The Kendrick gazette. [volume] (Kendrick, Idaho) 1892-1968, 1918-09-06
Letter From Arnold Petrick
France, August 2,

m In announcer place from WHERE
/ wrote my last letter and l must
say it is much more agreeable, too.
/ was in rest camp then, consisting
of tents, but now am in a small
village. We are billeted out in the
town few men in place. We vets
are in private house all by oursel-
YES. We have four large rooms.
The French family live in the
other end of the house. They GER
tainly are nice people.
There is young lady here who
teaches US French. think am
doing pretty good for the time |
have been at it. | have learned a
whole lot of words and l also have
French primer and the girl is teach
ing me the pronunciation. only
wish l could stay here couple Of
months and am sure | could get
along fairly we'll.
These French people seem to
worship American soldiers. Moth
ing seems too good for US. Of
course they don't give us anything,
but we can't expect them to be-
cause four years Of war~Mould> drain
any nations resources. But they
never tire of doing things for US.
Of course their ways are lot
different from ours, but it is easy to
comprehend the difference and to
conform to it.
Wherever you see soldier talk
ing to a civilian you see someone
having trouble Of his own. French
coming from a native sounds like a
constant stream and from soldier,
like a wagon wheel going over
boulders.
don't know how far | am from
the front but it must be 300 or 400
miles. The country is very beauti-
full. Fine shade trees all along the
roads, every mile or two a small
village nestled among the trees and
vineyards galore. Wine flows like
water down here.
French houses are very different
than English. They are not all built
alike like the English, One sees
very few wood houses. Everything
is rock and sunbaked mud or brick
There are very few two-story build
ings. The roofs are tile or slate
and trees everywhere and then more
trees. In the country almost every
field is surrounded with them anc
in some places the fence rows are
twenty feet wide. The country
really has so many trees that
believe they encroach upon the veg
citation. The streets Of the villages
are very narrow and there are prac'
tically no sidewalks. Just narrow
walks of brick about two or three
feet wide. One sees NO autos ant
also no wagons. Everybody use
carts. They haul the darndes
loads on them you ever saw. TIT
heavy burden carts are very high
the wheels are over seven feet II
diameter on some of them. The.
use two horses strung out, tn
wheel horse has an unenviable jo|
too. The driver almost invariabl
walks on the ground beside tn
cart.
The methods of cultivation on tn
farms lseem to be ratheri primitive
saw few binders but they are al
American made. l saw four or fv
Deerings and two or three McCo,
micks. | saw one reaper, they wer
used in the U. S. so years age
Most of the farms are small an
they use cradle to cut the graf
and bind it by hand.
There are hundreds of acres Q
Vineyards in this part of the countr!
You can get most any brand of win
for from 20 cents to so cents
quart and believe me, we get OF
share of it, too. Nobody gets drum
though, because we can't afford
do it.
We had to march eight mil'
from our train to this place in tt
hot sun. 1t was some job, too. "
stoppedlat one place to rest, in fa
it was just at the edge of our tow
and woman came out with watt
for US. We all washed our han'
and face and the can of water soc
played out. Sorrow went aft,
more and the people gave him son
wine, so | made it point to s