Part 3 (1/2)
Your pal, JACK.
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 9._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I didn't have nothing to do last night and I happened to think about that reporter and how he would be comeing along in a few days asking for that poultry.
I figured I might as well set down and write him up a couple verses because them fellows is hard up for articles to send their paper because in the first place we don't tell them nothing so they could write it up and when they write it the censors smeers out everything but the question marks and dots but of course they would leave them send poems because the Germans couldn't make head or tale out of them. So any way I set down and tore off 3 verses and he says they ought to be something about a gal in it so here is what I wrote:
_Near a year ago today Pres. Wilson of the U. S. A.
had something to say, ”Germany you better keep away This is no time for play.”
When it come time to go America was not slow Each one said good by to their girl so dear And some of them has been over here since last year.
I will come home when the war is over Back to the U. S. A.
So don't worry little girlie And now we are going to Berlin And when we the Kaiser skin and the war we will win And make the Kaiser jump out of his skin.
The ones that stays at home Can subscribe to the liberty loan And some day we will come home to the girles that's left alone Old Kaiser Bill is up against it For all are doing their bit.
Pres. Wilson says the stars and stripes Will always fight for their rights._
That's what I tore off and when he comes around again I will have it for him and if you see it in the Chi papers you will know who wrote it up and maybe somebody will write a song to it but of course they can't sign my name to it unless I get killed or something but I guess at that they ain't so many soldiers over here that can turn out stuff like that but what my friends won't be pretty sure who wrote it.
But if something does happen to me I wished you would kind of keep your eyes pealed and if the song comes out try and see that Florrie gets some jack out of it and I haven't wrote nothing to her about it because she is like all other wifes and when somebodys else husband pulls something its O. K. but if their own husband does it he must of had a snoot full.
Well today was so rotten that they didn't make us go nowheres and I'll say its got to be pretty rotten when they do that and the meal they give us tonight wouldn't of bulged out a grandaddy long legs and I and my buddy Frank Carson was both hungry after we eat and I suppose you will wonder what do I mean by buddy. Well Al that's a name I got up for who ever you pal around with or bunk next to them and now everybody calls their pal their buddy. Well any way he says why didn't we go over to the Red X canteen resturent and buy ourself a feed so we went over and its a little shack where the Red X serves you a pretty good meal for 1 frank and that's about $.19 cents and they don't try and make no profits on it but just run them so as a man don't half to go along all the wile on what the army hands out to you.
Well they was 3 janes on the job over there and 2 of them would be safe anywheres you put them but the other one is Cla.s.s A and her old woman must of been pie eyed when she left her come over here. Well Carson said she belonged to him because he had seen her before and besides I was a married man so I says all right go ahead and get her. Well Al it would be like Terre Haute going after George Sisler or somebody and the minute we blowed in she didn't have eyes for only me but I wasn't going to give her no encouragement because we were here to kill Germans and not ladys but I wished you could of seen the smile she give me. Well she's just as much a American as I or you but of course Carson had to be cute and try to pull some of his French on her so he says Bon soir Madam Moselle and that is the same like we would say good evening but when Carson pulled it I spoke up and said ”If your bones is soir why don't you go and take the baths somewhere?” Pretending like I thought he meant his bones were sore. Well the little lady got it O. K. and pretty near laughed outright. You see Al when a person has got rhuematism they go and take the baths like down to Mudlavia so I meant if his bones was sore he better go somewheres like that. So the little lady tried to not laugh on acct. of me being a stranger but she couldn't hardly help from busting out and then I smiled at her back and after that Carson might as well of been mowing the lawn out in n.o.body's Land. I felt kind of sorry the way things broke because here he is a man without no home ties and of course I have all ready got a wife but Miss Moselle didn't have no eyes for him and that's the way it goes but what can a man do and Carson seen how it was going and says to me right in front of her ”Have you heard from your Mrs. since we been over?” And I didn't dast look up and see how she took it.
