on my poor old arm because when she opened the door and seen me she give a running hop step and jump and dam near killed me. So then she seen my arm in a sling and cried and cried and she says “Oh my poor boy what have you been through.” So I says “Well you have been through something yourself so its 50 50 only I got this from a German.”
Well Al little Al was the cutest thing you ever seen and he grabbed me by the good hand and rushed me in to where the little stranger was laying and she was asleep but we broke the rules for once and all and all it was some party and she is some little gal Al and pretty as a picture and when you can say that for a 3 mos. old its going some as the most of them looks like a French breakfast.
Well I finely happened to think of Sister Marie and I asked where she was at and Florrie says she went back to Texas so I says tough luck and Florrie says I needn’t get so gay the 1st evening home and she says “Any way we have still got a Marie in the house as that is what I call the baby.” So I says “Well you can think of her that way but her name ain’t going to be that as I don’t like the name.” So she says what name did I like and I pretended like I was thinking a wile and finely I says what is the matter with Charlotte. Well Al you will half to hand it to the women for detectives as I hadn’t no sooner said the name when she says “Oh no you can’t come home and name my baby after none of your French nurses.” And I hadn’t told her nothing about a nurse.
Well any way I says I had met a whole lot more Maries then Charlottes in France and she says had I met any Florries and I said no and that was realy the name I had picked out for the kid. So she says well she didn’t like the name herself but it was the only name I could pick out that she wouldn’t be suspicious of it so the little gal is named after her mother Al and if she only grows up ½ as pretty as her old lady it won’t make no differents if she has got a funny name.
Well Al have you noticed what direction the Dutchmens is makeing their drive in now? They started going the other way the 18 of July and it was 2 days ahead of that time that our regt. was moved over to the war and now they are running them ragged. Well Al I wished I was there to help but even if I was worth a dam to fight I couldn’t very well leave home just now.
The Busher Reenlists
Friend Al: Well Al I was down to see the Dr. for the last time today as he said they wasn’t no use in me comeing down there again as my arm is just as good is new though of course its weak yet on acct. of being in a sling all this wile and I haven’t used it and I suppose if it was my right arm it would take me a long wile to get it strenthened up again to where I could zip the old ball through there the way like I use to but thank god its the left arm that the Dutchmens shot full of holes. But at that it wouldn’t make no differents if it was the left arm or the old souper either one as I have gave up the idear of going back in to the old game.
I bet you will be surprised to hear that Al as I am still a young man just a kid you might say compared to some of the other birds that is still pitching yet and getting by with it and I figure that if I would stick in the game my best yrs. is yet to come. But that isn’t the point Al but the point is that after a man has took part in the war game all the other games seems like they was baby games and after what I went through acrost the old pond how could a man take any interest in baseball and it would be like as if a man set up all night in a poker game with the sky for the limit and when they come home their wife asked them to play a hand of jack straws to see which one of them had to stick the ice card in the window. No man can do themself justice Al if you don’t take your work in ernest whether its pitching baseball or takeing a bath.
Besides that Al I figure that even a man like I am that’s put up like a motor Laura you might say can’t last forever in baseball and why not quit wile you are young and have still got the old ambition to start out in some other line of business that a man can last in it all their life and probably by the time I got to be the age where I would half to give up pitching if I stuck at it, why by that time I can work myself up to the head of some business where I would be drawing $15,000.00 per annum or something and no danger of getting kicked out of it when the old souper finely lays down on me.
And besides that when a man has got a wife and 2 kiddies that the whole 3 of them has got the world beat why should I go out
