much.

He is calling me now for a drive in my Franklin car, so

Bye-bye,

ELSIE.

LETTER VI

Well, little book, it has been some few days since I made you a call. Pa and I went over to New York City. We went in Pa’s nameless motor, and such a trip, I won’t forget in a hurry. Pa had the misfortune to kill a Jersey cow and had to pay $60 in hard cash for the privilege. Pa said he was more sorry for the cow than for the man who owned her. He said the cow looked like a good one, while the man looked altogether to the bad. When we got to New York City we went to the New Astor House, up-town—that’s a very decent place to stop at, Pa says. Ma seemed pleased with our suite of three rooms and bath. We stayed three days—Ma had some shopping to do and Pa and I had some sightseeing to do—so we were all busy. Pa and I started to walk up Broadway a little below the Herald Building, when we came to a poor, old blind beggar playing a very squeaky organ. I gave him some pennies, so did Pa, and asked him how business was. The beggar said, “Bad, very bad, haven’t taken 10 cents all day.” I told Pa I would sing if he would grind the organ. I thought Pa would choke for a moment, but he concluded he would grind the organ while I sang. We moved up a little from the old man and then tuned up. I sang “Pickles for Two,” and Pa ground out “Sally in Our Alley” on the organ. The singing and the playing didn’t go on very well together, so I told Pa to play and I would dance. Well, that went better. The organ piped out, “Coming through the Rye,” and I danced the Highland dance; some swell guys went by and dropped in several silver pieces and some that wasn’t so swell did the same. One asked how long I had been in the business, and I told him about a half-hour. I had my automobile veil over my face so they couldn’t see me much. Pa had on a false mustache and goggles, so his own mother would not have known him. Well, any way, we had the fun of earning eight dollars for the beggar man. Pa said it wasn’t a good example, but I told him we were commanded in the Good Book to help the poor. Pa never objects to do anything when I tell him it’s in the Good Book. He says he don’t know the Book any too well at best and is always glad to have me remind him when he does anything it says to do. A man tried to steal my purse in New York, but he didn’t get it. Pa gave him a cut that changed his mind quick. He picked up his feet and flew. Pa said that was just the way, help a beggar on one corner and be knocked down on the next one. I told Pa, yes, it seemed so, but not to mind, as long as the thief didn’t get my purse. Pa said all he minded was because the policeman didn’t arrest him and get his dollar commission in court the next morning. I never saw so many pails and pitchers in commission as we saw in New York the three days we were there. Pa says if all the beer was put together, sold those three days, it would cause the Charles River here in Boston to be a Johnstown flood, and if all the cigarettes were put in a line that they smoke over there in a week they would belt the globe. Pa says beer and cigarettes ought to be cut off the map. Pa don’t smoke because Ma objects to the odor of tobacco, and Pa says a model husband won’t make himself a weed to please some man. Pa says it will count for more in the end to please one’s wife—I wouldn’t think Pa was half so sweet to kiss if he smoked—Pa is such a darling; I wish every little girl had such a nice Pa as mine. Pa tells such fine stories; Pa says when he was a little boy he lived with his grandma and he went to the edge of the woods to get some berries that grew there and he heard a growl and looked up and saw a big black bear as big as a horse—he ran like fun for home and told his grandma a bear chased him. He looked out of the window and told his grandma the bear was coming down the road. Well, grandma looked out and said, “Why, my dear boy, that’s Green’s black dog.” Pa says that’s all the bear he ever was chased by, and I guess it was enough as it nearly scared him to death. Pa and I have heaps of fun flying kites. We have had some splendid ones and they go up like the wind. Pa fills them with a new discovery he has, and they go up like a shot. Pa won’t tell what he puts in, and no one can find out. We rented a balloon and we went up till I thought I could see people on Mars, then we came slowly down to earth again—we had a glorious time among the stars, seemed as if they were very near, and we could almost touch them. I am fond of everything Pa is, I guess, and he has splendid taste.

Well, good-bye, little book, it’s time for dinner.

ELSIE.

LETTER VII

Well, I have been having a very remarkable experience, and not only myself and Pa, but all the United States as well; the excitement spread all over the country. I am going to put this down to tell my grandchildren about, for I hope they never will have such a time as we all have had for the past few weeks. I went with Pa to do a little shopping because my dearest girl friend, Mary Potter, of Brookline, had a birthday, and I did, at last, but such a time. I went to the counter where diamond rings were displayed and selected a beauty—Pa said he could not have picked out a better one for the money himself—and I took my purse, opened it to get the $200 to pay for my friend’s present, when I found my purse empty but for a few small silver pieces. I gasped for breath and told Pa. He looked at the purse and declared he knew it was clasped tight when he took it from his pocket inside his vest to give me, and I knew I placed three hundred in one hundred dollar bills in the purse before I started. Pa got the three new bills at my bank that very morning, but they were gone, and no sign of how, or when.

Pa said: “Never mind, Elsie, I have some money myself, also I happen to have my check-book, so you can have the ring just the same. I don’t care for the loss of that three hundred dollars so much as the peculiar way of its disappearance, but perhaps you left it at home in your room.” The clerk said I could telephone and ask, which I did. Ma answered the phone and looked in my room and asked the servants, but no money was found, or had been seen. Well, Pa took out his pocketbook and said I could have what bills he had, which was one hundred and fifty dollars, and give a check for the other fifty, so while he was talking he was opening his pocketbook, and he too started, and gasped for breath, for no bills were to be found, nothing but two silver quarters did Pa’s pocketbook contain, and they were as mum as oysters. Pa said: “Elsie, I don’t understand this. Child, we have been robbed since we left home, but I am at a loss how and when; I am also sure I had one hundred and fifty dollars, besides these quarters, in my pocketbook, but they are all that is left to tell the tale, and they don’t tell it.” We both laughed like two kids—I felt like crying, and Pa said the cold shivers were playing up and down his spine. So he wrote a check for the two hundred dollars and I took the ring and we went directly home and told Ma. Poor Ma couldn’t understand it any more than we did.

Pa went to the police station and reported his loss, also my loss, too. The sergeant said it did look queer. However, we looked all over the house, but not a sign of the missing bank-notes. Before twelve o’clock that day the police were nearly wild, for hundreds had reported