Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 10.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Al I wrote to Florrie Sun. night and told her what had came off and about this fat head forgetting to call her up and I just got a letter back from her and she says her and little Al both of them cried themself to sleep Sat.u.r.day night because I didn't show up and she had let little Al set up till 9 o'clock so as he could see his daddy in a uniform and when I didn't come then or Sun. A.M. neither they thought I didn't care for them no more so they went to the ball game Sun. P.M., and McGraw started another left hander and you probably read what happened to him and I suppose everybody is saying what a whale Faber is and who wouldn't be a whale if they get 5 runs for you in one inning but even if you are a whale that don't excuse you from trying to steal a base that one of your own men all ready got there ahead of you and hasn't left yet.

But Florrie and little Al are comeing out here next Sunday Al and this time they won't be no mix up because I won't depend on no half wit that the minute they become a father they go all to peaces.

But what I wanted to tell you about was Sebastian. Well Al Shorty Lahey was trying to make me believe this bird was a bad egg and that they called him Nick the Blade because he always went a round with a knife and whittled you if you looked X eyed at him but the next time Shorty wants to kid somebody he better try it on some yapp that hasn't been in the big league and I let him think he was stringing me just to see how far he would go with it but if he thought he had me fooled the shoes was on his feet not mine.

Well Al Sebastian's name is just plain Nick without no Blade on it and the only blade he ever pulled was a blade of gra.s.s or something because he use to help take care of the grounds at Washington Pk. before he was drafted and he has been one of my admirers for a long while and that is why he kept looking at me and he says he use to always try and get to the games when it was my turn to pitch and he has been wanting to talk to me ever since we been here but today was the first time he got up the nerve and he never had no intentions of going on leave last Sat. and to prove it he showed me a letter he got from his wife last Friday and she don't spell very good but she spoke in the letter about comeing here to see him this next Sunday and nothing about him comeing there to see her and she is going to bring their 2 kids along and he says he never seen a man with a prettier wind up then I got and all together he is O.K. and when Shorty trys to make you beleive somebody is a murder he ought to pick out a man that looks like the part.

I haven't said nothing to Shorty and I won't but what I will do is play a joke on him right back only I will make it a good one and not no fizzle like some of his.

And oh yes Al they have sent Castle over to the quarter masters dept.

and he won't have a chance to kill n.o.body there except when they come after a pair of shoes.

Your pal, JACK.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 12.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well old pal I am writeing this in the Y.M.C.A. where a man has got some chance to hear yourself think as they say but if you try and write over in the barracks if they don't joggle your arm or tip your seat over for a joke they are all the time jabbering back and forth in foreign languages till you get so balled up that instead of writeing a letter a man is libel to make out his will in Eskimo or something.

Speaking about foreign languages Al the next time I see you I will be talking French like a regular Frenchman and you will have to ask me to translate what I am talking about. Of course I am just jokeing about that because I wouldn't spring a lot of stuff on you that you wouldn't understand and I might just as well go up to a statue and ask them how their father stood his operation or something. But what I am getting at is that I am going to join the French lesson cla.s.s here and its something that you don't have to belong to it unless you want to but I figure a man is a sucker if they don't take advantage of a chance like this because in the first place it don't cost you nothing and in the second place the men that knows how to talk French will have all the best of it when we get over there because suppose you was in Paris and felt like you wanted a gla.s.s of pilsner and if you said it in French they would fetch it to you but if you just said pilsner they wouldn't know if you was asking for something to drink or a nasal dooch or what not.

But besides that Al after we get to France the French officers will want to tip us off on this and that about the Germans and of course they won't talk to the privates but they will only talk to the officers and if I am a officer by that time which it looks like a cinch I will be one by that time at the outside why suppose I was standing by 1 of our genls. and a French genl. wanted to tell him what was what and etc. but couldn't talk nothing but French and our genl. couldn't make head or tales of it then I could act like an interpeter between the both of them and the first thing you know all the high monkey monks when they want to talk back and forth will be pageing Capt. Keefe or Major Keefe or whatever officer I am by that time.

Some of the boys laughed at me tonight when I told them about going to attend the lessons but I will be the one that does the laughing when we get across that old pond and Shorty Lahey the smart alex that I told you about says to me "We won't do all our training with the French army but we will do some of it with the English army so while you are at it you better learn to talk English to." So I said "You better learn to talk English yourself" and he shut his mouth.

