DADDY-LONG-LEGS (1) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Blue Wednesday
The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day ー a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.
Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle.
Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrached and combed and bottoned into freshly starched ginghams ; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, " Yes, sir, " " No, sir, " whenever a Trustee spoke.
※Trustee 評議員
It was a distressing time ; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the burnt of it.
But this particular Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close.
(1/27)
よく知られた「足長おじさん」(Jean Webster 1876-1916) ですが、その最初の章及び最初の手紙のやりとりをお出ししてみたいと思います。
若干みなれない表現も出てくるかと思いますが、ひとつひとつは場面に応じて想像できるかと思います。
たくまいい孤児の話をつい最近耳にしましたので、思いつきですみませんが。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (2) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she ahd been making sandwiches for the asylum's guests, and turned upsrairs to accomplish her regular work.
※asylum's guests 施設への訪問者
Her special care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven,occupied eleven little cots set in a row.
Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly and willing line toward the dinning room to engage themselves for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding.
※rumpled frocks しわくちゃとなった室内着
Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass.
She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron.
※matron 院長先生
Mrs.Lippett, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of Trustee and lady visitors.
(2/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (3) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the cofines of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising the midst of bare trees.
The day was ended ー quite successfully, so far as she knew.
The Trustees and the visiting committee had made their rounds, and read their reports, and drunk their tea, and now were hurrying home to their own cheerful firesides, to forget their bothersome little charges for another month.
Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity ー and a touch of wistfulness ー the streamof carriage and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates.
In magination she followed forst one equipage then another to the big houses dotted along the hillside.
She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers in a leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring " Home " to the driver.
But on the doorsill of her home the picture grew blurred.
(3/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (4) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Jerusha had an aimagination ー an imagination, Mrs. Lippett told her, that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care ー but keen as it was, it could not carry her beyond the front porch of the houses she would enter.
Poor, eager, adventurous little Jerusha, in all her seventeen years, had never stepped inside an ordinary houses ; she could not picture the daily routine ofthose other human being who carried on their lives undiscommoded by orphan.
Je-ru-sha Abbott
You are wanted
In the office,
And I think you'd
Better hurry up !
Tommy Dillon, who had jined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F.
Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced the trouble of life.
" Who wants me ? " she cut into Tommy's chant with a note of sharp anxiety.
(4/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (5) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Mrs. Lippett in the office,
And I think she's mad.
Ah-a-men !
Tommy piously intoned, but his accent was not enturely malicious.
Even the most hardened little orphan felt sympathy for erring sister who was summoned to the office to face an annoyed marton ; and Tommy liked Jerusha even if she did sometimes jerk him by the arm and nearly scrub his nose off.
Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow.
※lines しわ
What could have gone wrong, she wondered.
Where the sandwiches not thin enough ?
Were there shells in the nut cakes ?
Had a lady visitor seen the hole in Susie Hawthom's stocking ?
Had ー oh, horrors ! ー one of the cherubic little babes in her own room F "sassed " a Trustee ?
(5/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (6) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (6)
The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, a last Trustee stood on the point of departure, in the open door that led to the potre-cochère.
※Portre-cochère 車や馬車の出入口
Jerusha caught only a fleeting impression of the man ー and the impression consisted entirely of tallness.
He was waving his arm toward an automobile waiting in the curved drive.
As it ssprang into motion and approached, head on for an instant, the glaring headlights threw his shadow sharply against the wall inside.
The shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along the floor and up the wall of the corridor.
It looked, for all the world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs.
※daddy-long-legs ガガンボ、蚊トンボ ザトウムシ などの通称
日本では、「足長おじさん」となっているので、もしかしたら意外かも、です。
(6/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (7) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Jerusha's anxious frown gave place to quick laughter.
She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be amused.
If one could derive any sort of entertainment out of the oppressive fact of a Trustee, it was something unexpected to the good.
She advanced to the office quite cheered by the tiny episode, and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett.
To her surprise the morton was also, if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably affable ; she wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she donned for visitors.
" Sit down, Jerusha, I have something to say to you. "
Jerusha dropped into the nearest chair and waited with a touch of breathlessness.
An automobile flashed past the window ; Mrs. Lippett glanced after it.
" Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone ? "
" I saw his back. "
" He is one of our most affluential Trustees, and has given large sums of money toward the asylum's support. I am not at liberty to mention his name ; he expressly stipulated that he was to reamin unlnown. "
Jerusha's eyes widened slightly ; she was not accustomed to being summoned to the office to discuss the eccentricities of Trustee with the marton.
(7/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (8) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (8)
" This gentleman has taken an interest in several of our boys. You remember Charles Benton and Henry Freize ? They were both sent through college by Mr. ー er ー this Trustee, and both have repaid with hard work and success the money that was so generously expended. Other payment the gentleman does not wish. Heretofore his philanthropies have been directed solely toward the boys ; I have never been able to interest him in the slightest degree in any of the girls in the institution, no matter how deserving.
