JEAN WEBSTER
DADDY-LONG-LEGS

Copyright 1912 by The Century Company



TO YOU


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 towards the dining-room to engage themselves