Exact date unknown

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is covered in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It’s late afternoon – the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I’m not used to receiving Christmas presents. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold’s poems.

III. A hot-water bottle.

IV. A rug. (My tower is cold.)

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I’m going to start being an author pretty soon.)

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author’s vocabulary.)

VII. (I don’t much like to confess this last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don’t tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings every night. But just wait – as soon as she gets back from vacation I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I’m honest; and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn’t perfect, didn’t you?

And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested in my education as such?

The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny as Jerusha, isn’t it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride; I shall never like any one so much as Sallie – except you. I must always like you the best of all, because you’re my whole family. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked cross country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighbourhood. Once we walked into town – four miles – and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner. It was such a fun! Especially for me, because it was so awfully different from the asylum.

Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely…

Eleven pages – poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be just a short little thank-you note – but when I get started I seem to have a ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me – I should be perfectly happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations come in February.

Yours with love,

Judy

P.S. Maybe it isn’t proper to send love? If it isn’t, please excuse. But I must love somebody and there’s only you and Mrs. Lippett to choose between, so you see – you’ll HAVE to put up with it, Daddy dear, because I can’t love her.

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