Daddy-Long-Legs

file encoding. If the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. First, make sure that your browser’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. Typographical errors are shown in the text with mouse-hover popups . French words are shown as printed; misspellings were assumed to be intentional. The same applies to proper names, except when the error was clearly typographic. The publisher’s advertising section is shown as printed, retaining all errors. Variation between “3d” and “3rd” is unchanged. “Blue Wednesday” The Letters : Freshman Year Sophomore Year Junior Year Senior Year Afterward Publisher’s Advertising Alternative Cover JUDY. DADDY-LONG-LEGS BY JEAN WEBSTER AUTHOR OF WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR AND SCENES FROM THE PLAY NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1912, by The Century Co. Copyright , 1912, by The Curtis Publishing Company Published October, 1912 TO YOU DADDY-LONG-LEGS DADDY-LONG-LEGS “BLUE WEDNESDAY” The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” whenever a Trustee spoke. It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the asylum’s guests, and turned upstairs to accomplish her regular work. Her special care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied eleven little cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly and willing line toward the dining-room to engage themselves for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding. Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody’s bidding, scolded and…