The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-17

dred meters. MT. Monsieur told ms | the next time I did that he would put me on the ground for a couple of days. It's wonderful fine, free sen sation to be in entire control of a
 machine whizzing through space, and
 l am awful glad I am doing solo
 ANTl-MIISTACHE LEAGUE frluay no flying; heavy fog and the
 feature of the day was the organization or an anti-mustache league. Needless
 to say had nothing to do with it's or ganlzation. The prime movers were ;
 punch Of jealous pups who couldn't pro- duce the goods. I spent most of the l day in seclusion at the Y M. c. A. but was spotted after while. Into the read [ ihg room they filed with gleaming eyes ana giistening scissors. I darted for the window, but found it barricaded. to an- other window and there, too, I found three men waiting with open arms to re- l celve me, so I sat down and calmly sub
 mitted. Now all cadets here have been forcibly deprived of their much -prided 1 decorations. The rest of the day, like many others, spent in walking, reading and wishing I wasn't broke
 | The next thing of note to happen was the intrusion of neuralgia pain back of my right ear. There was tour de piece this morning. but after making rotten landing l decided to get rid of the pain before trying to fly again. I had similar trouble about year ago and found the cause to be a wisdom tooth. which had I started back into nerve. So went to the dentist We rode into the city and had an X-ray taken of the side of my head. In 10 minutes the plate was de- veloped. Not at all flattering, showed a striking resemblance to Ramases IT. but 1t also showed the roor of my trouble The following morning the dentist re- thA hIrx>,~ +y.t excellent job of it. The operation itself lasted one hour and 10 minutes and was practically painless.
 RIDE IN AN AMBULANCE T went afterwards to my bunk and to sleep, for I knew what to expect as soon as the effects of the dope wore of. Well, it happened all right. two days of 1t in barracks, then the doctor decided to send me to hospital where I could
 be warm and comfortable, and receive
 the proper attention. I had my first and
 hope my last ride in an ambulance.
 We arrived at the hospital, a very large, extensive French one, at about dusk.
 was ushered into a large room and given a bed next to Tommie whose name was
 Charlie. I went immediately to bed for
 felt pretty bum and was soon talked
 was bad thumb. He had had trouble
 with it for long, long time, and dur
 ing that evening and the following two
 days the poor fellow told and retold the
 history of that thumb from it's infancy.
 know that thumb by heart and it's entire family history. You see it had
 become the ruling factor of his life. It
 was the center of the universe to Charlie and it gave him relief and tremendous
 amount of satisfaction and pleasure to
 talk about it; so I just grit my teeth, put on an expression of engrossed inter- est and let him shoot. It did him a lot of good and I could see a daily change
 for the better, but I now see that thumb
 in my sleep.
 After a fine nights sleep I awoke at daybreak, feeling pretty fine, and l
 looked around the room at my pcor room mates. As the day began to break these poor Frenchmen began to wake, It reminded me of the way the sparrows used to wake in the live oak tree by my window down home. A feeble chirp or two, then founder and founder until they were all chirpng, chattering and singing. The nurse comes into build the fire and pass around the bowls of coffee and she chirps ana chatters continually. Then Charlie would ask me how my jaw felt. so as to make an early opening for his thumb.
 None of the men were seriously sick They were all in the conyalcs- cent stage. but nevertheless, suffering the torments of the damned and taking 1t so cheerfully that felt ashamed, positively ashamed. of my puny ail- ment.
 AS the day began to brighten and the room to warm up, one by one they would get up and dress. There was the cheerful soul in the corner recov- ering from leg amputation He was always the first up and singing grand opera at the top of his voice. He would hop over to Charlie and start tickling him. and Charlie would fire his entire trench vocabulary at him in one word.
 'Aiiez' Then he would hop around ana shake hands and bon Jour everyone else Next up was a French sailor with 2 sprained ankle. then . poor bearded