However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again.
I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finished
and sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm trying to be an
author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where Master
Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It's in a cool, breezy
corner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a maple tree with a
family of red squirrels living in a hole.
I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.
We need rain.
Yours as ever,
Judy
10th August
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 downheads' 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 consequential, 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 neighbourhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgy 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 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.