Yours as ever,
Judy.
August 10th.
Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,
Sir: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the pool in the pasture. There ’s a frog croaking underneath, a locust singing overhead and two little “devil down-heads” darting up and down the trunk. I ’ve been here for an hour; it ’s a very comfortable crotch, especially after being upholstered with two sofa cushions. I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I ’ve been having a dreadful time with my heroine—I can’t make her behave as I want her to behave; so I ’ve abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you. (Not much relief though, for I can’t make you behave as I want you to, either.)
If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven after a week of rain.
Speaking of Heaven—do you remember Mr. Kellogg that I told you about last summer?—the minister of the little white church at the Corners. Well, the poor old soul is dead—last winter of pneumonia. I went half-a-dozen times to hear him preach and got very well acquainted with his theology. He believed to the end, exactly the same things he started with. It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying his harp and golden crown; he was so perfectly sure of finding them! There ’s a new young man, very up and coming, in his place. The congregation is pretty dubious, especially the faction led by Deacon Cummings. It looks as though there was going to be an awful split in the church. We don’t care for innovations in religion in this neighborhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgie of reading—Stevenson, mostly. He himself is more entertaining than any of the characters in his books; I dare say he made himself into the kind of hero that would look well in print. Don’t you think it was perfect of him to spend all the ten thousand dollars his father left, for a yacht, and go sailing off to the South Seas? He lived up to his adventurous creed. If my father had left me ten thousand dollars, I ’d do it, too. The thought of Vailima makes me wild. I want to see the tropics. I want to see the whole world. I am going to some day—I am, really, Daddy, when I get to be a great author, or artist, or actress, or playwright—or whatever sort of a great person I turn out to be. I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. “I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.”
Thursday evening at twilight, sitting on the doorstep.
Very hard to get any news into this letter! Judy is becoming so philosophical of late, that she wishes to discourse largely of the world in general, instead of descending to the trivial details of daily life. But if you must have news, here it is: