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0每天五分钟听经典英文故事，读绘本，磨耳朵｜孤女朱迪在神秘资助人的帮助下走进大学，用一封封书信书写成长，遇见爱与归属的暖心经典。
Every first Wednesday of the month,the John Grier Home felt like a trial
Ninety-seven children had to be scrubbed clean
The bedsheets couldn't have a single wrinkle
When the trustees arrived,the children could only say"Yes, sir"or"No, sir"
Eighteen-year-old Jerusha worked from five in the morning till evening,mopping floors,making sandwiches,and looking after a whole room of little ones
When the trustees finally left,she saw a man crossing the hall
His car's headlights shone through the door,stretching his shadow tall and thin
His arms and legs looked like a daddy longlegs spider
She didn't know it yet,but that shadow would change her whole life
The superintendent called Jerusha into her office
One of the trustees,who wouldn't give his name,had read her essay,"Blue Wednesday"
It was a funny piece about inspection day at the orphanage
He wasn't angry
He thought she had a real gift for writing
He wanted to pay for four years of college,all her tuition and living costs
There was just one condition
She had to write him a letter every month about her studies and her life
The letters were to go to"Mr John Smith,"and he would never write back
Jerusha rode a train for the first time
She had a little room all to herself for the first time
She also learned that other children grew up with Christmas gifts,letters from family,and bedtime stories
Her childhood had only been bells,rules,and rows of small beds
She didn't like the name the superintendent had picked for her
So she used the only nickname she'd had as a child,Judy
And the benefactor she'd only seen as a shadow,she called him"Daddy-Long-Legs"
College days were so bright they made her dizzy
Sally was warm and friendly
Julia came from a wealthy New York family
They talked about books,plays,and trips that Judy had never heard of
The other girls had grown up reading"Little Women"
Judy didn't read it until college,when she bought a copy in secret and caught up
She read one book after another,slowly filling in the gaps
She bombed exams
She argued with her teachers,only to find out she'd been wrong
She even lost her temper with Daddy-Long-Legs in her letters
He stayed silent
Now and then,his secretary sent a check or a short reply
But Judy still wrote her monthly letters like family news
She wrote about fallen leaves on the basketball court
She wrote about trying on real gloves for the first time
She wrote about failed essays and about her dream of becoming a writer
A girl who had never had a home first imagined a family on paper,someone she could talk to
That first summer,she didn't have to go back to the orphanage
She went to Lock Willow Farm instead,with its hills,cows,orchards,and free wind
For the first time,she didn't have to keep looking over her shoulder,afraid someone would drag her back
She learned the farm had once belonged to Julia's uncle,Jervis Pendleton
Mrs Semple,who ran the farm,still called him"Master Jervie"
Then Jervis came to visit
He climbed hills with Judy,fished,read books,and told her plainly when her stories were too fancy
They laughed at the same things
In her letters to Daddy-Long-Legs,Judy mentioned him more and more
She didn't realize the man who'd sent her to this farm and the man who read her letters were the same person
Judy's stories came back again and again
She rewrote them again and again
At last,one story earned her fifty dollars
She also won a two-year scholarship for her grades
Daddy-Long-Legs didn't want her to take it
For the first time,Judy refused to obey
She was grateful for his help,but she didn't want to live her whole life as someone who just received charity
She wanted to pay her own way
She hoped he'd use the saved money to send another orphan girl to school
After college,Judy stayed at Lock Willow to write
She finally wrote about the place she knew best and most wanted to escape,the orphanage itself
The story was bought,printed in a magazine,then published as a book
She sent the thousand dollars she'd earned to Daddy-Long-Legs
She told him she still owed him a lot,but she could at least start paying him back
Just then,Jervis asked her to marry him
Judy loved him
But she thought of the Pendleton name and of how she didn't even know who her parents were
She was afraid that one day Jervis would regret it
So she said no,without explaining why
Jervis thought she was in love with Sally's brother,Jimmy,and he left with that misunderstanding
For almost two months,Judy heard nothing from him
She only learned from Julia's letters that he'd been caught in a storm while hunting in Canada and had come down with pneumonia
Judy couldn't bear it anymore
She wrote to Daddy-Long-Legs,begging to see him just once
She wanted to ask this family she'd never met face to face whether she should go back and tell Jervis the truth
After a few days,an invitation came at last
On an October morning,Judy left the farm before dawn
She took the train to New York and walked once around a tall,quiet house before she found the courage to ring the bell
The butler led her into a dim study
By the fireplace,a man still weak from illness sat wrapped in a blanket in an armchair
When he heard her name,he held the back of the chair and slowly stood up
It was Jervis
Judy thought he'd just come to help her meet Daddy-Long-Legs
Then Jervis smiled and held out his hand
"Dear little Judy,haven't you guessed by now,I'm Daddy-Long-Legs"
The trips he'd turned down,the farm he'd arranged,the feelings he always seemed to know ahead of time,all at once,they made sense
They only had half an hour before the doctor sent Judy away
When she got back to Lock Willow,the woods had sunk into the night
But the stars shone brighter than they ever had before
The next day,she wrote her last letter
The name at the top was no longer just a father she'd imagined,and no longer just Jervis,the man she loved
The girl who had grown up without a home had always felt the world had barely taken her in
Now she could finally write at the bottom of her letter,"We truly belong to each other"
