Deer godchild,
Your letter reeched me safely, and I was releeved to here the boys had got safely "over there." Of corse we have had some few notes, pertikerly from Hanky Jones you no the feller that drove the hearse I tole you about. Well he is drivin somewhere over the top in France, not a hearse but a truck, and oh boy, he sez the swellest funeral he ever drove fer cant hold a candel to drivin a truck with Fritz bulets bingin all round you and he sez, I received the kit you sent me and It is a great comfort (the kit is not a cat but a assortment of handkerchiefs and tooth brushes and everything a soldier gets and Mother sent him his and so he rote to thank her) an he sez if I go over the top with the best of luck and get enuf leave to come home I will give Myself the pleasure of calling on you, and showin you what a Greenville soldier looks like. My reciprocity shall never end. And he goes on tellin how french cookin agrees with him and the censer didnt cut that out, but he cut out the best part I guess. Ennyway the censer must have a soft spot fer you because he never cuts enny part of yours out. I guess ennyway you must be a pretty poplar girl you have so many frens, that think a lot of you, theres your brother Jules and that Mr. le Cure and that guy Teddy and me. I was sort of thinkin about you and me the other day and I rote a verse of poitry about us and here it is,
I think that sums up the situation. I have supported you one yere and you dont no me, and I dont no you, and mebbe you will never mete me and mebbe I will never mete you, and while I am tryin to think how I can get over there along comes that feler Teddy and gets his eye on you and sez, Guess Ill have her for my godchild, and Bully fer you your a peach! and you fall fer it of corse, and I have to take a back seat. I guess that is life, but I tell you it is pretty tuf sometimes and a feler who is twelve yeres old has more trubbles than you think. But I guess if you want to be his godchild I wont stand between you. Mebbe you wood like a list of how I have suported you? Here is some of it, mindin chickins, selling Mirrors, choppin wood, frezin ice-cream fer Crankit & sons, pickin cheries, money from Carl Odell fer keepin quiet, polishin door handels, a mud turtle to Sid Perkins, a jar of pollywogs to Sid Perkins, he wants to build an aquarium, and I washt the winders of missis Perkins big, white house one weak when I was hard up, but I dont think I shall ever be hard up again as mister Parker has ofered to take me on the Mirror staff whenever I like, as he sez I talk like a book agent. I wish I cood leve school and go into bizness or to war or something. I dont seem to get much out of school somehow. Miss Davis sez to mother, Mebbe your son has deefective eyes but she sez to me, You are a blockhed. I guess miss Davis is off the trolly or something, Dad sez she has Fritz blood because she is distently related to the Dinkelheims. I was sory to hear you had swallerd all that gum, but was glad to see you got away with it, that feler was the limit to give it to you, it is not a thing to give to a godchild. Fust thing you no when he is your godfather he will feed you a shoestring or something, and you will be two polite to say no and you will dye. I hate to think of you ending that way it dont seem rite somehow. Say what does he want to buckle his hare and line it up one side fer? He must think his hed is a race track. Gee whiz I hate to think of the Yanks comin runnin over there with felers like that among them. I have been in swimmin with Dinky Odell in old Frost Lake to-day and he stumpt me to swaller a skipper and sed I bet a quarter you will not, so I swallerd one and it didn't test ennything at all, only it kind of crawled up and down my throte fer awhile and o Boy! didnt he tickel though! The next time I swaller a skipper I shall chew him fust, if you dont they walk inside of you as if they was saying "where do we go from hear?" Say you were pretty smart about catching on about my jokin about Mr. le Cure. Corse I dont no him as well as you do, caus you no and I no he has lived on the other side more than hear, but I guess if we was to pass on the street, we wood no each other well enuf to say, Hello, old top, how are you to-day? Say, I have got your Christmas present all pickt out, do you no what I wish you wood give me fer mine? See if you can guess.
Your affeckshunate godfather as ever,
James P. Jackson Jr.
18 rue d'Autancourt, Paris.
September 21, 1917.
My dear godfather:
I thank you for your long letter, and I give it to Monsieur Teddy so he read and see how much you are genteel. He regard the letter and regard me and his figure become very droll, like he want laugh or cry very much and he dare not and must retain himself, and he demand if he can keep the letter in his pocket for tomorrow, because he desire to envoy you a response with mine. He is very amiable and charming, think you not? He come to my house all the days now and always he bring something. Sunday he bring a paté like we eat on days of féte before the war; and he remain for aid us eat it. And yesterday he bring a great ribbon all white for tie on my hairs. He say in Amerique all the little girls carry on the summit of the head a ribbon big like a hat. He want not I keep for the Sundays but he tie me up and then he say I am pretty—jolly he say, and he demand I show him to speak the French. So he commence to read my book of when I was little, the "Lectures Enfantines" and I make him say the little poetry that is on the page 3 and it say: "Cher petit oreiller," and then my great sister enter and she have on her bodice of Sundays and very much the powder of rice on the nose. And she say: "Go in the bed-chamber and amuse yourself, and I talk with this Monsieur Americain." And I want not to go, and I cry, but she say if I obey not she will tell Monsieur Teddy come back never again. She is a villain, my great sister. I will defend that she aid me to write my letters to you; I have not business of her. I have as much as her knowledge of the English, and the American also. And Monsieur Teddy love me, nothing but me. When he get up to go away he call: "Where is that child of the gods?" (He make that game of words because I have perhaps two godfathers) And I come, and he console me. Thursday last it was my birthday. Monsieur Teddy devined it because he ask me how much age I have and I say I will have twelve years the 18, and he say in Amerique it is always a great feast and I must to eat a cake very big with snow and ice on it and candles, and so he bring it. I was washing the vessels,[20] and he come in the kitchen and make many foolishness. He whip me (to make laugh) twelve times with a little stick so I grow very big all the year. And then he make me hide my eyes in my apron, and when I open them, I see the cake, big and white like—oh like I know not what—and the twelve candles pink were illuminated and there was my name with the two es writ in chocolate on the snow. And Monsieur Teddy bring also the cold cream; it is rose like the candles and perfumed with vanilla and strawberries. Oh dear godfather, I wanted you be here and have some! Only one time before when I was little I did eat the cold cream and never when it is the war did we eat cake. And it is good like to be in Paradise!