Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-12-13

placed It the doors to keep out civil
ians, but they were not proof against
the tears and entreaties Of mothers.
What happened in those cases l can
not describe. am sure that the most
hardened man would have felt things
which he had forgotten were possible.
Had you been there you would have
thought those cars were consecrated.
But we were not out Of sight Of the
lights of the capitol dome before all
tears and entreaties were forgotten
and those boys, now men with duty
to perform, gave themselves over TO
a night of revelry, singing and jok-
ing together.
"Of our stay at Crawling | will say
because nothing happened
much outside of routine. We stayed
long enough though to get thorough
ly sick of soldering as we were kept
in pretty close confinement and the
were many.
October LIST everybody came to
the train to wish us good luck as we
entrained for the border. From the
time we left Grayling until we were
side tracked in FL Paso was one hum
dred and three hours. This was con-
sidered quite speedy journey, con-
the time we were laid up for
repairs on one of the trucks.
"At the time / was acting as cook
SO had plenty of time for observa-
ton as / only had to work a couple
of hours a day. There was nothing
much of interest until after we left
Chicago and entered the corn belt of
Illinois. Here / saw quite a few
fields of corn which would have caus-
ed us quite lot of trouble to har-
vest in Michigan. Imagine passing
miles and miles of country
with nothing in sight except the dead
stalks of corn. There were very few
barns to be seen but nearly every
farmer lived in big white house with
a garage in the rear.
"At dusk the second day we stop
ped at a small town called Carlins-
Vile for a little recreation. Here is
located a small college called Black
burn. Some of the girls there were
anxious to show their culinary abil-
ty so they brought numerous cakes
and lots of fudge for our criticism
and / am sure that they were well
pleased with it. We had supper all
ready in the cook car and the girls
cause came up and tried to kid us
because they said that men absolute
y could not cook. I'm not so sure
that our cooking would receive the
same commentator as theirs or that
we would have received any medals
put the men managed to get along
With it.
"Of course it was rather difficult
% cook on a swaying car travelling
forty miles an hour but we always
to have something. An
average meal consisted of roast beef,
baked beans, boiled potatoes with
brown gravy, tapioca pudding, bread
md butter, pickles, cheese and coffee.
For breakfast we had bacon or ham
md eggs with fried potatoes, bread
Ind butter with coffee. Speaking Of
,apioca pudding reminds me of one
fellow who told me that while in
Texas he was going to see tapioca
rec.
GAS we approached st. Louis, Mo-,
me of the Pullman porters COLLECTED
some money to buy some of that
famous beverage which made Mil
waukee jealous He left the train
With about $500 of good negotiable
money and none of us have seen him
since. / reckon they must be anti
there as all the stores
Jaw were saloons. Here we crossed
he 'ole Mississippi'as the porter
,alled it.
"From st. Louis to Kansas City is
me of the most beautiful and popular
If tourists routes in the states. For
eighty miles the railroad follows the
)ank of the Missouri river. How
EVER, we saw but little of the seem
Try as we passed through in the
hight. For the same reason we saw
lone of Kansas famous wheat fields.
eve passed from Kansas into
mall portion of Oklahoma, then
through a corner of Texas into New
Mexico. From Kansas City on was
he most interesting part of the jour
ley. Far across the plains we be-
ran to see butts and small ranges
IF mountains. The atmosphere in
he southwest is so clear that objects
those that stand against
he skyline seem much nearer than
hey really are. The country be-
anne very dry and we began to see
OTIS of cactus. We travelled for
more than a hundred miles without