At last I have smelt the smoke of battel, and fer the third time since I joined the colors you don't know how near you've been to cashing that 10 thou. insurance policy. You would have cashed it fer sure this time, if it hadn't been fer a despised cooty; never again will yours truly be hard on 'em.
I have one that I'm gonna retire on a penshun. It wuz like this. Our regiment wuz called upon to go into the front line trenches and while I was peepin over the top, one of them pesky "seam squirrels" commenced bitin the back of my neck. I bent my head for'd to reach over on the back of my neck to pick him off, at one and the same time a sniper cut loose at me from a big tree just outside the line of Fritzies trenches; had my head been where it was before I started to get the cooty, it would have been fare-thee-well Barney, so I just put Mr. Lifesaver back, and, as before stated, I'm gonna put him on a penshun.
Believe you me derie, the way our boys made that sniper climb down out of that tree would make Tarzan of the apes have a hemorage, and turn green with envy; he shinned down that landscape decorashun like as if it was greased.
Well derie, when we first swore our way into the army, I thought Skinny was a coward; I figgered if he ever got in a regular scrap with Bill the Twicers hired patriots his knees would knock together like a pair of castnets played by a Spanish bull fiter; but I take it all back, Skinny in battel is a whole team and a cross dog under the waggin. It came about like this. We was bein bumbarded by the Fritzies in the most approved style and believe you me derie, the shells and shrapnels was flyin round and over our heads thicker than hungry bums around a free lunch counter; all to once Skinny commenced to get a bad case of the hecups. I didn't say anything to him as I was busy with a little party of my own when all to once he yells to me, "Say Barney, fer Heavens sake do somethin to scare me so I can get rid of these d—— hecups." So you see Julie dere, you never can tell by the looks of a frog how fer it can jump.
This lil' old scrap has brung out a lot of cases like Skinny's; fellers in civil life that you think wouldn't have the sand to get manicured, or ther hair cut without takin cloroform, are puttin themselves on the map faster than towns on newly opened Government land. Even the married men in our regiment are gettin so "Spiffy" that I believe they'll have sand enough to talk back to friend wif when they get back home.
Yours until they make bottles without false bottoms.
BARNEY.
Dere Julie,
Well Julie, a courier has just horned his way into camp with the "info" that this lil ol' scrap is over, and I've lost an other chance to be a hero; but I'm not gonna go round making a noise like a dill pickel, just because I didn't get no show to give the Fritzies a upper cut. I'd rather be a live simp Julie, than a dead hero, any day.