Judy Enters College by Jean Webster

4.9

Part I

Judy Abbot had no father or mother; she lived in a Children’s Home for many years. The rich people of the town — the trustees — gave money for the Children’s Home. When the children were fifteen years old, the trustees found some work for them and the young people left the Children’s Home.

Judy Abbot liked her lessons and learned well. Her compositions were interesting and the teacher read one of them to the trustees one day. When Judy was fifteen, the trustees gave her work in the Children’s Home. They let her stay there and go on with her lessons. Judy looked after the small children from four to seven years old.

She helped them to wash and dress in the morning, played with them after her lessons. She helped in the kitchen and washed the windows and the floors. When the girl was seventeen, one of the trustees wanted to send a girl to a college and pay for her education. The teachers decided that it must be Judy. The trustee told the teachers that the girl must write a letter to him every month as a report.

Judy saw the trustee only once at the door of the Children’s Home. She remembered that the man was very tall.

When Judy came to the college and began to write her letters to the trustee, she called him Daddy-Long-Legs.

The girl liked the college and was glad to study there. In her letters she told the trustee about her classes and her friends. Here are some of her letters.

Part II

October 10th. Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I like the college very much. I am happy that I can study. I like the girls and the teachers and the classes.

The teacher of English literature liked my compositions. But I know very little of English literature. We had very few books in the library at the Children’s Home. I never read “David Copperfield” by Dickens, or “Robinson Crusoe” by Defoe. Now I am reading “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll and stories by Rudyard Kipling. The girls in the college know very much. I didn’t know that people were monkeys many millions of years ago. I never heard of Sherlock Holmes. I didn’t know anything about Michelangelo. And one day when I heard the name, I asked the girls if he was a student at our college. The girls laughed at me and told the story to other girls. Now I know these things and a lot of others. But I have to read many books.

In the evening I sit in the corner of my room and read and read and read. I have joined the basket-ball team. They take only the strongest girls. They took me and I am happy.

Part III

The end of December. Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Christmas holidays are over and the college is studying hard. We are preparing for the examinations in February.

I am glad to tell you that Judy Abbot is an author. The college monthly published her poem. It is on the first page. I shall send you a copy of it. I am learning to skate and can skate all by myself now. I have learned how to walk on a bar which is very high.

Yours, Judy Abbot

February.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

The examinations are over and I have some bad marks. I got bad marks in mathematics and Latin. Now I am preparing for another examination next month. I am going to get good marks this time. I have learned a lot of things that I didn’t know. I have read seventeen novels and a lot of poems. I shall write a letter to you when re-examinations are over.

Yours, Judy Abbot