At camp, joy knew no bounds. Never was one more welcome than our beloved neighbor. Her astonishment knew no bounds either, when her big blue eyes rested upon Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s “twins.”
“Frau O’Shaughnessy,” she said severely, “what have you here? You iss robbed an orphan asylum. How haf you come by these?”
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy is so full of life and good spirits and so delighted to talk about her “childher” that she gave a very animated recital of how she became a happy mother. In turn Mrs. Louderer told how she grew more and more alarmed by our long absence, but decided not to alarm the neighbors, so she had “made a search party out of mineself,” and had fared forth to learn our fate.
We had a merry supper; even Haynes became cheerful, and there was no lagging next morning when we started for home. When people go on elk hunts they are very likely to return in tatters, so I am going to leave it to your imagination to picture our appearance when we drove up to the rear of the hotel about sundown. Our friend Mrs. Hutton came running to meet us. I was ashamed to go into her house, but she leaned up against the house and laughed until tears came. “What chased you?” she gasped. “You must have been run through some of those barbed wire things that they are putting up to stop the German army.”
Mrs. Hutton is a little lady who bolsters up self-respect and makes light of trying situations, so she “shooed” us in and I sneaked into my room and waited until Clyde could run down to the store and purchase me a dress. I feel quite clean and respectable now, sitting up here in my room writing this to you. I will soon be at home now. Until then good-bye.
E. R. S.