with twenty room-mates, it is
restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get
acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm going to like her.

Do you think you are?

Tuesday

They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there's just a
chance that I shall get in it. I'm little of course, but terribly
quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping about in the
air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's loads of fun
practising--out in the athletic field in the afternoon with the trees
all red and yellow and the air full of the smell of burning leaves, and
everybody laughing and shouting. These are the happiest girls I ever
saw--and I am the happiest of all!

I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning
(Mrs. Lippett said you wanted to know), but 7th hour has just rung, and
in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes.
Don't you hope I'll get in the team?

Yours always,
Jerusha Abbott

PS. (9 o'clock.)

Sallie McBride just poked her head in at my door. This is what she
said:

'I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Do you feel that way?'

I smiled a little and said no; I thought I could pull through. At
least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped! I never heard of
anybody being asylum-sick, did you?

10th October

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo?

He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages.
Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the whole
class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an
archangel, doesn't he? The trouble with college is that you are
expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's very
embarrassing at times. But now, when the girls talk about things that
I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the
encyclopedia.

I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice
Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. That joke has gone all
over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the
others--and brighter than some of them!

Do you care to know how I've furnished my room? It's a symphony in
brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I'v