New Britain herald., 1918-10-03

looked out of the car door and saw the large moon shining down on the round tower I concluded it was right l for that was all that was in sight. When troops are moving as we were no one knows where they are going and everyone is anxious to know, so that when a troop train stops generally
 the following questions are eX-
 changed: Where are you from and
 where are you going, what outfit is yours and what kind of a place is it. , So of course the question that was flung at the lone guard who was walk ing his post was, what place is this? Although he was an American soldier he answered in broken English: This is Lunery." The next question was: Where is the camp? He answered, there is no camp" So we were told to detrain. We marched to a vacant lot, where, after pitching our dog tents, and re- moving about thousand stones, final ly had a place to lie down.
 The next day we marched to Ro- seire, and were billetted at the Cha ; teau La Grande Roseire. This cha teau and barns were built nine hun dred years ago. They are of stone and tile and have stood their years very SOOu. l He CIldlSdu was once the palace of the king and was occupied by the Germans, during their invasion of France in 1870. Twice during the present war the inhabitants here had prepared to move on the threatened invasion by the Germans. There is an old man around here who is twice as old as the buildings, he wears d pair of wooden shoes which are three times as old as he. He has on pair of trousers which positively will never wear out He has a goodly crop of l portieres on his face and we call him l Alfalfa.
 l No American troops have even been ] in this part of france before and the ! people here just adore the Sammie ! I became quite popular in the village, especially among the children. I am known as the biscuit sergeant be- l cause I gave biscuits to the children who visited our billet. Everything ! here is about two hundred years be- ! hind the times But life is very l A1easant at that. We look across ] fie>9 of golden wheat, see the straight ! rows of the blue slated and the red l tiled roofs of the little village. There l is little church steeple just in front l of the setting sun an dOff to the right ! we see beautiful large rainbow. We l see the shepherd boy in the field l watching the s>>eep. We meet a prim | little miss of eight with a white apron l on and carrying little basket on her ! arm driving along in front of her a l flock of clean white geese. We see the ! women washing the clothes in the river and we see the old men wearing wooden shoes. I entered into a con- versation with one of these men. Be- <, cause I could not understand French 1 nor he English, is no reason why we could not talk Then I gave him a ] cigarette, a thing I will never do 1 again. He threw his arms around ! me and kissed me again and again. But France is building up. We see
 new railways being built by the
 Americans. New buildings and new l docks. There is no complaining any 1 where and they place a great deal of I confidence in the Tanks. They have \ reasons to be. We have Jerry on the run now and we arc going to keep ! him running. He is getting all that is coming to him and then some. We are near an aviation field and all day ! long arships are buzzing over our l heads and some of them land in a lot
 right beside us. They perform some
 wonderful feats such as looping the
 loop nine times, flying upside down
 and the falling leaf. The American
 aviators have the credit of being the
 best and most daring in the world.
 They are going to do things to Jerry
 when they get going, too. I hope you
 won't take anything I have written in
 this letter in the nature of complaint
 as l don't mean it that way. All the
 boys are in excellent spirits and are
 feeling fine and find a great deal of
 enjoyment in the surroundings and i there is no complaining anywhere.
 This 302Dd M. G. E. is a bunch of ; fine big strong fellows and nothing
 can beat them, it would be impossible ! 10 make them feel depressed. I wish hat l had more time and space to tell you everything but these arc pretty ; busy days for me so l have to say 1 Good Bye, with the hope that you will , write to me soon.