Clearwater Republican. [volume] (Orofino, Idaho) 1912-1922, 1918-02-01
ROBERT MOLLOY WRITES OF
LIFE IN SUNNY FRANCE


Dear Mother and Dad The mail
came in night before last and l re-
ceived five letters from you and one
from Mark. 1t is pretty far between
mail calls but they come thick when
they do come. l am sending you a
little verse found about mail call in
the army.
am getting along fine with my
work. Have been made first class
which adds IS more per month to my
pay.
l wish you were over here to see
how funny everything looks. The
streets are all narrow and winding
around something fierce. The main
street of the town is about as wide
as the sidewalks in our cities, and
the sidewalks just about wide elio-
ugh for two to walk on, and you
| can imagine what it Is when there
is crowd going In opposite direc-
tions. The streets are of stone and
as they won't allow any vehicles of
autos on the main street most of
| the people walk in the middle of
| the street And the street cars. You
can ride all over town for q sou.
Most of them are open cars, not
much larger than our big automo-
| biles.
The Y. NJ. c. A. gave a nice lit
tie program here Christmas. A big
part of it was in French, tho, but
even then it seemed good. And our
dinner Christmas was fine We were
allowed Two hours and half noon
and we surely made use of it.
The poorer classes here wear
wooden shoes. When half a dozen
women or girls come walking down
the stone street it sounds like a
bunch of cattle or horses. They
usually wear slippers and the wood
shoes over them. Some have hay
tucked in around them to keep their
feet warm, l guess. And lot of
the kids go around all winter with
short stockings and about three or
four inches of bare legs. There are
lot of coins in French money worth
about a cent and two cents. The
soldiers started something by giving
few of these to some kids and now
about every kid you meet holds out
his hand and says tPennie" and the
J same way with cigarettes. You see
|, little kids five or six years Odd
: standing around smoking cigarettes
! to beat the band SO the authorities
put UP posters forbidding anyone to
! give kids cigarettes or pennies.
This Is a great country for stone.
All the houses, streets, and steps etc
: are all stone. When you once get
} them up suppose they last hundreds
! of years and there isn't any danger
of them burning down like our
!, buildings don't believe there Ii
} such a thing as fire department
. over here.
We have permission now to veal
: the spiral leggings. l am going t6
get q pair down town tonight The
canvass get dirty every day and af
ter you wash them many times the,
get white and impossible to keel
clean.
We have to be in quarters at
at night unless working and get VI
at 5. When we get up here you ar
just going to bed there. There i
about hours difference and we g.
to bed about the time you are eat
| ing dinner.
H Send all the news you can from
the States. The only papers her
is an issue of the New York Herald
printed In Paris. and sometimes t.
| London Times,
Il ROBERT. MoLLoY.
II In second letter, dated Januar
LIST, Robert writes to his parents i
Orofino as follows
am sending q couple Of souye
Mrs Of France. don't know wheth
er they are hand work or not bu
they are pretty cheap over here.
am going to buy some kind of phi
: low cover before leaving here. The
have some dandies for 20 francs an
up.
n Well. we start in another yea
= today. only hope it will be a
n over by this time next year Ono
: in a while l run across Frenc
soldier ON leave who can etalk pre-
RI ty good English and 1t Is sure intel
n esting to hear their experiences.
u We had little snowstorm toda
" but 1t seems unusually warm fc
this time of year. We have dr.
quarters and plenty to eat SO CUES
y we are more lucky than y lot of tn
n boys.
le Send few papers once In a Will
as We don't get a great deal of new
from the States, An occasional Pc.
- and sometimes an Oregonian. Ths
= Is about all we'get here.
q guess the Y. M C. A. is to Civ
a little program tonight. II l hay
If time am going down.
r. ROBERT MoLLOY.