Daddy-Long-Legs

1. JERUSHA’S LIFE IN THE ASYLUM. Jerusha Abbot was a foundling. She was left on the steps of the asylum called the John Grier Home and stayed there till she was eighteen. All eighteen year that Judy had spent in the asylum were rather hard and miserable. Being the oldest orphan, poor Judy was responsible practically for everything. She had to look after 11 little tots, to cook and to do everybody’s bidding, especially when Trustees came to make their rounds. She work hard for her board even when she had finished school, and despite the fact that she had been sent to the village high school, the convenience of the asylum always came first and Jerusha’s education second. Because when Mrs. Lippett (the matron) wanted, she always kept her at home to scrub. Jerusha never complained, only once she wrote an essay, entitled “Blue Wednesday”, trying to ridicule the life in the asylum. Later on in her letters to Daddy-Long-Legs she wrote that hated the John Grier Home, that she would rather die than go back. She wrote that the asylum supplied the orphans only with food and clothes, but never took care about the children’s souls. The John Grier Home’s aim was to turn 97 orphans into 97 twins, and never cultivated kindness, sympathy and imagination in them. Their lives were absolutely monotonous and uneventful, nothing nice ever happened and nobody, even the Trustees never thought about the orphans’ dreams and feelings. That were the reasons why Jerusha was happy to leave the asylum. And when she came to college she sharply felt the difference between her life in the John Grier Home and her life in college. To my mind children who had lost their parents and got into the asylum should be surrounded with love and care, because nothing can replace parents and if the asylum tries to do it, it should be done well.

2. JERUSHA’S LIFE AND STUDY AT COLLEGE. When Jerusha found herself in college at first she was confused and scared, because she had