Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host.

Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax,

but the stressful day behind you and drift off to sleep.

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Rest assured, there will be no ads during or after the story.

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Tonight, I will be reading Daddy Long Legs by Gene Webster.

So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

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.

97 squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starch ginghams,

and all 97 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. Derusha 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 11 little tots, from 4 to 7, occupied 11 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

...