He does not, I may tell you, care for girls. "
※philanthropies 慈善行為
" No, ma'am, " Jerusha murmured, since some reply seemed to be expected at this point.
" Today at the regular meeting, the question of your future was brought up. "
Mrs. Rippett allowed a moment of silence to fall, then resumed in a slow, placid manner extremely trying to her hearer's suddenly tightened nerves.
" Usually, as you know, the children are not kept, after they are sixteen, but an exception was made in your case. You had finished our school at fourteen, and having done so well in your studies ー not always, I must say, in your conduct ー it was determined to let you go on in the village high school. Now you are finishing that, and of course the asylum cannot be responsible any longer for your support. As it is, you have had two years more than most.
(8/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (9) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Mrs. Lippett overlooked the fact that Jerusha had worked hard for her board during those two years, that convenience of the asylum had come first and her education second ; that on days like the present she was kept at home to scrub.
" As I say, the question of your future was brough up and your record was discussed ー thoroughly discussed. "
Mrs. Lippett brought accusing eyes to bear upon the prisoner in the dock, and the prisoner looked guilty because it seemed to be expected ー not because she could remember any striking black pages in her record.
" Of course the usual disposition of one in your palce would be to put you in a position where you could bigun to work, but you have done well in school in certain branches ; it seems that your work in English has even been brilliant. Miss Pritchard who is on our visiting committee is also on the school board ; she has been talking with your rhetric teacher, and made a speech in your favor.
She also read aloud an essay that you had written entitled, ' Blue Wednesday. ' "
Jerusha's guilty expression this time was not assumed.
(9/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (10) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (10)
" It seemed to me that you showed little gratitude in holding up to ridicule the institution that has done so much for you. Had you not managed to be funny I doubt if you would have been forgiven.
But fortunately for you, Mr ー that is, the gentleman who has just gone ー appears to have an immoderate sence of humor. On the strength of that impertient paper, he has offered to send you to college. "
" To college ? " Jerusha's eyes grew big.
Mrs. Lippett nodded.
" He waited to discuss the terms with me. They are unusual. The gentleman, I may say, is erratic. He believes that you have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become a writer. "
" A writer ? " Jerusha's mind was numbed.
She could only repeat Mrs. Lippett's words.
" That is his wish. Whether anything will come of it, the future will show. He is giving you a very liberal allowance, almost, for a girl who ahs never had any experience in taking care of money, too liberal. But he planned the matter in detail, and I did not feel free to make any suggestions.
You are to remain here through the summer, and Miss Pritchard has kindly offered to superintend your outfit. Your board and tuition will be paid directry to the college, and you will receive in addition during the four years you are there, an allowance of thirty-five dollars a month. This will enable you to enter on the same standing as the other students.
The money will be sent to you by the gentleman's private secretary once a month, and in return you will write a letter of acknowledgment once a month.
That is ー you are not thank him for the money ; he desn't care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of progress in your studies and the details of your daily life.
Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living. "
" These letters will be addressed to Mr. John Smith and will be sent in care of the secretary. The gentleman's name is not John Smith, but he prefers to remain unknown. "
(10/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (11) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
" To you he will never be anything but John Smith. His reason in requiring the letter is that he thinks nothing so fosters facility in literary expressions as letter writing. Since you have no family with whom to correspond, he desires you to write in this way ; also, he wishes to keep track of your progress. He will never answer your letters, nor in the slightest particular take any notice of them.
He detests letter writing, and does not wish you to become a burden.
If any point shoud ever arise where an snswer would seem to be imperative ー such as in the event of your being expelled, which I trust will not occur ー you may correspond with Mr. Griggs, his secretary.
These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory on your part ; they are the only payment that Mr. Smith requires, so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying.
I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training.
You must remember that you are writing to a Trustee of the John Grier Home. "
(11/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (12) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (12)
Jerusha's eyes longingly sought the door.
Her head was in a whirl of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett's platitudes, and think.
She rose and took a tentative step backwards.
Mrs.Lippett detained her with a gesture ; it was an oratorical opportunity not to be slighted.
" I trust that you are properly grateful for this very rare good fortune that has befallen you ? Not many girls in your position ever have such an opportunity to rise in the world. You must always remember ー "
" I ー yes, ma'am, thank you. I think, if that's all, I must go and sew a patch on Freddie Perkins's trousers. "
The door closed behind her. and Mrs. Lippett watched it with dropped jaw ; her peroration in midair.
(12/27)
第1章完で、次回から、第2章、
The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-long-legs-Smith
にはいります。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (14) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
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 toward 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-Pole.
