The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1918-07-26

:
(Received Chicago July 18th, 1918,
written in red ink
Dear Cousin Alice: I am in receipt
of peach of letter from you, which
reached me some time ago, and | must
say / was more than pleased to receive
it because it put me in mind of the
time when you and | used to take those
wheelbarrow trips together and argue
about whether a wooden leg was as
good as cork one or not. But those
days are far behind us now and we are
at war, Edgerton has gone dry and in
fact the whole world is on the blink.
Now Alice, | don't know just what
kind of line you like to have fellow
hand you in a letter so am going to
give you few bare facts as it were.
You asked me if Lieut.. Pelton was any
relation to the Peltons in Edgerton.
Nope, not that he noze of.
Got a letter from George Sweeney
just the other day and he says he is
getting along fine. see that you are
under the impression that our incOm-
ing mail is censored. Well, it isn't.
am not anywhere near that French
widow with whom You are corresponds
ing. | forgot to say | received the
picture of Eddie McDonough o. K.
must say he is looking fine and / only
hope he looks that good after the war.
You handed me bit of French in the
letter, too. Well, we will let that
matter drop right here, for can hardly
write English, let alone French. Yes,
the French people in general are very
likeable, but everything is so far be-
hind the times over here that it's a
cinch they'll never catch up, with their
present means of transportation.
Pardon me if l write all over the
paper, cause it's all | have, and par
don also the passionate hue of this
writing fluid. l don't own it.
My description of France will be
short, as the subject is too painful for
me to dwell on long, and few words
will do the job. The women do take
their clothes down to the creek to wash
them as you have been told. France
consists mostly of the following articles
classify them to suit yourself: wine,
champagne, oxen, barns, dug-outs,
barbed wire fences, wooden shoes,
trenches and soldiers. The French SOL
diers can sure fight and they good
bunch of fellows, | think We are in
the trenches now to make it again, and
l am writing this in my dug-out and
the huge guns are making their pres
ence known outside chow awfulD.
Suppose you've heard about the
coolies and the size and amount of the
rats here. It's all too troo, Edgar, all
too trooi You hear lot of scamper-
ing around inside the walls of the dug
out, then it will cease. If you take
casual glance about the place mo-
ment after you will see an army of the
said creatures peering out of different
holes art you and figuring on making a
raid on your reserve rations. Many a
morning [ woke up shivering because
some rat had borrowed my blankets.
When you see one walking away from
you, he looks like an elephant doing:
Backward, march, The coolies are not
bad because you carry them with you,
and in fact fellow becomes kind of
attacked to them. | hear that General
Pershing is going to give all the boys
an hour off each day, the time to be
utilized to catch up on their scratching.
/ haven't got bad brand though and
hardly ever have to scratch in more
than one place at time.
| am sending all my friends small
bouquet of flowers, so ] picked one
"just for you" They are hand-picked
and picked this morning while you were
[ got them out in No Mans
Land when we were on patrol. Ro-
mantle, isn't it? But I'll bet old Chi
cago is not overrun with bouquets fresh
from No Mans Land in France. You
will notice that the bouquet is intact.
Well, that's the way that breed of a
flower grows over here. | don't fancy
the color (orange) myself, but l did
not have time to sort out the colors.
We have one or two Boche snipers
around here that are pretty active.
One of my men has declared war on a
sniper because yesterday when he poked
his head up, the sniper put bullet SO
close to his face in the parapet that he
hasn't got the mud out of his eyes yet
o, this isn't such a bad war. It has
been raining for about four days and
the trenches are full of mud.
Well, must wind up now. Pm
sending little French bank note that
might be of interest to you. I've sent
lots of them to different people. 1t is
so centimes (sonteems) or half franc
and is worth about 10 cents in civilized
Give my love to Aunt Mary and ac-
cept little yourself. Hope this finds
you both in as good health as I am, but
not with such wet feet.
Your long lost cousin,