Miss Letta McCutcheon lived in Reedy, a small town on the Reedy Creek in west-central West Virginia.

(The population of Reedy was twice as large in 1910 as it is today.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy,_West_Virginia

In September of 1912, Letta received a comic postcard from a friend.

I cannot distinguish the name of the friend; the image is smudged and faded.

Letta’s friend wrote from Huntersville, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of Pocahontas County in east-central West Virginia.

Huntersville got its name from its history as a place for hunters and trappers to exchange their catch for supplies.

(Huntersvile is almost 150 miles southeast of Reedy.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntersville,_West_Virginia

The face of the postcard is a drawing of a man in a dressing gown seated before the fireplace.

A bandage encircles the man’s face, and the man holds his head as though he were in great pain.

Beneath the unhappy scene, a printed legend tells that the man has declined an invitation – with the excuse of a “swell gathering” in his rooms.

The legend reads:

“I regret that a large gathering at my rooms, quite a swell affair, prevents my accepting your kind invitation.”

We do not know if the man is afflicted with a toothache, a hang-over, of some other kind of distress.

On the reverse, Letta’s friend reports that she is “getting along fine” and “having a very nice time”.

The friend seems eager for a visit with Letta; she boasts, “I could tell you a lot if I had the chance.”

I do not have any certain information about the relationship of Letta and her friend, but I detect a hint of desperation in the words of the friend.

One hopes that Letta enjoyed the comic postcard and that she responded to the postcard pleas of her friend.