Well Al Florrie and little Al will be here to see me Sunday and I can't hardly wait for them to get here and I suppose Florrie will bring along some daintys of some kind that she cooked up herself or maybe got the swede girl to do it but of course I am not worring about whether she brings anything or don't bring anything as long as she brings herself and the kid only most of the wifes that comes out here Sundays brings something along to show they been thinking of you though if I was most of these birds wifes the only time I would think about them would be when I said my prayers at night and then I would thank G.o.d they had joined the army.

Your pal, JACK.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 14.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Al its Sunday night and I been entertaining company.

Florrie and little Al got out here just after noon and I was in the barracks reading about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh b.u.m Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish their jaw for them.

Well of course Florrie didn't beleive him and the next man she asked was Nick Sebastian and he come and got me and you ought to seen Florrie stair when she got a look at me in my uniform and little Al didn't know me at first and when Florrie says to him who is it he says it was the capt. Well Al it is to soon to be calling me a capt. but if they are running this game on the square it won't be long and they will be calling me more then that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I didn't feel so sorry for him when we opened the boxes they had broughten us (p. 65).]

Well Florrie handed me a box and she says I was to not open it till she was gone and then I showed them over the camp and the way the boys staired at Florrie I couldn't help from being proud of her but of course if some of them had of got to fresh I would of fixed them so they wouldn't do no stairing for a couple of wks. Sebastian's wife and 2 kids was here to visit him and we run into them and we all went a round together and I made the remark that it would be nice for Mrs. Sebastian and her kids and Florrie and little Al to all go back to Chi on the same train together and it was O.K. with Mrs. Sebastian but when I and Florrie was alone together for a few minutes she started to ball me out for makeing the suggestion and I asked her what was the matter with it and she says she wasn't going to set in the same seat on the train with a woman that looked like she had left home before she got up and little Al would probably catch something from the 2 Sebastian kids so I said that Mrs. Sebastian done real work for a liveing and you couldn't expect her to look like Sarah Bernhart but Florrie is the kind that if she takes a dislike towards somebody its good night to them and it don't do no good to tell her that a person can't help their looks and that is all the more reason you should try and not hurt their feelings. So Mrs.

Sebastian had a round trip ticket on the C.B. and Q. and so did Florrie but she pretended like hers was on the I.C. and thats the way her and little Al went back so they wouldn't have to set with the Sebastians and take a chance of little Al catching something though from what I seen of the Sebastian kids they looked as strong as a horse and they wasn't no danger of catching nothing from them unless maybe it was the banana habit.

I suppose I would of been a gra.s.s widower long ago if I was ugly and how will it be if I get shot up in the war and Florrie would sew me for a bill of divorce on the grounds that I didn't have no nose to smell the cooking.

Well Al after they had gone Sebastian made the remark that I had a beautiful wife and I couldn't help from feeling kind of sorry for him so I says "Never mind old boy" I said to him "as long as your Mrs. is a good mother and willing to work you should not worry if she is no Eva Tanguay." But I didn't feel so sorry for him when we opened up the boxs they had broughten us and Sebastian's wife had give him doughnuts and a pie and part of a cake and goodys of all kinds and when I opened up my box it was a lb. of candy like you get in a union station for 60 cts and if it wasn't for the picture of a girl on the cover it would be all profit and a man can't eat the picture which was the only part of it that hadn't ran together like chop sooy and Florrie would of made just as big a hit with me if she had of put in the time bakeing me a mess of cookys that she spent toneing up her ear lobs or something.

Well Al I suppose you read about yesterday's game in Chi. I been saying right along that the White Sox was to lucky to loose and the only way I can figure out yesterday's game is that they must be a rule in the National League where you can't change from 1 pitcher to another pitcher till the other team gives their consent. From what I read in the papers Sallee could of been turned loose with his fast ball in a looking gla.s.s factory without damageing the goods and when Jackson and Collins begins to take a toe hold against a left hander its time to summons the Red X.

You will notice Rowland didn't waist no time getting Russell out of there and the next time he starts a left hander will be on the training trip next spring in Wichita where if you beat them to bad they won't give you a card to the Elks.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 16.

