Egypt, Pa.
Tues., July 20, 1926
We reached Egypt in time to drive around the Bethlehem Steel Works, and to visit the Giant plant before setting up housekeeping in an alfalfa field near our old camping place, newly planted to corn. The views are lovely from our new spot.
After supper our old friend, Harold Baer, very much grown up, came to take us to pick blackcaps and funny little sweet red cherries. The bobwhite, and what they term here the rain-bird, were calling when we returned. The latter, more mournful than a dove, wailed coo-coo-oo-o, late into the evening.
During the night it blew, rained and thundered so violently that we had to get up to cover things more securely. When the rain stopped in the morning, we threw pump water over each other for our daily showers, but we might have saved the energy and just stood outside the tent, for it immediately began to pour again.
The chatter of guinea hens in the nearby potato field awakened us early. In Florida their call always reminded us of Egypt, for it was here that we first recognized it.
Bill has gone to the cement plant, and I am enjoying the radio and writing on our hilltop, for it has stopped raining and the sun pops in and out of the fast-moving clouds. This time of year the country is colorful. Tawny patches of wheat and lighter green fields of oats pattern the distance, while near at hand wild roses not only tint the hedgerows but sweeten the air.
It seems our luck to always have rain in Egypt, but it doesn’t dampen our spirits, because the open road and living close to nature always puts us in fine fettle; seemingly we absorb a “certain something” from contact with the earth itself. In the city we both felt stodgy and stupid, but one night in the open has already set us up remarkably. We hate to go back tomorrow.