8th hour, Monday.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I hope you aren’t the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off--I
was told--with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee.
Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by
the laundry windows in the John Grier Home? Every spring when the
hoptoad season opened we used to form a collection of toads and keep
them in those window holes; and occasionally they would spill over
into the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days.
We were severely punished for our activities in this direction, but
in spite of all discouragement the toads would collect.
And one day--well, I won’t bore you with particulars--but somehow,
one of the fattest, biggest, _juiciest_ toads got into one of those
big leather arm chairs in the Trustees’ room, and that afternoon at
the Trustees’ meeting-- But I dare say you were there and recall the
rest?
Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say that
punishment was merited, and--if I remember rightly--adequate.
I don’t know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring
and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive
instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is
the fact that no rule exists against it.
After chapel, Thursday.
What do you think is my favorite book? Just now, I mean; I change
every three days. “Wuthering Heights.” Emily Bronté was quite young
when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard.
She had never known any men in her life; how _could_ she imagine a
man like Heathcliffe?
I couldn’t do it, and I’m quite young and never outside the John
Grier Asylum--I’ve had every chance in the world. Sometimes a
dreadful fear comes over me that I’m not a genius. Will you be
awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don’t turn out to be a great
author? In the spring when everything is so beautiful and green and
budding, I feel like turning my back on lessons, and running away to
play with the weather. There are such lots of adventures out in the
fields! It’s much more entertaining to live books than to write
them.
Ow ! ! ! ! ! !
That was a shriek which brought Sallie and Julia and (for a
disgusted moment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by
a centipede like this:
[Illustration]
only worse. Just as I had finished the last sentence and was
thinking what to say next--plump!--it fell off the ceiling and
landed at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea table in trying to
get away. Sallie whacked it with the back of my hair brush--which I
shall never be able to use again--and killed the front end, but the
rear fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped.
This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full of
centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I’d rather find a tiger
under the bed.
Friday, 9.30 P. M.
Such a lot of troubles! I didn’t hear the rising bell this morning,
then I broke my shoe-string while I was hurrying to dress and
dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and
also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper
and my fountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the Professor and I had
a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it
up, I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie-plant for
lunch--hate ’em both; they taste like the asylum. Nothing but bills
in my mail (though I must say that I never do get anything else; my
family are not the kind that write). In English class this afternoon
we had an unexpected written lesson. This was it:
I asked no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button
Without a glance my way:
But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?
That is a poem. I don’t know who wrote it or what it means. It was
simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were
ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought I
had an idea--The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributes
blessings in return for virtuous deeds--but when I got to the second
verse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous
supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class
was in the same predicament; and there we sat for three quarters of
an hour with blank paper and equally blank minds. Getting an
education is an awfully wearing process!
But this didn’t end the day. There’s worse to come.
It rained so we couldn’t play golf, but had to go to gymnasium
instead. The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club.
I got home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had
come, and the skirt was so tight that I couldn’t sit down. Friday
is sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk.
We had tombstone for dessert (milk and gelatin flavored with
vanilla). We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to
listen to a speech about womanly women. And then--just as I was
settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to “The Portrait
of a Lady,” a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly,
unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because
her name begins with A (I wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski),
came to ask if Monday’s lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and
stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.
Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn’t
the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to
a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the
petty hazards of the day with a laugh--I really think that requires
_spirit_.
It’s the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going
to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as
skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my
shoulders and laugh--also if I win.
Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain
again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes
drop off the wall.
Yours ever,