Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-03-28


| the headquarters of the Second Field
Artillery Brigade, in France, has
written some interesting letters to
the home folks, extracts from which
are printed herewith:
II know you won't mind my writ
ing this to you on the typewriter, as
| 1t is not only more convenient for
me. burt quite a bit more legible for
| you, l imagine. It's my first at
tempt on the good old machine,
since the days when L used to pound
them out, in the editorial rooms of
the Telegraph.
I'm afraid I've become little
rusty in the use of it; also this one,
is a French model and has an en-
tirely separate board for the big
letters, which is very confusing and
trying on the religion.
'I sure wish l could bat out few
succinct thoughts for publication, but
If l were so much as to suggest such
thing the wrath of the gods would
descend upon me and life would be-
come very hectic-though l can't
say that it is awfully calm now at
that
The other day received my first
and to date, only package from
home, namely, one pair of pajamas
enveloping several very fine pieces
of Mr.. Peters well-known chocolate,
the which have disappeared with alb
solutely incredible rapidity and l
now sit in hopeful expectation of
more to follow.
Had a wonderful bit of a meal
last night, consisting of three fried
eggs, some ham and wonderful
cherry preserves. l seemed to be
the most athletic member of the
party as far as speaking the language
| is concerned, so it fell to my lot to
harangue the good women in some
very medieval French and rather
profane English. the result of which
was fine, but the means was darn
poor"
"As regards the end of the war,
there are a million different ideas
from as many sources. I've mad
some fine conversations with the
Frenchmen here, some of them
rather profitable, others just anus
| ing. They're an amusing crowd and
q great people!
None of the stuff shipped has ap-
peared as yet. 1 keep looking for
ward from day to day, for that
chocolate, but the mailman is most
unfavorable to us and not even a
postcard presents itself. I wonder
how many of my letters are COM
| ing through to you in good shape. l
hope all of them. My mandolin still
stands nobly by me and whenever l
feel at all blue, a few tunes help
amazingly. The thing hasn't been
much bother enroute, and is worth
more than it's trouble. l am quite
glad l thought of bringing it.
"There are lots of German pris-
oners around here, but we are not
allowed to speak to them or have
ANYTHING to do with them. Some of
them look to be no older than 1 and
others quite old-gray boards, in
fact. I feel sorry for them, for L
think some of them may have come
from quite decent homes and few,
the very young ones, look rather
pathetic-sort of a dulled apathetic
appearance; really as though they
have not yet realized that they were
really in the war. A tough lot, and
not one to be envied. They do
menial labor about the camp.
Thank you a thousand times for
the packages. I received three in
the last ten days, two with pajamas
and chocolate, and one with tobac-
co.. The pajamas. as l may have
said before, gave me a million-do
lar sensation and the chocolate, be-
ing American and very nice and
rich in comparison with the deleted
affair they censor out to us here,
was most acceptable and is disap-
pearing with the speed of snow
ball in Germany.
EVERY one is all for him over
I T1aa
other night we were having a re-
union in Downey's room and the
banjos were going like mad, when
the door opened and the Colonel ap-
peared Everyone Jumped to atten-
ton imme ediately, of course. but the
Colonel merely waved his hand and
said he'd only dropped in to hear the
] music. He sat there with his kid
officers and men and acted like a
regular boy with them. They all
thought he was slick and rather q
distinction with other officers of the
post. His officers are very proud of
him."
"I was overjoyed the other day
when the mail orderly came in and
presented me with eight letters and
a package, the latter being the
Christmas box of nuts and candy
which disappeared with disconcert-
ing speed. I am to leave here in a
short time and go up to a town a
certain number of miles behind the
French front, for the purpose of
further study. Some sort of special
intelligence work, sound ranging, the
location of gun positions by the
sound of the projectiles, questioning
of German prisoners and all manner
of other interesting things. l under
! stand. we are to be there and possi-
bly, along the British front for sew
| eral weeks
"I am here in this little town -
where we have been billetted with
other ambulance men for the last
few days and awaiting orders to pro-
ceed to the front, which is not very
far away, as one can hear the guns
quite plainly all of the time. and the
bursts of anti-aircraft shells also are
quite visible, although the enemy
plane cannot be seen on account of
it's height. The other night Boche
planes came over and did a little
bombing, accompanied by much
noise and lights from anti-aircraft
and search lights. Great stuff!
I'VE don't know at all where we
are going, but we certainly are on
our way and I'm looking for an in
teresting time Of it."
ct think in my last letter 1 told
YOU we were on our way to have a
look at how things were managed
on the front line. We are here now