They's enough noise in here so as a man can't hear yourself think let alone writeing a letter so if I make mistakes in spelling and etc. in this letter you will know why it is. They are singing the song now about the baby's prayer at twilight where the little girl is supposed to be praying for her daddy that's a soldier to take care of himself but if she was here now she would be praying for him to shut up his noise.
Well we was in the trenchs all day not the regular ones but the ones they got for us to train in them and they was a bunch of French officers trying to learn us how to do this in that and etc. and some of the time you could all most understand what they was trying to tell you and then it was stuff we learnt the first wk. out to Camp Grant and I suppose when they get so as they can speak a few words of English they will tell us we ought to stand up when we hear the Star spangle Banner. Well we was a pretty sight when we got back with the mud and slush and everything and by the time they get ready to call us into action they will half to page us in the morgue.
About every 2 or 3 miles today we would pass through a town where some of the rest of the boys has got their billets only they don't call it miles in France because that's to easy to say but instead of miles they call them kilometts. But any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that when one of the French soldiers gets a few days leave off they half to spend most of it looking for land marks so as they will know if they are where they live. And they couldn't even be sure if it was warm weather and their folks was standing out in front of the house because all the familys is just alike with the old Mr. and the Mrs. and pigs and a cow and a dog.
Well Al they say its pretty quite these days up to the front and the boys that's been around here a wile says you can hear the guns when they's something doing and the wind blows this way but we haven't heard no guns yet only our own out to where we have riffle practice but everybody says as soon as spring comes and the weather warms up the Germans is sure to start something. Well I don't care if they start anything or not just so the weather warms up and besides they won't never finish what they start unless they start going back home and they won't even finish that unless they show a whole lot more speed then they did comeing. They are just trying to throw a scare into somebody with a lot of junk about a big drive they are going to make but I have seen birds come up to hit in baseball Al that was going to drive it out of the park but their drive turned out to be a hump back liner to the pitcher. I remember once when Speaker come up with a couple men on and we was 2 runs ahead in the 9th. inning and he says to me "Well busher here is where I hit one a mile." Well Al he hit one a mile all right but it was 1/2 a mile up and the other 1/2 a mile down and that's the way it goes with them gabby guys and its the same way with the Germans and they talk all the time so as they will get thirsty and that's how they like to be.
Speaking about thirsty Al its different over here then at home because when a man in uniform wants a drink over here you don't half to hire no room in a hotel and put on your nightgown but you can get it here in your uniform only what they call beer here we would pore it on our wheat cakes at home and they got 2 kinds of wine red and white that you could climb outside of a bbl. of it without asking the head waiter to have them play the Rosery. But they say the champagne is O. K. and I am going to tackle it when I get a chance and you may think from that that I have got jack to throw away but over here Al is where they make the champagne and you can get a qt. of it for about a buck or 1/2 what you would pay for it in the U. S. and besides that the money they got here is a frank instead of a dollar and a frank isn't only worth about $.19 cents so a man can have a whole lot better time here and not cost him near as much.
And another place where the people in France has got it on the Americans and that is that when they write a letter here they don't half to pay nothing to mail it but when you write to me you have got to stick a 5 cent stamp on it but judgeing by the way you answer my letters the war will be all over before you half to break a dime. Of course I am just jokeing Al and I know why you don't write much because you haven't got nothing to write staying there in Bedford and you could take a post card and tell me all the news that happened in 10 yrs. and still have room enough yet to say Bertha sends kind regards.
But of course its different with a man like I because I am always where they is something big going on and first it was baseball and now its a bigger game yet you might say but whatever is going on big you can always count on me being in the mist of it and not buried alive in no Indiana X roads where they still think the first bounce is out. But of course I know it is not your fault that you haven't been around and seen more and it ain't every man that can get away from a small town and make a name for themself and I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky.
Well Al enough for this time and I will write soon again and I would like to hear from you even if you haven't nothing to say and don't forget to send me a Chi paper when you get a hold of one and I asked Florrie to send me one every day but asking her for favors is like rolling off a duck's back you might say and its first in one ear and then the other.
Your pal, JACK.