_MY CHER AMI:_ I suppose you will think I have gone crazy when you read the way I started this letter out and you will wonder if I have gone crazy. Well Al that is the French word for my dear friend in English so you see I have not gone crazy after all. I took my first lesson last night and it is going to be nuts to learn it because most of the words is just like English only spelled different and you don't say them the same but the man learns us a dozen words and tells us how to say them and we keep saying them over till we get them down and it wont' be long when we got enough of them learned so as we can jabber back and forth in front of the boys that didn't have sense enough to learn it and they won't know if we are calling them names or getting ready to murder them.

Well Al we had Gen. Barry out overlooking us yesterday and he said we was a fine looking bunch of soldiers as he even seen and we put in most of the day digging trenchs just like the ones they got over in Germany and when we get them fixed up we will practice fighting for them till we can go through them Dutchmen like they was fly paper and I wouldn't be surprised Al if we got word soon to pack up and start because Red Sampson one of the boys in our Co. has got a brother thats over there all ready and he is Gen. Pershing's right hand bower and so he gets the dope pretty straight and in a letter Red got from him he says Gen.

Pershing had asked Secty. Daniels to send over the best looking lot of soldiers from each camp and from what Gen. Barry said about us I suppose we will be the first to go but it may not be for a wk. or so because Red said he heard we wasn't going till each Co. had a rifle.

If we do have to go in a hurry I won't be able to write you about where we are leaveing from and etc. on acct. of the censure because the German spy might get next to it and he could wire across to Germany and the submarine U boats would be on the outlook for us. But between you and I Red says we are libel not to go where the submarines can get a crack at us but we may slip around the other way and light in j.a.pan and make the rest of the trip by R.R. and he says we may even not go to France but stay and help the Russians out. So Shorty Lahey was there and he has always got to say something so people will think he knows it all so he said the Russians didn't need n.o.body to help them out because they were pretty near out now. So Red said "You will notice they didn't loose much ground yesterday" and Shorty says "No they only loose 2 miles and they must of been a strong east wind blowing but I will bet you that if we do make the trip that way we will b.u.mp into them along about Ogden Utah." So Red says "No because if they ever get to Utah they will hide in Salt Lake City where the Germans couldn't tell them by their beards."

So then Shorty seen he was getting kidded and shut up.

This A.M. we spent a half hour listening to a speech about the German gas and of course you have read about the gas Al and it isn't like regular gas but its some kind of poison that the Germans lets it loose in the air and it floats across n.o.bodys land and comes to the other trenchs and if you haven't got no mask its good night but we are all going to have masks to wear so the gas can't hurt us. Red says thats one thing where the Russians have got it on us and they don't have to be scared of dying from gastritis because the Germans haven't no gas fast enough to catch up with them.

Well Al the world serious is over just like I said it would be with the White Sox winner and each one of the boys gets $3600.00 and that would of been my share only I loved my country more than a few dollars and I bet the boys feel kind of ashamed of themself to think I was the only one that pa.s.sed up all that jack to work for Uncle Sam at $30.00 per mo. but between you and I Al I have got a scheme where I will make twice that amt. and if some of the rest of the boys here thought about it they could do the same thing but why should I tip them off because you can bet they wouldn't tip me off to a good thing if they thought of it first.

Here is the scheme when a man has got a family the govt. keeps out 1/2 of your pay every month or more if you want them to and then the govt.

sticks the same amt. in with it and sends it to your wife or who ever gets it. Say you are a private and getting about $30.00 per mo. and you tell the govt. to keep out $15.00 of it. So the govt. keeps $15.00 and sticks another $15.00 with it and sends it to your family.

Well Al I am going to tell them to keep out my whole $30.00 per mo. and they will have to put another $30.00 with it and send the $60.00 to Florrie and she won't need it so she can either send it to me or salt it away somewheres in my name and it means I will be getting $60.00 while the rest of them are dragging down $30.00 and if it was just luck on my part I wouldn't think it was hardly fair but when a man figures something out in your head you got a right to take advantage of it and a man that give up a big league salary and the world serious dough to do their bit deserves something extra while the only way some of the rest of these birds could earn $30.00 per mo. outside of the army would be to ask for it with a peace of lead pipe.

Well old pal bon sore for this time and that means good night in French and pretty soon I will be writeing you a whole letter in French only of course I wouldn't do that because it would be like waisting that much paper because they couldn't n.o.body in Bedford make heads or tales out of it and I might just as well save my labor for my pains as they say.

Your pal, JACK.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 18.