Well they set us up a pretty good feed and the little lady kept asking us questions like how long had we been here and what part of the U. S. we come from and etc. and finely Carson told her who I was and she popped her eyes out and says she use to go to the ball games once in a wile in N. Y. city with her old man and she didn't never think she would meet a big league pitcher and talk to them and she says she wondered if she ever seen me pitch. Well I guess if she had she would remember it specially in N. Y.
because there was one club I always made them look like a fool and they wasn't the only club at that and I guess they's about 6 other clubs in the American League that if they had seen my name in the dead they wouldn't shed off enough tears to gum up the infield.
Well when we come out she asked us would we come again and we said yes but I guess its best for both she and I if I stay away but I said we would come again to be polite so she said au revoir and that's like you would say so long so I said au reservoir pretending like I didn't know the right way to say it but she seen I was just kidding and laughed and she is the kind of a gal that gets everything you pull and bright as a whip and her and I Would make a good team but of course they's no use talking about it the way I am tied up so even when I'm sick in tired of the regular rations I won't dast go over there for a feed because it couldn't do nothing only harm to the both of us and the best way to do with those kind of affairs is to cut it out before somebody gets hurt.
Well its time to hop into the feathers and I only wished it was feathers but feathers comes off a chicken or something and I guess these matteresses we got is made out to Gary or Indiana Harbor or somewheres.
Your pal, JACK.
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 11._
FRIEND AL: Well Al they's several of the boys that won't need no motor Laura to carry their pay for the next couple mos. and if you was to mention champagne to them they would ask for a barrage. I was over to the Y. M. C. A. hut last night and when I come back I wished you could of seen my buddys and they was 2 of them that was still able to talk yet and they was haveing a argument because one of them wanted to pore some champagne in a dish so as the rats would get stewed and the other bird was trying to not let him because he said it always made them mean and they would go home and beat up their Mrs.
It seems like one of the boys had a birthday and his folks is well off and they had sent him some jack from the states to buy blankets and etc. with it and he thought it would be a sucker play to load up with bed close when spring was comeing so he loaded up with something else and some of the boys with him and for 50 or 60 franks over here you can get enough champagne to keep the dust layed all summer and of course some of the boys hadn't never tasted it before and they thought you could bathe in it like beer. They didn't pay no more tension to revelry this A. M. then if they was a corps and most of them was at that and out of the whole bunch of us they was only 7 that didn't get reported and the others got soaked 2 thirds of their pay and confined to their quarters and Capt. Seeley says if they was any more birthdays in his Co. we wouldn't wind the celebration up till sunrise and then it would be in front of a fireing squad. Well Al if the boys can't handle it no better then that they better leave it alone and just because its cheap that's no reason to try and get it all at once because the grapes will still be growing over here yet when all us birds takes our teeth off at night with our other close.
Well Al the reporter that asked me to write up the verses ain't been around since and probably he has went up to the front or somewheres and I am glad of it and I hope he forgets all about it because in the first place I am not one of the kind that is crazy to get in the papers and besides I am to busy to be monking with stuff like that. Yes they keep us on the jump all the wile and we are pretty well wore out when night comes around but a man wouldn't mind it if we was learning something but the way it is now its like as if we had graduated from college and then they sent us to kindegarden and outside of maybe a few skulls the whole regt. is ready right now to get up there in the trenches and show them something and I only wished we was going tomorrow but I guess some of the boys would like it to never go up there but would rather stay here in this burg and think they was haveing a good time kidding with the French gals and etc. but that's no business for a married man and even if I didn't have no family the French gals I seen so far wouldn't half to shew me away and I been hearing all my life what swell dressers they was but a scout for the Follys wouldn't waist no time in this burg.
But I'm sick in tired of the same thing day in and day out and here we been in France 2 wks. and all we done is a little riffle practice and stuff we had back home and get soping wet every day and no mail and I wouldn't wonder if Florrie and little Al had forgot all about me and if Secty.