Sunday
June 13
1926

We celebrated Sunday morning by not arising until after eight. Dick as usual was up with the sun 6:00 or 6:30 as he is every morning but the rest of us stayed in. It was another one of those days that make it plain to one that it is a Sunday and a day of rest. So a Sunday atmosphere prevailed. Leroux had a cup of coffee with us for breakfast. The Papuans are still with us and we spent a good part of the morning trading with them. Prince obtained some arrows but they were wise and it took tobacco and matches to get anything. He gave one of them a short piece of puttee[,] he had cut off one of his puttees because it was too long. They have been so accustomed to getting rice and things for nothing that it is hard for them to have to part with some of their arrows for goods which they used to beg. Lieutenant Korteman just passed all dressed up in whites[,] starched, pressed and everything. We shouted at him and asked if he was going to church. He replied that they were pajamas. Even in the jungles they dress. We are going around with long beards and our jungle clothes and look like hobos most of the time. I don’t think that they approve of that. But in the jungles so far away from civilization it is useless to dress up in whites. We keep clean but we don’t shave or dress up. Navy sparks has had a touch of malaria which Dr. Hoffman says is increasing. He has 14 patients in the hospital who are in the various stages of the fever. Outside of that sickness is not great as yet.

It was a quiet Sunday and some of the boys spent the day trimming their beards and shaving. Hans has a new style on the order of President Van Buren. Dick looks like a moving picture actor who has taken the part of an elderly man and has false whiskers on for the part. {F1.91} He shaved today and the clean part gives that effect wonderfully. It rained hard in the afternoon. I did my first reading and finished "In White Rainment" [sic] a mystery story which was sure all mystery. I enjoyed it for it rained heavily all afternoon and it was warm and dry all about me as I laid on my cot and read.