Purls Before Swine
Camp Grant, Nov. 4.
Friend Al: Well Al they have begin to bust up our regt. and take men away from it and the men they take will get to France before the rest of us the lucky stiffs but they don’t send them right to France from here but they send them down south to the national guards camps and fill up the national guards with them and the national guards are going to get across the pond first because Secty. Daniels wants to save the good regts. for the finish.
Well Al they can’t send me to France to soon but it looks like they wasn’t a chance for a man like I to get sent with the national guards because the men we are sending down south is the riff and raff you might say who we want to get rid of them so when Secty. Daniels sends word that the national guards at such and such a place wants 7 or 800 men the officers here picks them out from amidst the kitchen policemen and the guard house.
It looks now like the real soldiers that they got here would be here maybe all winter but between you and I Al I got a scheme to beat that game. I found out today that they are going to start a officers training camp here in Jan. and if a man makes good in it they will give him a lieut. or a capt. and they won’t be no riff and raff allowed in the camp only men that would make a good officer so I guess I won’t have no trouble getting in the camp and once I win my lieut. or capt. bars they will probably send me straight to France to take command.
Things are going along OK without much news to write about. Sarah Bernhart the French comedian was in Rockford Friday and come out to give the boys a treat and for some reason another the most of the boys fell all over their self trying to get up close to her and get her to smile at them. Well Al everybody to their own taste but from what I seen of her she would be perfectly safe around me and if she is a day old she is 50 yrs. old and I will bet money on it. Any way I wouldn’t trade Florrie for a dozen like she.
Camp Grant, Nov. 7.
Friend Al: Here is one for you Al and its just between you and I because I wouldn’t have no one else hear about it for the world. Yesterday we was all presented with some sox made out of knitting and they come in a bunch from the Red X and when I was going to bed I thought I would try mine on and see if they fit and if they didn’t maybe I could trade with somebody that they did. Well Al I stuck my foot down in 1 of them and my toe run into something funny and I pulled my foot out and stuck my hand down in it and pulled out a note that was folded in side of the sock. Well of course I opened the note up and read it and I will copy down what it said. It says “Dear Soldier Boy, you may never see me but if you can spare time to write me just a few lines it will make me happier than any one in the world for I am oh so lonesome. You won’t disappoint me will you Soldier Boy?” And it was signed Lone Star but down below she had wrote her name and address. Her name is Miss Lucy Chase and she lives in Texas.
Well Al I can’t help from feeling sorry for her and if it wasn’t for Florrie and little Al I would write her a note back and thank her for the sox though between you and I they are to small and try and say something that would cheer her up. But of course Florrie wouldn’t like for me to do it and a married man shouldn’t ought to be monking around like that and lead a girl on though of course if I did write to her the first thing I would tell her would be that I am married.
But what has been puzzling me is where she seen me. Maybe it was 1 of the times we played in Texas in the spring trip either that or she seen my picture somewheres. Well Al it must of been a picture without my feet in it or she would of made the sox bigger and I wish she had of because I don’t feel like tradeing them off to nobody now that I know they was made for me by a admirer. Laying all jokes to 1
