DADDY-LONG-LEGS (31)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (31)


    I have a new unbreakable rule : never, never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books ー I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is ; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library by absorption, I have never heard of. For example :

    I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robibson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelly was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R.L.S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the " Mona Lisa " and (it's true but you won't believe it ) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.

(31/４０)
次の手紙まで、少しだけ伸ばしたいと思います。 

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (32)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (32)


    Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. Aｎd  oh, but it's fun ! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an " engaged " on tne door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushons behind　me on the couch and light the brass student lump at my elbow, and read and read and read.

（改行はしてませんが長いので）
One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, They're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and ー don't laugh ー Little Woman.
I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me queer). I just quitely went and bought it with ＄1.12 of my last month's allowance ; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about !
 (Ten o'clock bell.  This is a very interrupted letter.)


(32/４０)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (33)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (33)


                                               Saturday

Sir,

    I have the honor to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill.


                                                 Sunday


    The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so cluttered that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation ; there's another freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks  and ー if there's any ice ー learn to skate.


(33/４０)
次でこの手紙が終わります。

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (34)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (34)


Then there is still the whole library to be read  ー and three empty weeks to do it in !

    Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as I am.


                                                     Yours ever,
                                                                  JUDY

P.S.  Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can just say :
                          Mr. Smith is quite bald,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　or
　　　　　　　　　　　Mr. Smith is not bald,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　or
　　　　　　　　　　　Mr. Smith has white hair.

    And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.
   
    Goodbye till January ー and a merry Chiristmas !                          

(34/４０)
次の手紙6回分でひとまず終了したいと思います。

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (35)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (35)


                                     Toward the end of 
                                     the Christmas vacation.
                                     Exact date unkknown.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

    It is 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 popcorn. It's late afternoon ー the sun is just setting ( a cold yellow color ) 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 a lot of things ー every thing I have, you know ー 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 on 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.


(35/40)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (36)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (36)


    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 Pendelton comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wear silk stockings every night. But just wait ー as soon as she gets backs from vacation I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, Daddy, the miserable creature that I am ー 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 muself that they came in a box from my family in California.
 

(36/40)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (37)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (37)


The watch is from father, the rug from mother, the hot water bottle from grandmother ー who is always worrying for fear I shall catch cold in this climate ー and the yellow paper from my little brother Harry. My sister Isobel gave me the silk stockings, and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems ; Uncle Harry (little Harry is named for 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 apprecite the delicate shade of meaning in " as such. "  It is the latest addition to my vocabulary.


(37/40) 

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (38)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (38)

    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 neverlike anyone so much as Sallie ー except you. I must always like you the best of all, because you're my whole family rolled into one. Leonora and I and twosophomores have walked 'cross country every pleasant day and explored the whole meighborhood,dressedin short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying shinny sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town ー 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 ー I feel like an escaped convict every time I leave the campus. Before I though, 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 burst. 

(38/40)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (39)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (39)


    We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the house marton 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 ー the littlest casserole among them about the size of wash boiler. Four handred girls live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white cap and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons ー I can't imagine where he got so many ー 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 precession and still in our caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or flying pan, we marched through the empty corridors and instructors were passing a tranquil evening. We serenaded them with college songs and offered refreshments. They accept politely but dubiously. We left them sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless.

(39/40)
今回ちょっと長いのですけれど、次回で一旦終わります。

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (40 ひとまず完)

DADDY-LONG-LEGS (40)


　　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 lonly ; when nine people occupy a house that was built for four handred, 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 ー but when I get stared I seem to have a ready pen.

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

                                    Yours with love,
                                                       JUDY

    P.S. 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 ー you'll have to put up with it, Daddy dear, because I can't love her.

(40/40 ひとまず完) 
Daddy-Long-Legs 全体の1/4 を終わったところですが、ひとまず完とさせていただきたいと思います。
次作は鋭意検討中です(=これから考えます)。