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 doesn'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.

the unusual artistic ability which i exhibit was developed at an early

age through drawing chalk pictures of mrs. lippett on the woodshed door.

i hope that i don't hurt your feelings when i criticize the home

of my youth? but you have the upper hand, you know, for if i become

too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques.

that isn't a very polite thing to say--but you can't expect me

to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't a young ladies'

finishing school.

you know, daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college.

it's the play. half the time i don't know what the girls are

talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one

but me has shared. i'm a foreigner in the world and i don't understand

the language. it's a miserable feeling. i've had it all my life.

at the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me.

i was queer and different and everybody knew it. i could feel

`john grier home' written on my face. and then a few charitable

ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite.

i hated every one of them--the charitable ones most of all.

nobody here knows that i was brought up in an asylum. i told

sallie mcbride that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind

old gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true

so far as it goes. i don't want you to think i am a coward,

but i do want to be like the other girls, and that dreadful home

looming over my childhood is the one great big difference.

if i can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, i think,

i might be just as desirable as any other girl. i don't believe

there's any real, underneath difference, do you?

anyway, sallie mcbride likes me!

yours ever,

judy abbott

(nee jerusha.)