I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer ; having somebody take an interest in me after all these years make 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:
1. You are tall.
2. You are rich.
3. You hate girls.
(14/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (15) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl-Hater. Only that's sort of insulting to me. Or Dear Mr,Rich-Man, but that's insulting to you, as though money were onlyimportant thing about you. Besides, being rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you won't stay rich all your life ; lots of veryvery 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 ー we won't tell Mrs. Lippett.
The ten o'crock 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 ! Light out. Good night.
Observe with what precision I obey rules ー due to my training in the John Grier Home.
Yours most respectfully,
JERUSHA ABBOTT
To Mr. Daddy-long-legs Smith
(15/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (16) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (16)
October 1st
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I love college and I love you for sending me ー 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. Inever 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.
(16/27)
次のレターです。
遅くなりまして、申し訳ありません。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (17) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
My room is up in the tower that used to be the contagious ward before they built the new infirmary.
※contagious ward 伝染病棟
There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower － a senior who wear a spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quite, and two freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a turned-up nose and is quite friendly ; Julia comes from one of the first families in Yew 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 northwest corner with two windows and a view. After you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty roommates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get accuainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm going to like her.
Do you think you are ?
(17/27)
この手紙は、あと1回続きます。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (18) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (16)
Tuesday
They are organizing the freshman basketball team and there's just a chance that I shall make it. I'm little of course, but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are jopping about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's load of fun practicing ー 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 ー 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 make the team ?
Yours always,
JERUSHA ABBOTT
P.S (9 o'clock.)
Sallie McBride just poked her head in at mydoor.
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 ?
(18/27)
次回は3通目です。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (19) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (19)
October 10th
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Did you ever heard of Michael Angelo ?
He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the middle Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him and whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, doesn't he ? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lotof things you've never learned. It's very embarrassing at times. But now, when the girls talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.
I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlink, and I asked if she was a freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others ー and brighter than some of them.
※Maurice Maeterlink モーリス・メーテルリンク([青い鳥]の作者として知られるベルギーの作家)
Do you care to know how I've furnished my room ? It's a symphony in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I've bought yellow denim curtains and cushons and a mahogany desk ( secondhand for three dollars ) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot.
(19/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (20) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
The windows are up high ; you can't look out from an ordinary seat. But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the backof the bureau, upholsteredthe top, and moved it up against the window. It's just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like a steps and walk up. Very comfortable !
Sallie McBride helped me choose the things at the senior auction. She has lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing. You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay real five-dollar bill and get some change ー when you've never had more than a nickel in your life. I assure you, Daddy dear, I do appreciate that allowance.
Sallie is the most entertaining person in the world ー and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It's queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of roommates. Sallie thinks everything is funny ー even flunking ー and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest effort to be amirable. She believes that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Julia and I were born to be enemies.
(20/27)
お詫び
25日は、予約投稿に失敗しまして、申し訳ございません。
26日は午前1０時に(21)がでます。(22)は27日に。
27日より、2本立てとなる見込みです。
重ねて、お詫び申し上げます。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (21) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear what I am learning ?
Ⅰ. Latin : Second Punic War. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Transimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. Romans in retreat.
Ⅱ. French : 24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation, irregular verbs.
Ⅲ. Geometry : Finished cylinders; now doing cones.
Ⅳ. English : Studying exposition. My style improves daily in clearness and brevity.
Ⅴ. Physiology : Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas next time.
Yours, on the way to being educated,
JERUSHA ABBOTT
P.S. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy ?
It does dreadful things to your liver.
(21/27)
明日から4通目です。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (22) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Wednesday
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I've changed my name.
I'm still " Jerusha " in the catalogue, but I'm " Judy " everywhere else. It's sort of too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had ? I didn't quite make up the Judy though. That's what Freddie Perkins used to call me before he could talk plainly.
I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing a babies names. She gets the last names out of telephone book ー you'll find Abbott on the first page － and she picks the Christian names up anywhere ; she got Jerusha from a tombstone. I've always hated it ; but I rather like Judy. It's such a silly name. It belongs to the kind of girl I'm not ー a sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through life without any cares. Wouldn't it be nice to be like that ?
(22/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (23) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family ! But it's sort of fun to pretend I've been. In the future, please always adress me as Judy.
Do you want to know something ? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.
(Dinner bell. Goodbye. )
Friday
What do you think, Daddy ? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I've had ? The aim of the John Grier Home ( as you doubtless know and heartily approve of ) is turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.
(23/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (24) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early age through drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippett on the woodshed door.
I hope that I don't hurt your feeling when I criticize the home of my youth ? But you have the upper hand, you know, for it become too impatinent, you can always stop payment on your checks. That isn't a very polite thing to say ー but youcan't expect me to have any manners ; a founding asylum isn't a young ladies' finishing school.
