“’I’m lying there on the bed when all of a sudden the door opens and in marches twelve little soldiers, about six inches high, dressed in blue pants and red coats.  They climb and start to pull off a zouave drill on the foot of the bed.  That made me sour, for I don’t feel like a military pageant, so I lift up my foot and kick them out on the floor.  The soldiers don’t say a word, but jump up and climb out through the transom.  In about five minutes the door opens and in marches the whole army, all about six inches high.  Gee, there must have been a million of them, for all I could see was blue pants and red coats.  I’m lying there on the bed, taking it all in, when up rides a dinky little officer on a horse.  He salutes me and I salute him, just to let them know that there wasn’t any hard feeling.  Then he says, “I am glad to state that you have but one life to lose for your country; therefore we are going to shoot you.”  Well, you know me, Dearie.  I jumped out of the window.  The next time I come out of it here is this guy doing snake charming stunts on my stomach.’

“Can you beat that for a pipe?  I look after this party with all the loving care of a sister, and thanks to the doctor and a pump we pulled him through.  When he was able to be shipped home I went down to the train to see him off and as he kissed me goodby he said, ’Don’t you worry, kid, I won’t forget this.’  I didn’t pay any attention to his chatter, thinking it nothing but balloon juice.  But this letter says that he died about a week ago and left ten thousand to me in such a way that it won’t do his wife no good to yelp.  Ten thousand!  Gee, ain’t that an awful huge lot of money for one poor little merry-merry to be burdened with!  The lawyers sent that first hundred along to show that they are not pikers, and said that the rest would be along in a few days.  Gosh!  I won’t know what to do with it.  I can’t get that much in my little lisle thread bank without spoiling the contour of that new gown effect I am going to be poured into.  Clothes, well I should hope so, dear.  When the true meaning of that effusion soaked into my system, the way I grabbed my hat and took it on the run for the dressmaker’s was a caution to cab horses.

“I’m going to get a bunch of clothes and then slide for home.  You know my father was mayor of Emporia for nearly a whole term, and I can go right back into society.  That is a great burg; if anybody wears anything but a Mother Hubbard on week days they are doped out as a actress.  Sure!  That’s the way they know that there’s a show in town, that and the band.  That town will have nothing but the best.  If a show isn’t good enough to hare a band it might as well cancel.  It’s a great show town, all right; sometimes they have two shows there the same week, ‘East Lynne’ and something else.  The Boston Store has the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ on the recent fiction counter.

“Well, I must rush right along.  I’ve got to go over to some place and get a mile or two of those puff gags, mine are all moth eaten.  I’ve got some more things to buy and then I am going around and make faces at all these theatrical agents.  Bye bye.”