Well, here I am again, little book. Pa and I went to Harvard Class Day, out to Cambridge. I took him in my Franklin car. I have never had any trouble since that Brookline adventure, and was towed home. My! but I felt cheap. I would have sold that car that day for 99 cents, but she’s all right ever since—has just been making up for past bad behavin’, just like a naughty little girl I know of. Pa says of all the colleges in the land Haryard is the best. Pa graduated from Harvard and Levey Cohen is a junior, and they are worse than ten old women about the old days Pa spent at Harvard. Of course I like Harvard because Pa does; I never question Pa’s judgment because he says it’s so, and there is nothing to do but believe him, especially when Levey Cohen always backs him up. It’s two men against one little girl, and I don’t have a bit of a show if I don’t side in. Pa is a Democrat and Levey and I are both staunch Republicans—so is Ma—Pa don’t dare mention politics in the house, he goes over to South Boston or down to Salem Willows when he feels a political spell coming on. He don’t have our company then. Ma says two marriages ought to change any man from a Democrat to a Republican, but it hasn’t worked on Pa’s constitution yet. Harvard is just a dear, so many really handsome men, and fine fellows. Lots of them have automobiles and they make them hum. They say it’s lots more fun driving a car above the speed limit and being chased by a policeman than it is to steal barber poles and store signs; they all have drop numbers on their cars, so no one has ever been caught yet. I have one on my Franklin. I had to use it one day, for I run a race with Harold Hill, of Brookline, and beat him by two miles, but I also beat the policeman, and Pa said he would give me credit for being my father’s daughter. But you will laugh when I tell you Pa has been fined three times for fast speeding, but he has forgotten all about that and I haven’t the heart to refresh his memory, Pa’s such a dear. I went to a football game a year ago, and Alice Roosevelt was there, and a big crowd beside. I don’t care for football. I think it’s too much of a mush for comfort. I like golf. Pa is a cracker jack on golf; he has friends in New Jersey who are fine players. Pa won a cup one year. It’s a beauty. I like that sport. I can beat Levey Cohen every time. I rather play with him because I always get the game. Pa says Levey knows his business, but I don’t care, so long as I get the game. Pa says: “Just wait, little girl, till you are married, and you will be surprised how much faster Levey will pick up his feet in golf than he does now.” That’s about the meanest thing Pa ever said to me in all his life. He won’t get but two kisses, for saying that, this day. I usually count 80, but he will see that kisses have had a big slump since this morning, and he will be out altogether. He won’t have margin enough to cover, I’ll bet you, he’ll be taken so off his feet. Pa has dabbled in stocks enough to know all the points of loss. He says he was a hoodoo on the market; when he sold stock went up, and when he bought they slumped, so he will say it’s his regular luck. Poor, dear Pa, no one will ever know how much I love my father. He’s the dearest man on earth—except Levey Cohen—he is next best. It would be an awfully bad thing if I didn’t marry Levey Cohen, after all, but I will; he’s the only right sort. I know others are good, but—he is goodiest of all. He always lets me have my own way and any girl likes that. My Pa thinks it’s just awful to put any money on a horse, but my Uncle Smith from Buffalo is a live wire, and he took me to a race at Readville this spring and he put a thousand, 10 to 1, on Bumshell, for me, and a thousand dollars for himself. When he gave me the $10,000 I took it home and showed it to Pa and he said: “Elsie, where did you get that money?” and I said, “Off Bumshell, he won the race.” “Did your Uncle Smith back you?” “Sure he did, Pa” “Thunder! What does he mean? My daughter learning to gamble on the racetrack? Your Uncle Smith ought to know better than that.” “Well, Pa, he said if we lost it would be a gamble, but if we won, why, it was O. K., so we won.” Well, Pa put the money in the Charity box on Sunday and said he hoped it would do some poor cuss good, for I didn’t need it, neither did he. I don’t know what he will say to Uncle Smith when he sees him, but I am going to write and tell him to wait a little till Pa cools off. Ma said I had better tell Uncle Smith that Pa had suddenly gone up above par in gambling stock, and to wait till the excitement was over before he came in. Well, I telephoned him instead, and he waited two weeks and then asked me to ask Pa how the market was. That was too much for Pa. He laughed and said, “Tell Uncle Smith to come over to dinner now the cook’s breath don’t put the fire out.” So we will have a jolly dinner and go to Keith’s this evening.

So good-bye, for I hear Pa asking where his little girl is.

ELSIE.