You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about ; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. I was queer and different and averybody knew it. I could feel " John Grier Home " written on my face.
(24/27)
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (25) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. I hated evry one of them ー the charitable ones most of all.
Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Sallie Mcbride that my mother nad father were dead, and that a kind old gentleman was sending me to college ー which is entirely true so far as it goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, but I do want to be like the other girls, and that Dreadful Home looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, I think I might be just as desirable as any other girl. I don't believe there's any real, underneath difference, do you ?
Anyway, Sallie Mcbride likes me !
Yours ever,
JUDY ABBOTT
(Née Jerusha)
(24/27)
この手紙には、あと一回続きがあります。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (25) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (25)
Saturday morning
I've just been reading this letter over and it sounds pretty uncheerful. But can't you guess that I have a soecial topic due Monday morning and review in geometry and a very sneezy cold ?
Sunday
I forgot to mail this yesterday so I will add and indignant postscript. We had a bishop this morning, and what do you think he said ?
" The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this, ' The poor ye have always with you. ' They were put here in order to keep us charitable.
（※The poor ye have always with you 貧しき者は常に汝らとともにあり。）
The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up after service and told him what I thought.
※service 礼拝
(25/27)
明日から次の手紙です。
手紙が面白いところですので、クリスマス前まで7~8回、伸びるかもしれません。
勝手な都合をご了解くだされば幸いです。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (26) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
October 25th
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I've made the basketball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Julia Pendleton tried for the team, but she didn't make it. Hooray !
You see what a mean disposition I have.
College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice cream twice a week and we never have cornmeal mush.
You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you ? And I've been peppering you with letters evry few days ! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I must talk to somebody ; and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance ; I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promise no to write another till the middle of November.
Yours most loquaciously,
JUDY ABBOTT
(26/27)
次は、Nobember 15th の手紙ですが、長いので3~4回、次いでDecember 19th が5回ぐらいで、そのぐらい伸びると思います。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (27 まだ続きます) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (27 まだ続きます)
November 15th
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Listen to what I've learned today.
The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids.
※面倒ですが、正角錘(正四角錐)の側面積を求める方法です。
It doesn't sound true, but it is ー I can prove it !
You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy ? Six dresses, all new and beautiful and bought for me ー not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that makes in the career of an orphan ? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, very much obliged. It's a fine things to be educated － but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owing six new dresses. Miss Prirchard who is on the visiting committee picked them out ー not Mrs. Lippett, thank goodness. I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk ( I'm perfectly beautiful in that ), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming ( makes me look like a Gipsy ) and another of rose-colored challis, and a gray street suit, and an everyday dress for classes.
(27/ )
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (28) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (28)
That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendelton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott ー oh, my !
I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast she si, and what a waste of money to educate a girl ?
But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in checked ginghams all your life, you'd appreaciate how I feel. And when I started to high school, I entered upon another period even worse than the checked ginghams.
The Poor box.
※poor-box 慈善箱
You can't know how I dressed appearing in school in those miserable poor-box dresses. I was perfectly sure put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.
※cast-off clothes 捨てた服
(28/ )
遅くなりました。すみません。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (29) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
LATEST WAR BULLETIN !
News from the Scene of Action
At the fourth watch of Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed the advenace guard of the Romans and led the Carthginian forces over the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of Light-armed Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maxmus. Two battles and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses.
※Carthginian forces カルタゴ軍隊
I have the honor of being,
Your special correspondent from the front,
J. ABBOTT
P.S. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been wanted not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this once ー are you awfully old or just a little old ? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald ? It is very difficult thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry.
Given a tall rich man who hates girl, but is very generous to one quite impertinent girl, what does he look like.
P.S.V.P.
※P.S.V.P. お返事ください
（２９/ ）
次回からDesember 19th 新手紙5回予定です。
月曜日から二本立てになる見込みです（未確定）。
DADDY-LONG-LEGS (30) [DADDY-LONG-LEGS]
Desember 19th
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
You never answered my question and it was very important.
ARE YOU BALD ?
I have it planned exactly what you look like ー very satisfactorily － until I reach the top of your head, and then I am stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly gray hair or maybe none at all.
Here is your portrait:
But the problem is, shall I add some hair ?
Would you like to know what color your eyes are ? They're gray, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in novels ) and your mouth is straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know ! You're a snappy old thing with a temper.
(Chapel bell. )
(30/34)
３４回終了予定です。
sunny君と 一緒に読もう
いや、もう、嬉しいです。
苦節10年、やっと30位以内に（ブログ2年半ですが！）。
英語 ブログランキングへ
現在、かろうじて２位かも？
にほんブログ村
なにげにFC2 好き
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