dear daddy-long-legs,

behold me--a sophomore! i came up last friday, sorry to leave

lock willow, but glad to see the campus again. it is a pleasant

sensation to come back to something familiar. i am beginning to feel

at home in college, and in command of the situation; i am beginning,

in fact, to feel at home in the world--as though i really belonged

to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

i don't suppose you understand in the least what i am trying to say.

a person important enough to be a trustee can't appreciate the

feelings of a person unimportant enough to be a foundling.

and now, daddy, listen to this. whom do you think i am rooming with?

sallie mcbride and julia rutledge pendleton. it's the truth.

we have a study and three little bedrooms--voila!

sallie and i decided last spring that we should like to room together,

and julia made up her mind to stay with sallie--why, i can't imagine,

for they are not a bit alike; but the pendletons are naturally

conservative and inimical (fine word!) to change. anyway, here we are.

think of jerusha abbott, late of the john grier home for orphans,

rooming with a pendleton. this is a democratic country.

sallie is running for class president, and unless all signs fail,

she is going to be elected. such an atmosphere of intrigue you should

see what politicians we are! oh, i tell you, daddy, when we women get

our rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours.

election comes next saturday, and we're going to have a torchlight

procession in the evening, no matter who wins.

i am beginning chemistry, a most unusual study. i've never seen

anything like it before. molecules and atoms are the material employed,

but i'll be in a position to discuss them more definitely next month.

i am also taking argumentation and logic.

also history of the whole world.

also plays of william shakespeare.

also french.

if this keeps up many years longer, i shall become quite intelligent.

i should rather have elected economics than french, but i

didn't dare, because i was afraid that unless i re-elected

french, the professor would not let me pass--as it was,

i just managed to squeeze through the june examination.

but i will say that my high-school preparation was not very adequate.

there's one girl in the class who chatters away in french as fast

as she does in english. she went abroad with her parents when she

was a child, and spent three years in a convent school. you can

imagine how bright she is compared with the rest of us--irregular verbs

are mere playthings. i wish my parents had chucked me into a french

convent when i was little instead of a foundling asylum. oh no,

i don't either! because then maybe i should never have known you.

i'd rather know you than french.

goodbye, daddy. i must call on harriet martin now,

and, having discussed the chemical situation,

casually drop a few thoughts on the subject of our next president.

yours in politics,

j. abbott