Newport daily independent., 1903-07-21
My Dear Van:

El6RauUly EXpF6SS6u.
 My Dear Van:
 This is written at 63 minutes after Friday noon, a q by mental observa- ton got the train boy to make for me, it is just press time in Newport. El On our way to St. Louis we met 8 party of capitalists on their way on a jaunt up on the White River branch. As I stepped off the track to give them right of-way noticed my friend X George Gould was with the crowd, and should he ask for me while in l Newport tell him where I am at. We may meet out east if he moves in the same circle he used to. But while the subject is fresh before me let me tell ' you: People may talk all they please, but the ssOld Reliable'' has the smoothest roadbed over which any one ever travelled, and the water at the tanks I stopped at was as fine as any you can find in Illinois; it is so \ cool.
 \ We arrived in St. Louis and met with a hearty welcome. Both the sI Globe and Republic had reporters at \ the station, as they had heard that we 4 were on the road. It is very cool and 4 pleasant here.
 It is about as far as Hoxie from here to Jersey county. This will pc mat E ter of surprise to a great many in N Newport, but we know It is not \ quite as cool as it was, but is cool enough to be pleasant walking. \ We went up on the 0. & A. The scenery along this line is beautiful; trains are so frequent, though, that the tourist is interrupted. The weather along this line is also cool and pleasant.
 We have eaten fish plate and sew eral spikes to tone up our system and prepare for this cool weather; we can feel the effects even now while we are writing. The air is delightfully."- cool; Friday it was not so cool; Monday was delightfully."- airish and cool; We'd nesday was nice day and so was Saturday, though Tuesday was very cool, but not so cold as Thursday; it \ promises to be warmer Sunday. It is needless to say we are enjoying our- \ selves in this cool climate. We wit messed furious storm consisting of rain, thunder and lightning; it was different from our Newport storms, the rain seemed so much wetters and the thunder SO boisterous.
 We boarded the train when we got into territory where our transporta- tion was current and went to sleep. A strange incident happened to us. We \ awoke and looked out of the window and noticed that we were running alongside of large body of water, and we asked the train porter what stream it was. He said it was the Gulf of Mexico, but he couldn't fool us. We knew the Gulf came in below Cairo and told him so. A gentleman who sat behind us said it was the head-waters of Village creek. We knew this all the time, but it had slipped our mind. We became great friends with the train boy; his figs and candy were splendid; reminded us of Newport, only better. We could hardly believe it.
 We arrived in Cincinnati and were agreeably surprised to find this place so large. We found the people polite and attentive to strangers. We had a number of carriages offered us but we were here for fun and did not want to bother with them so passed them up. We met one nice old gentleman, one of the old school, who treated us roy ally. After showing us all the sights offered to sell us the Galt House for $45O, cash, but I didn't have that much to spare so had to pass that up also. This was two good things we had to let go. We found this place larger than Little Rock. One old blow hard said they had over 200, 900 people here but we were onto him and let him know who we were and he slipped away very crestfallen and cheap we can assure you. It is very cool here but not as cool as yesterday.
 We had 4 hours to see the sights here so boarded street car on a voy- age of discovery. We found suburb attached to this place. It is a very beautiful place and so very cool, cool CT than in town, but we thought it would be too cool in winter. Should you ever come up here do not fail to visit this place. We don't remember the name just now but anyone will tell you how to get there. We could hardly believe it.
 We met one of the prominent citi-