"Aw, this bunk in the paper," replied Ferguson. Then he glared at me and enquired, "Did you write this stuff?"
"What stuff?" I replied. "Read it out."
Ferguson picked up the paper and began to read in mocking tones something that went as follows:
"Isn't it beautiful in the cold early dawn in France, to see our dear American soldiers get up from their bunks and go whistling down to the stables to take care of their beloved animals."
English laughed uproariously.
"The Kid don't like horses no more than I do," he said. "Neither one of us have got any use for them at all. And here, that's all they keep us doing, is tending horses. I went down there the other morning with a lantern and one of them long-eared babies just kicked it clean out of my hand. The other morning one of them planted two hoofs right on Ferguson's chest and knocked him clear out of the stable. It broke his watch and his girl's picture.
"You know, Mr. Gibbons, I never did have any use for horses. When I was about eight years old a horse bit me. When I was about fifteen years old I got run over by an ice-wagon. Horses is just been the ruination of me.
"If it hadn't been for them I might have gone through college and been an officer in this here army. You remember that great big dairy out on the edge of the town in El Paso? Well, my dad owned that and he lost all of it on the ponies in Juarez. I just hate horses.
"I know everything there is to know about an automobile. I have driven cross country automobile races and after we come out of Mexico, after we didn't get Villa, I went to work in the army machine shops at Fort Bliss and took down all them motor trucks and built them all over again.
"When Uncle Sam got into the war against Germany, this here Artillery Battalion was stationed out at Fort Bliss, and I went to see the Major about enlisting, but I told him I didn't want to have nothing to do with no horses.