Letters from the Same
Postscript, written at the top of the first sheet of the letter
I have just sent you off this telegram: Is You-know-who at Plattsburg, and why? I thought I saw her here today. Am well. Love.
Second postscript, written in the margin
I find I have written you a letter that will show you my difficulties in getting time to write. It is merely typical of my usual day.
Dear Mother:—
I begin this letter in the tent at about 5.30 in the morning, expecting the first assembly, yet trying to snatch a little time while the rest of the camp is still dressing. My hand no longer aches, but the wrist is plain stiff from yesterday’s exercise at trail. I have just conned over fifty paragraphs of the drill book, getting up early for the purpose.
Free time is scarce. When the captain yesterday told us to put fifteen minutes a day on our study of the rifle, and especially in learning to squeeze (a mystery which I will expound to you when I myself have mastered it) the whole company groaned. Our time is so cut up that it is
(The bugle and the whistle! Five minutes for assembly.)
hard to find many minutes at a stretch which you can devote to any one thing. And yet I think it quite right that yesterday, after returning from the open order drill, squad after squad of us should of our own accord go down to the drill field and practise the new tricks, especially in preserving the squad formation while following the corporal over whatever ground and through whatever angles. Those fifteen minutes will help us today. Bannister tends quietly to his job, an amusing fellow with his little imitations of a farmer (which some day he means to be), his chuckling Yankee wit, and his interest in telling all about his wife and children at home.