Bennis to Chimmie

Springfield, W.Va 8/15.

Dear Chimmie:

We miss you like blazes, old man, and if you are camp-sick we are Jim-sick the very worstest kind. We have had the most terrible summer for heat that we have ever experienced here. It has been too hot to fish, too hot to climb, too hot (more ways than one) to hunt. But speaking of hunting, I have been getting in some, "just around the edges", which has yielded me some nice specimens. The black squirrel you saw. Then the other morning I got a nice pheasant, which I mounted to hang as dead game. Then Saturday and monday evenings I took my gun and round up the dam, each time getting a double on the wood ducks. I have made it a very successful panel of a pair of them, mounted one escaping, the other falling shot; this way duck flying normally and duck in flight with neck and one wing pointing downwards . The work came out surprisingly well for a first bluff at ambititious taxidermy, and if they get home safe, I shall have a lovely panel.

How charmingly lively Princeton must be now!

and what a collection of freaks at your boarding house - which, by the way, I know very well indeed. Princeton empty and hot! I can imagine nothing duller. One thing relieves the heat for you; yea, two: Bill Libby's lightning fan and delving among statistics, which are universally known for d— cold facts.

I have succeeded in reducing my weight to less cumbrous proportions: by the aid of a case of skitters, now luckily cured, I have dropped at least 20 lbs.

Well, the time draws nigh for work again, and I rejoice to hear that your case brightens. How lovely it will be to have you for a colleague I do hope nothing will interfere: and I dont believe it will.

Am glad to hear that Miss Ethel came out all right as regards her position. Has your father been in Phila? I hope nothing serious occurred to curtail his vacation: I had heard nothing of it whatever.

All the camp send their very best. Yours ever

Bennis