When the garments arrived Mike was mystified. He lifted them out of the box and held them up for the inspection of himself and parents. His father took his pipe from his mouth, squinted an eye as if aiming a gun and gravely remarked:
“It’s a Sunday suit meant fur me,—there’s no doubt of the same.”
“Ye’re mistook, dad, as much as ye were last night whin ye picked up that red hot coal thinking it was a cold pratie. The garments are intinded either for mither or mesilf, as will be told whin we try ’em on.”
It cannot be denied that Mike looked “nifty” in his uniform, which fitted him as if he had been melted and poured into it. The hat was of olive-drab felt, with eyelets in the crown for ventilation and enough stiffness to keep its shape; breeches of olive-drab khaki cut full and with legs laced below the knee and with belt guides and pockets; leggings or puttees of waterproof army duck; poncho; shirt of olive-drab flannel with two bellows pockets, open front, coat style; coat of same material as breeches, with four bellows pockets, straight collar, dull metal buttons with Boy Scout emblem; an ordinary belt; shoes, broad, high and strong and of soft tan leather; a haversack of waterproof canvas, with leather straps, buckles and separate pockets, scout emblem on the flap—these were the chief garments in which Mike Murphy carefully arrayed himself. He turned slowly around as if on a pivot for his parents to admire. At the same time, he strove to twist his head about so as to gain a view of the rear, but it cannot be said his effort was successful.
“It is sthrange that the lad didn’t sind any word of explanition,” remarked the father, after a search in the box and the different pockets failed to bring anything in the nature of a letter to light.
“He may have sint it through the mail—begorrah! how come I to furgit it?”
“What’s the matter wid ye?” asked the mother as her son leaped to the chair over which he had hung his discarded clothes and began a vigorous fumbling of them. From the hip pocket of his trousers he drew a creased and soiled envelope, glanced at it and handed it to his father.
“Is that yer name writ on the same?”
The astonished parent turned it over, held it off and then drew it closer.
“If me name is Pathrick Murphy the letter is for me, fur that is what is writ on the outside. How long have ye been toting that about the counthry?”