And what do you think he did?
He eloped with a chorus girl.
Yours ever, Judy
PS.
The chamber-maid in our corridor wears blue checked gingham aprons.
I am going to get her some brown ones instead, and sink the blue ones in the bottom of the lake.
I have a reminiscent chill every time I look at them.
17th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Such a blight has fallen over my literary career.
I don't know whether to tell you or not, but I would like some sympathy—silent sympathy, please; don't re-open the wound by referring to it in your next letter.
I've been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all the summer when I wasn't teaching Latin to my two stupid children.
I just finished it before college opened and sent it to a publisher.
He kept it two months, and I was certain he was going to take it; but yesterday morning an express parcel came (thirty cents due) and there it was back again with a letter from the publisher, a very nice, fatherly letter—but frank!
He said he saw from the address that I was still at college, and if I would accept some advice, he would suggest that I put all of my energy into my lessons and wait until I graduated before beginning to write.
He enclosed his reader's opinion.
Here it is:
'Plot highly improbable.
Characterization exaggerated.
Conversation unnatural.
A good deal of humour but not always in the best of taste.
Tell her to keep on trying, and in time she may produce a real book.'
Not on the whole flattering, is it, Daddy?
And I thought I was making a notable addition to American literature.
I did truly.
I was planning to surprise you by writing a great novel before I graduated.
I collected the material for it while I was at Julia's last Christmas.
But I dare say the editor is right.
Probably two weeks was not enough in which to observe the manners and customs of a great city.
I took it walking with me yesterday afternoon, and when I came to the gas house, I went in and asked the engineer if I might borrow his furnace.
He politely opened the door, and with my own hands I chucked it in.
I felt as though I had cremated my only child!
I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing.
But what do you think?
I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be.
No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist!
If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set.
Affectionately, Judy
14th December
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I dreamed the funniest dream last night.
I thought I went into a book store and the clerk brought me a new book named The Life and Letters of Judy Abbott.
I could see it perfectly plainly—red cloth binding with a picture of the John Grier Home on the cover, and my portrait for a frontispiece with,
'Very truly yours, Judy Abbott,' written below.
But just as I was turning to the end to read the inscription on my tombstone, I woke up.
It was very annoying!
I almost found out whom I'm going to marry and when I'm going to die.
Don't you think it would be interesting if you really could read the story of your life—written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author?
And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and foreseeing to the exact hour the time when you would die.
How many people do you suppose would have the courage to read it then? or how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope and without surprises?