again & he seen it wasnt no use to try & kid me & Prudence says
come on lets beat it & on the way home I says I bet them Boston
birds will feel small when they find out that those wasnt indyans
at all & she act it like she was mad about something & says well
they cant blame you for not trying to tell them & its a wonder
you didnt hire Fanny Ewell Hall while you was about it & I says o
is it & I might know youd get sore because I was the 1st to find
out about the indyans being wite men in disgised & she says yes I
suppose if somebody was to paint stripes on a cow you would make
a speech about it & say that you had discovered that it wasnt no
tiger & I wish I had been 1 of them indyans tonight because I
would of loved to of beened you with a Tommy Hawk & I says o you
would would you & she seen it wasnt no use to argue with me &
anyway Ethen nobody would be fool enough to paint stripes on a
cow unless maybe they was born in Boston. Well Ethen thats the
way it goes & when you do put one over on the wife they want to
hit you with a Tommy Hawk with best rgds. Ed.

Friend Ethen--

No matter what a married man does in this world he gets in wrong
& I suppose if I was to die tonight Prudence would bawl me out
for not having let her know I was going to do it & just because I
joined the minit men the other eve. she has been acting like as
if I had joined the Baptis Church & I bet you are saying what in
the h--ll is a minit man. Well Ethen I will tell you. The other
night I says to Prudence I think I will drive over to Lexington
to get Bessy shodd. Bessy is are horse see Ethen. Well she says
you will do nothing of the kind because all you want to do in
Lexington is get a snoot ful & if you think I am going to wate up