P. S. I’ve just had an awful thought. Have you a butler? I’m
afraid of butlers, and if one opens the door I shall faint upon the
step. What can I say to him? You didn’t tell me your name. Shall I
ask for Mr. Smith?
Thursday Morning.
_My very dearest Master-Jervie-Daddy-Long-Legs-Pendleton-Smith_,
Did you sleep last night? I didn’t. Not a single wink. I was too
amazed and excited and bewildered and happy. I don’t believe I ever
shall sleep again--or eat either. But I hope you slept; you must,
you know, because then you will get well faster and can come to me.
Dear Man, I can’t bear to think how ill you’ve been--and all the
time I never knew it. When the doctor came down yesterday to put me
in the cab, he told me that for three days they gave you up. Oh,
dearest, if that had happened, the light would have gone out of the
world for me. I suppose that some day--in the far future--one of us
must leave the other; but at least we shall have had our happiness
and there will be memories to live with.
I meant to cheer you up--and instead I have to cheer myself. For in
spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I’m also
soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a
shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and care-free
and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now--I
shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you
are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can
run over you, or the sign-boards that can fall on your head or the
dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. My peace of mind
is gone forever--but anyway, I never cared much for just plain
peace.
[Plate: THE IDENTITY OF DADDY-LONG-LEGS IS ESTABLISHED.]
Please get well--fast--fast--fast. I want to have you close by where
I can touch you and make sure you are tangible. Such a little half
hour we had together! I’m afraid maybe I dreamed it. If I were only
a member of your family (a very distant fourth cousin) then I could
come and visit you every day, and read aloud and plump up your
pillow and smooth out those two little wrinkles in your forehead and
make the corners of your mouth turn up in a nice cheerful smile.
But you are cheerful again, aren’t you? You were yesterday before I
left. The doctor said I must be a good nurse, that you looked ten
years younger. I hope that being in love doesn’t make every one ten
years younger. Will you still care for me, darling, if I turn out to
be only eleven?
Yesterday was the most wonderful day that could ever happen. If I
live to be ninety-nine I shall never forget the tiniest detail. The
girl that left Lock Willow at dawn was a very different person from
the one who came back at night. Mrs. Semple called me at half-past
four. I started wide awake in the darkness and the first thought
that popped into my head was, “I am going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!”
I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the
five miles to the station through the most glorious October
coloring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and
dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields
sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of
promise. I _knew_ something was going to happen. All the way
in the train the rails kept singing, “You’re going to see
Daddy-Long-Legs.” It made me feel secure. I had such faith in
Daddy’s ability to set things right. And I knew that somewhere
another man--dearer than Daddy--was wanting to see me, and somehow I
had a feeling that before the journey ended I should meet him, too.
And you see!
When I came to the house on Madison Avenue it looked so big and
brown and forbidding that I didn’t dare go in, so I walked around
the block to get up my courage. But I needn’t have been a bit
afraid; your butler is such a nice, fatherly old man that he made me
feel at home at once. “Is this Miss Abbott?” he said to me, and I
said, “Yes,” so I didn’t have to ask for Mr. Smith after all.
He told me to wait in the drawing-room. It was a very somber,
magnificent, man’s sort of room. I sat down on the edge of a big
upholstered chair and kept saying to myself:
“I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs! I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!”
Then presently the man came back and asked me please to step up to
the library. I was so excited that really and truly my feet would
hardly take me up. Outside the door he turned and whispered, “He’s
been very ill, Miss. This is the first day he’s been allowed to sit
up. You’ll not stay long enough to excite him?” I knew from the way
he said it that he loved you--and I think he’s an old dear!
Then he knocked and said, “Miss Abbott,” and I went in and the door
closed behind me.
It was so dim coming in from the brightly lighted hall that for a
moment I could scarcely make out anything; then I saw a big easy
chair before the fire and a shining tea table with a smaller chair
beside it. And I realized that a man was sitting in the big chair
propped up by pillows with a rug over his knees. Before I could stop
him he rose--sort of shakily--and steadied himself by the back of
the chair and just looked at me without a word. And then--and
then--I saw it was you! But even with that I didn’t understand.
I thought Daddy had had you come there to meet me for a surprise.
Then you laughed and held out your hand and said, “Dear little Judy,
couldn’t you guess that I was Daddy-Long-Legs?”
In an instant it flashed over me. Oh, but I have been stupid!
A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits.
I wouldn’t make a very good detective, would I, Daddy?--Jervie?
What must I call you? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, and I
can’t be disrespectful to you!
It was a very sweet half hour before your doctor came and sent me
away. I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a
train for St. Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to
give me any tea. But we’re both very, very happy, aren’t we?
I drove back to Lock Willow in the dark--but oh, how the stars were
shining! And this morning I’ve been out with Colin visiting all the
places that you and I went to together, and remembering what you
said and how you looked. The woods to-day are burnished bronze and
the air is full of frost. It’s _climbing_ weather. I wish you were
here to climb the hills with me. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie
dear, but it’s a happy kind of missing; we’ll be together soon. We
belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn’t
it seem queer for me to belong to some one at last? It seems very,
very sweet.
And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.
Yours, forever and ever,