Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I ’ve changed my name.
I ’m still “Jerusha” in the catalogue, but I ’m “Judy” every place else. It ’s sort of too bad, is n’t it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had? I did n’t quite make up the Judy though. That ’s what Freddie Perkins used to call me before he could talk plain.
I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing babies’ names. She gets the last names out of the telephone book—you ’ll find Abbott on the first page—and she picks the Christian names up anywhere; she got Jerusha from a tombstone. I ’ve always hated it; but I rather like Judy. It ’s such a silly name. It belongs to the kind of girl I ’m not—a sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through life without any cares. Would n’t it be nice to be like that? Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family! But it ’s sort of fun to pretend I ’ve been. In the future please always address me as Judy.
Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I ’ve had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It ’s all I can do not to wear them to classes.
(Dinner bell. Good-by.)
JUDY AND THE ORPHANS AT JOHN GRIER HOME.
Friday.
What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It does n’t seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I ’ve had? The aim of the John Grier Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.