I only need to glance back over the page I wrote last night to see how I felt. This conscripting must have gotten under my skin a little deeper than I thought. I’ll admit I was homesick, and I guess it made me a little testy. I think I really should tear that page out and begin over. It isn’t exactly fair, and, besides, it doesn’t fulfil the function of a diary, anyway, which, I take it, is a record of events and things—not a criticism of everybody in general and an opportunity to give vent to disagreeable feelings.
Never in my wildest flights of fancy can
I picture some of these men as soldiers
From a “close-up” view yesterday may have seemed like a trying day, but to-night it looks a lot different and a lot more interesting. I must confess that all the “good-byes,” and the bands, and the weeping mothers and sweethearts, and the handshakes, and the pompous old turtles (who dodged the draft in the Civil War or bought substitutes) who slapped you on the back and told you how they wished they were young again, along with the arrival of the “Kaiser Kanners,” who unquestionably were “kanners” of another variety, and the parade and the Home Guard and the dozen and one “Comfort Kits” that every one handed you, and the mystery of what was to come, and the scared look on every one’s face, including my own, and the vacant feeling in the pit of one’s stomach, superinduced by sandwiches and coffee, fudge, oranges and chocolates in lieu of a real meal, did get on my nerves.
