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up with a crisp white chenille spread, and above it hung a framed embroidered plaque that read HOME SWEET HOME.
    She pointed at two doors. “Closet to the left, bathroom on the right, and if you need anything just holler. If not, see you at oh-seven-hundred.”
    He went in the bathroom and was surprised to see it was almost as big as the bedroom, with a green sink and tub. Another surprise: It had a window. He had never seen a bathroom with a window. He was so tired he just wanted to go lie down, but he felt grimy from the train ride so he took a bath and put his pajamas on and got into the soft bed with its clean sweet-smelling sheets. He lay there and looked around his new room once more before he turned off his lamp and fell into a deep peaceful sleep.
     
    After Oswald had gone upstairs to bed, the phone rang. It was Frances calling Betty to inquire if Mr. Campbell had arrived safe and sound. After she was told yes, Frances’s next question was, “Well?”
    Betty laughed. “Well . . . he’s a cute little man, with crinkly blue eyes and red hair. He sort of looks like an elf.”
    Frances said, “An elf?”
    “Yes, but a nice elf.”
    Somewhat disappointed that Mr. Campbell was not as handsome as she had hoped for—Mildred was so picky where men were concerned—nonetheless Frances looked on the bright side. An elf, she thought. Oh, well, it
is
close to Christmas. Maybe it was some kind of sign. After all, hope springs eternal.
     
    Oswald opened his eyes at six-thirty the next morning to a room filled with sunlight and with the sound of those same birds chirping he had heard over the phone, only twice as loud. To a man used to waking up for the past eight years in a dark hotel room around nine-thirty or ten to the sounds of traffic, this was unsettling. He tried to go back to sleep but the birds were relentless and he started coughing, so he got up. As he was dressing, he noticed an advertisement on the wall that Betty Kitchen had obviously cut out of a magazine. It was a picture of a ladies’ dressing table and alongside a compact, lipstick, comb, and a pack of Lucky Strike Green cigarettes was a WAC dress uniform hat. The caption underneath said SHE MAY BE A WAC — BUT SHE ’ S A WOMAN TOO!
    Then it dawned on him. That’s what had seemed so familiar. The old gal must have been in the service, probably as an army nurse. God knows he had been around enough army nurses, in and out of so many VA hospitals. He had even married one, for God’s sake. Downstairs in the kitchen, while eating a breakfast of eggs, biscuits, grits, and ham, he found out he was right. Not only had she been an army nurse, she was a retired lieutenant colonel, supervisor of nurses, and had run several big hospitals in the Philippines.
    He informed her that he had been in the army as well.
    She looked up. “Somehow, Mr. Campbell, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a military man.”
    He laughed. “Neither did they. I never got out of Illinois.”
    “Ah, that’s too bad.”
    “Yeah, I guess, but I don’t have any complaints. I got a nice medical discharge and went to school, thanks to the old U S of A Army.”
    About that time, the mother, who was half as tall as her daughter and looked like a dried-up little apple doll, appeared in the doorway. She ignored Oswald and seemed highly agitated. “Betty, the elephants are out in the yard again. Go see what they want.”
    “Yes, Mother,” said Betty. “I’ll go find out in just a minute. Go on back upstairs now.”
    “Well, hurry up. They’re stepping all over my camellia bushes.”
    After she left, Betty turned to him. “See what I mean? She thinks she sees all kinds of things out in the yard. Last week it was flying turtles.” She walked over and picked up his dishes. “I’m not sure if it was that fall she took a while ago or just her age; she’s older than God.” She sighed. “But that’s the Kitchen curse, longevity—on both sides. How about yourself, Mr. Campbell? Do you