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Tish: Do you know that the Indians never sweetened their food and that they developed absolutely perfect teeth?

Aggie: Well, they never had any automobiles either, but they didn’t develop wings.

Lizzie: Don’t you want that window closed? I’m in a draft.

Tish: Air in motion never gave any one a cold. We do not catch cold; we catch heat. It’s ridiculous the way we shut ourselves up in houses and expect to remain well.

Aggie: Well, I’b catchig sobethig.

Lizzie (changing the subject): Would you like me to help you dress? It might rest your back to have your corset on.

Tish (firmly): I shall never wear a corset again.

Aggie (sneezing): Why? Didn’t the Iddiads wear theb?

Tish is very sensitive to lack of sympathy and she shut up like a clam. She was coldly polite to us for the remainder of our visit, but she did not again refer to the Indians, which in itself was suspicious.

Fortunately for us, or unfortunately, Tish’s new scheme was one she could not very well carry out alone. I believe she tried to induce Hannah to go with her, and only when Hannah failed her did she turn to us. Hannah was frightened and came to warn us.

I remember the occasion very well. It was Mr. Wiggins’s birthday anniversary, and we usually dine at Aggie’s and have a cake with thirty candles on it. Tish was not yet able to be about, so Aggie and I ate together. She always likes to sit until the last candle is burned out, which is rather dispiriting and always leaves me low in my mind.

Just as it flickered and went out, Hannah came in.

“Miss Tish sent over Mr. Charlie’s letter from London,” said Hannah, and put it in front of Aggie. Then she sat down on a chair and commenced to cry.

“Why, Hannah!” said Aggie. “What in the world has happened?”

“She’s off again!” sniveled Hannah; “and she’s worse this time than she’s ever been. No sugar, no tea, only nuts and fruit, and her windows open all night, with the curtains getting black. I wisht I had Mr. Charlie by the neck.”

I suppose it came over both of us at the same time–the “Young Woodsman,” and the “Camper Craft,” and no stays, and all that. I reached for Charlie Sands’s letter, which was always sent to Tish and meant for all of us. He wrote:–

Dear Three of a Kind: Well, the French President has came and went, and London has taken down all the brilliant flags which greeted him, such tactful bits as bore Cressy and Agincourt, and the pretty little smallpox and “plague here” banners, and has gone back to such innocent diversions as baiting cabinet ministers, blowing up public buildings, or going out into the woods seeking the Simple Life.

The Simple Lifers travel in bands–and little else. They go barefooted, barearmed, bareheaded and barenecked. They wear one garment, I believe, let their hair hang and their beards grow, eat only what Nature provides, such as nuts and fruits, sleep under the stars, and drink from Nature’s pools. Rather bully, isn’t it? They’re a handsome lot generally, brown as nuts. And I saw a girl yesterday–well, if you do not hear from me for a time it will be because I have discarded the pockets in which I carry my fountain pen and my stamps and am wandering barefoot through the Elysian fields.

Yours for the Simple Life,

CHARLIE SANDS.

As I finished reading the letter aloud, I looked at Aggie in dismay. “That settles it,” I said hopelessly. “She had some such idea before, and now this young idiot–” I stopped and stared across the table at Aggie. She was sitting rapt, her eyes fixed on the smouldering wicks of Mr. Wiggins’s candles.

“Barefoot through the Elysian fields!” she said.

II

I am not trying to defend myself. I never had the enthusiasm of the other two, but I rather liked the idea. And I did restrain them. It was my suggestion, for instance, that we wear sandals without stockings, instead of going in our bare feet, which was a good thing, for the first day out Aggie stepped into a hornet’s nest. And I made out the lists.