May 5, 1917.
Greenville Falls, N.Y.
Deer godchild,
Gee whiz but Kaiser Bill is in fer it! Gee whiz, you ot to see how Uncle Sam is fixin up fer him! Jo Kelly and Walter Daly and lot of the felers are going in fer aviashun and Bill Wilson's scout-master and organizin a crack bunch of boy scouts and we have a home Deefence and dad has got a uniform and a wooden gun and he sez it is a pretty good bunch of felers, but he cood do more with them if he was captin insted of mister Larkin, who is a good feler but a bum eaptin. I aint sayin much but I got a few idees and I woodnt let it sprize you if I was to invent something one of these days, but I cant tell you what it is becaus the censer wood cut it out. I got your egg and I thank you fer it, but say it got me in dutch al-right, it was this way, the postman brot the packidge just as I was going to school and I didn't have time to open it so I took it along and we was havin some speshul exercises fer a kernel Dudley who was to talk on, Do your bit to help win the war, and Bug Hadley was recitin the getysberg adress and I opened the packidge and their was your egg all smasht up. I guess them cardboard eggs aint very strong, or mebbe the censer didn't handel it gently, ennyhow it was smasht and the curl inside it was there alrite only it was kind of mixt up with the cream candy and I was unmixin them when Lily Graham who set beehind me whisperd to Erny Dinkelheim, who is Max Dinkelheims youngist son, Jimmy Jacksons girl in France has sent him a curl! and Erny started to laff and say, O you Curly—Curly Jackson! and I sed, You shut up! and he sed, O pooh-pooh—pooh-pooh—and I sed, Dont you pooh-pooh me! and he sed, Who will I pooh-pooh then? and I sed, Pooh-pooh the Kaiser, and he sed, The Kaiser wont let me pooh-pooh him and you leave him alone! And I sed, The Kaiser is bughouse, and Erny he made a grab at me and landed me one on the chin, and I paisted him one on the eye and Bug Hadley he stopt sayin the getysberg adress, and miss Davis she was jumpin up and down hollerin O boys, O boys, stop them, stop them! and kernel Dudley he hopt off the stand and pulld us apart, and miss Davis was fer puttin us on the platferm with our arms on each others shoulders, but the kernel sed, No, it is that other boys falt, send him home. So they sent Erny home and he was mad as time. Then the kernel give his talk and sed how the girls cood help by making the bandiges and how the boys cood find out who was fer the guvernment and who wasnt. I bet Erny and his father isnt, and I am going to keep my eye on them. Then we sang the french nashunal anthem and it is a fine him, and it goes this way in English: Ye sons of France awake to glory, the day of victory has come, your childrens wives, and sires horny, behold there tears—and thats as far as Ive lernt, we have got to lern all of it, and their is a buly part that goes, March on. Yesterday the fife and drum corpse plaid it and the Star Spangled Banner and some of the boys lafft becaus the fifes sort of sqweekt. I dont see how ennybody can laff when they play the Star Spangled Banner. Did you get my pig? I suported you this weak by polishin 10 door handels at 7 cents each, some of them was already polisht but the folks was real nice about it and let me give them an extry polish. Say why dont you tell me who that Mr. le Cure is? I have askt you too times now, and say if I was you I woodnt say, come like the dickens or skin them alive or enny of that kind of talk. It is al-rite fer boys who are used to ruffin it, but it is not nice fer girls so if I was you I wood go easy on it, and hot dogs aint machine guns, they are sausidges that are made from those low-down german dogs that heve short legs, but say they test buly in a roll. The vilets and pollywogs have come and I wood send you some but I guess they wood dry up before you got them. Ennyway you neednt worry much about the war now that Uncle Sam is in it we will lick the stuffin out of him together, I mean out of Kaiser Bill.
Your affeckshunate godfather,
James P. Jackson Jr.
P.S. Bug Hadley sez it is lucky fer him Erny and I had that fite, because he had fergot what come after, and dedicatid to the proposishun.
June 3, 1917.