.
Exact date unknown

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower
is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns.
It's late afternoon--the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour)
behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat
using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I'm not used to receiving
Christmas presents. You have already given me such lots of things--
everything I have, you know--that I don't quite feel that I
deserve extras. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know
what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me
to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold's poems.

III. A hot water bottle.

IV. A steamer rug. (My tower is cold.)

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I'm going
to commence being an author pretty soon.)

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author's vocabulary.)

VII. (I don't much like to confess this last item, but I will.)
A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don't tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the
silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry,
and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings
every night. But just wait--as soon as she gets back from vacation
I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see,
Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I'm honest;
and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn't perfect,
didn't you?

To recapitulate (that's the way the English instructor begins every
other sentence), I am very much obliged for my seven presents.
I'm pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family
in California. The watch is from father, the rug from mother,
the hot water bottle from grandmother who is always worrying for fear
I shall catch cold in this climate--and the yellow paper from my
little brother Harry. My sister Isabel gave me the silk stockings,
and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little Harry is
named after him) gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates,
but I insisted on synonyms.

You don't object, do you, to playing the part of a composite family?

And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested
in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the delicate shade
of meaning in `as such'. It is the latest addition to my vocabulary.

The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny
as Jerusha, isn't it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride;
I shall never like any one so much as Sallie--except you. I must
always like you the best of all, because you're my whole family
rolled into one. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked 'cross
country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighbourhood,
dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying shiny
sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town--four miles--
and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner.
Broiled lobster (35 cents), and for dessert, buckwheat cakes and maple
syrup (15 cents). Nourishing and cheap.

It was such a lark! Especially for me, because it was so awfully
different from the asylum--I feel like an escaped convict every
time I leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell
the others what an experience I was having. The cat was almost
out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back.
It's awfully hard for me not to tell everything I know. I'm a very
confiding soul by nature; if I didn't have you to tell things to,
I'd burst.

We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the
house matron of Fergussen to the left-behinds in the other halls.
There were twenty-two of us altogether, Freshmen and Sophomores and
juniors and Seniors all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is huge,
with copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone wall--
the littlest casserole among them about the size of a wash boiler.
Four hundred girls live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white cap
and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons--
I can't imagine where he got so many--and we all turned ourselves
into cooks.

It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was
finally finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the door-knobs
all thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession and still in our
caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan,
we marched through the empty corridors to the officers' parlour,
where half-a-dozen professors and instructors were passing
a tranquil evening. We serenaded them with college songs and
offered refreshments. They accepted politely but dubiously.
We left them sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless.

So you see, Daddy, my education progresses!

Don't you really think that I ought to be an artist instead
of an author?

Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the
girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine people occupy
a house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle around a bit.

Eleven pages--poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be
just a short little thank-you note--but when I get started I seem
to have a ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me--I should be perfectly
happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon.
Examinations come in February.
Yours with love,
Judy


PS. Maybe it isn't proper to send love? If it isn't, please excuse.
But I must love somebody and there's only you and Mrs. Lippett
to choose between, so you see--you'll HAVE to put up with it,
Daddy dear, because I can't love her.