Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

AN OFFICIAL'S WIFE

" took " in fine style. On many of the children's
legs, where they had scratched, there was a series of
sores all down the limb. They come now in crowds
for talcum powder and salve, so every morning the
doctor has a clinic in the front yard, while we sit
on our horses telling him to hurry. Many of the
natives regard visiting the doctor a novel entertainment, and one could spend the day trying to find out
what they want.
The presidente has been renting us poor horses
lately, so they have to be sent back and exchanged
every morning. The small naked boys, whose duty
it is to catch them, are suspected of bringing in the
bad ones first for the fun of riding them tip and
down the trail. They do this in companies of four
or five, at a full gallop, bareback, yelling like
Indians. Then comes the saddling. As the ponies
are not accustomed to army saddles, we have to be
very careful lest their backs get sore, so each one
saddles his or her pony, and various are the appeals
to the doctor to know if he thinks the saddle be too
far back, or the cinch too tight. The doctor's wife
is a humanitarian, and it takes a good fifteen minutes to arrange her horse's cinch. Our Igorrote
carriers, too, must be packed, and their load cinched.
I generally carry the coffee pot slung to my saddle,
and Auria unwillingly submits to the indignity of
carrying a frying pan. The patients with sore
heads and their vaccinations all wait to see us start,
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