Mexico Missouri message., 1905-11-16

with red cheeks, and great soulful eyes
like Americans. Yes, sir, everybody
In Athens seemed 70 be in love, and
dad thought the men looked efIeminate,
on account OF their clothes, but every
man IL an athlete and fighter from
the word go.
well, we went up on the hill TO the
Acropolis, an old marble ruin that
overlooks the town, and dad paced of
the ground, 10 see how much terri
tory Il covered, and figured up how
much good marble there was in II.
that could be used for gravestones,
and when some Of the policemen asked
me what the old man was doing told
them he was . rich old party from
America that was going to buy the
Acropolis and move II to the United
States and make It over into a morgue.
and that he didn't care for expense.
for he was the richest man in the
world.
We'll, we looked things over, like
all tourists do, and we went to Mars
Hill, where Paul preached, and dad
read up on Paul, and offered to bet
that Paul could give cards ana spades
to any preacher, and then peat him
preaching, and the next night we went
to the place where Socrates and Plato
taught school, and some Of the Greeks
had watched US pretty close, and Just
after dark, as we were walking around,
a beautiful woman, like Greek statue,
rose up before us, with a white robe on,
and she went up 10 dad and claimed his
protection, as she was being pursued
by robbers, and she cuddled up to dad.
At first we thought she was a ghost,
but when she touched dad, and chung
TO him, he said she was warm all
right, and was no ghost, and he told
her not TO worry, as she was under
the protection OF the American flag,
and he would stand by her till hades
froze over, and he put his left arm
around her and drew his revolver.
can remember the scene as though II
was last night, and how that Greek
woman chung to dad. and thanked him.
and she smiled a smile full Of teeth
and red lips, and then she locked out
into the moonlight and screamed:
There they come" and she tainted
In dads arms, and then we we're sur
rounded by about a dozen Greek ban.
dts, dressed in whlts pettlcoats, and
with long crooked daggers, and one
fellow that seemed to be the chief
put a crooked knife to dads throat,
and dad turned blue and said what
are you going to do, but they didn't
say anything, but took US to a cave
where the woman got over her faint
ing spell, and then they dressed dad
up in a white pettlcoat, and these long
socks such as ballet dancers wear, and
we all got on to small mules and start
ed for the mountains, and rode all
night
Say, dad was a picture. The Greeks
are small men, and they look oil right
in petticoats. but dad was so fat he
looked swelled up, and even the mule
noticed 1t, and the girl, who was ON
the white mule, laughed at dad, and
she could talk English, and she told
dad that the bandits only wanted his
money, and they wouldn't hurt him II
he gave up a million or 80. 1t proved
that she was one Of the gang, and
dad and held a consultation, and we
decided to give her a letter TO the
American consul at Athens, authorizing
him to give her a carload Of money
for ransom, and In the letter dad
wound up with a postscript telling the
consul not to give a COMPOUNDED cent,
but to arrest her and send troops to
rescue us. l asked dad what he was
going to do II she didn't come back
and the bandits decided to kill us. and
he said never you mind, your papa
will get out of this all right, and he
did.
"The woman went away with let
ter she could not read. but which she
told dad how to write, and then the
bandits made dad do the cooking for
the bunch, and he put so much salt
in the food that 1t made hem all
thirsty, and they sent one of the ban
dts to a vineyard, where he got sew
eral pig skins full Of wine and brandy,
and that night they sung songs, and
made dad sing Hot Time and they
made me dance, and dad kept saying
Let's have one more on me-, and they
drank until the whole crowd was
stupefied, and dad acted as though he
was drunken than any of them, but