Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page B

of fun practising—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—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.
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    P.S. (9 o’clock)
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    Sallie McBride just poked her head in at my door. This is what she said:
    â€œI’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 asylumsick, did you?
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    October 10th.
    Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
    Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo? 1
    He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him and the 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 lot of 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 Maeterlinck, 2 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—and brighter than some of them!
    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 cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand 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.
    The windows are up high; you can’t look out from an ordinary seat. But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top, and moved it up against the window. It’s just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like 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 with a real five-dollar bill and get some change—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—and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so. It’s queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates. Sallie thinks everything is funny—even flunking—and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. 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.
    And now I suppose you’ve been waiting very impatiently to hear what I’m learning?
    I. Latin: Second Punic war. 3 Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus 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” 4 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.
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    P.S. I hope you never touch alcohol,