Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Where are you, I wonder?
I never know what part of the world you are in, but I hope you're not
in New York during this awful weather. I hope you're on a mountain
peak (but not in Switzerland; somewhere nearer) looking at the snow and
thinking about me. Please be thinking about me. I'm quite lonely and
I want to be thought about. Oh, Daddy, I wish I knew you! Then when
we were unhappy we could cheer each other up.
I don't think I can stand much more of Lock Willow. I'm thinking of
moving. Sallie is going to do settlement work in Boston next winter.
Don't you think it would be nice for me to go with her, then we could
have a studio together? I would write while she SETTLED and we could
be together in the evenings. Evenings are very long when there's no
one but the Semples and Carrie and Amasai to talk to. I know in
advance that you won't like my studio idea. I can read your
secretary's letter now:
'Miss Jerusha Abbott.
'DEAR MADAM,
'Mr. Smith prefers that you remain at Lock Willow.
'Yours truly,
'ELMER H. GRIGGS.'
I hate your secretary. I am certain that a man named Elmer H. Griggs
must be horrid. But truly, Daddy, I think I shall have to go to
Boston. I can't stay here. If something doesn't happen soon, I shall
throw myself into the silo pit out of sheer desperation.
Mercy! but it's hot. All the grass is burnt up and the brooks are dry
and the roads are dusty. It hasn't rained for weeks and weeks.
This letter sounds as though I had hydrophobia, but I haven't. I just
want some family.
Goodbye, my dearest Daddy.
I wish I knew you.
Judy
LOCK WILLOW,
19th September
Dear Daddy,
Something has happened and I need advice. I need it from you, and from
nobody else in the world. Wouldn't it be possible for me to see you?
It's so much easier to talk than to write; and I'm afraid your
secretary might open the letter.
Judy
PS. I'm very unhappy.
LOCK WILLOW,
3rd October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Your note written in your own hand--and a pretty wobbly hand!--came
this morning. I am so sorry that you have been ill; I wouldn't have
bothered you with my affairs if I had known. Yes, I will tell you the
trouble, but it's sort of complicated to write, and VERY PRIVATE.
Please don't keep this letter, but burn it.
Before I begin--here's a cheque for one thousand dollars. It seems
funny, doesn't it, for me to be sending a cheque to you? Where do you
think I got it?
I've sold my story, Daddy. It's going to be published serially in
seven parts, and then in a book! You might think I'd be wild with joy,
but I'm not. I'm entirely apathetic. Of course I'm glad to begin
paying you--I owe you over two thousand more. It's coming in
instalments. Now don't be horrid, please, about taking it, because it
makes me happy to return it. I owe you a great deal more than the mere
money, and the rest I will continue to pay all my life in gratitude and
affection.
And now, Daddy, about the other thing; please give me your most worldly
advice, whether you think I'll like it or not.
You know that I've always had a very special feeling towards you; you
sort of represented my whole family; but you won't mind, will you, if I
tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for another man?
You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. I suspect that
my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a very long time.
I wish I could make you understand what he is like and how entirely
companionable we are. We think the same about everything--I am afraid
I have a tendency to make over my ideas to match his! But he is almost
always right; he ought to be, you know, for he has fourteen years'
start of me. In other ways, though, he's just an overgrown boy, and he
does need looking after--he hasn't any sense about wearing rubbers when
it rains. He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is
such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humour are
antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!
And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him,
and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the
moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me.
But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I
don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.
Anyway, that's the way I feel--and I've refused to marry him.
I didn't tell him why; I was just dumb and miserable. I couldn't think
of anything to say. And now he has gone away imagining that I want to
marry Jimmie McBride--I don't in the least, I wouldn't think of
marrying Jimmie; he isn't grown up enough. But Master Jervie and I got
into a dreadful muddle of misunderstanding and we both hurt each
other's feelings. The reason I sent him away was not because I didn't
care for him, but because I cared for him so much. I was afraid he
would regret it in the future--and I couldn't stand that! It didn't
seem right for a person of my lack of antecedents to marry into any
such family as his. I never told him about the orphan asylum, and I
hated to explain that I didn't know who I was. I may be DREADFUL, you
know. And his family are proud--and I'm proud, too!
Also, I felt sort of bound to you. After having been educated to be a
writer, I must at least try to be one; it would scarcely be fair to
accept your education and then go off and not use it. But now that I
am going to be able to pay back the money, I feel that I have partially
discharged that debt--besides, I suppose I could keep on being a writer
even if I did marry. The two professions are not necessarily exclusive.
I've been thinking very hard about it. Of course he is a Socialist,
and he has unconventional ideas; maybe he wouldn't mind marrying into
the proletariat so much as some men might. Perhaps when two people are
exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when
apart, they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them.
Of course I WANT to believe that! But I'd like to get your unemotional
opinion. You probably belong to a Family also, and will look at it
from a worldly point of view and not just a sympathetic, human point of
view--so you see how brave I am to lay it before you.
Suppose I go to him and explain that the trouble isn't Jimmie, but is
the John Grier Home--would that be a dreadful thing for me to do? It
would take a great deal of courage. I'd almost rather be miserable for
the rest of my life.
This happened nearly two months ago; I haven't heard a word from him
since he was here. I was just getting sort of acclimated to the
feeling of a broken heart, when a letter came from Julia that stirred
me all up again. She said--very casually--that 'Uncle Jervis' had been
caught out all night in a storm when he was hunting in Canada, and had
been ill ever since with pneumonia. And I never knew it. I was
feeling hurt because he had just disappeared into blankness without a
word. I think he's pretty unhappy, and I know I am!
What seems to you the right thing for me to do?