The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1918-01-10
Some Interesting Letters
TO the Folks at Home
Ernest Milan Writes
Writes of Life and
Customs in France

Mr. and Mrs. A II. McI.ain have re-
Gently received the following inter
esting letter from their son. Lieut.
Ernest McI4ain, who is with the army
In France:
Monday. Dec. 3, 1917.
am officer of the day today SO can
stay In doo,s and have a little spare
time to write. 1t IS terribly cold.
showed last night and is doing SO in
small gusts this morning. and it is
mighty disagreeable to go out and
stay all day with troops in such wealth
er as we are now having. and who
ever imagines that an officers job in
war is all strewn with flowers and
roses Ia badly mistaken-we work
from early morning till late at night
with ali the responsibility also. How
ever It An a fine thing. I am now hav-
ing actual experience with troops and
becoming used to hardships and many
disagreeable things and I am practic-
ally sure Il Ia merely leading to some
thing better.
Most of the Regiments here In
France arc "bliieted," which means
living in high lofts in houses and the
officers are in rooms in private
houses The rooms however are not
like wo are used to. bare floors. mar
row walls. and cold as the outdoors.
-Nr..,n-x,o,, ,,,Af,o v,r ,,o<xrnvpato opd 7
;swsre away at formation. our stun was
bodily moved out by the robust land
lady and deposited in the hall below.
The door was locked and che depart
dior a nieghboring village. ! never
wac 40 sore before in all my life. Up
on returning. here was all my stun in
great mess on the floor. safty razors
all over the floor and my pajamas. etc.
making q nice rug.
You can plainly see the predicament
! I was In. out in the street with every
billet in town full. and no time to look
for stray one. But finally late last
night we located q much better place
with fireplace and are now better
satisfied than before.
That is just an example of what we
have had to contend with constantly
and It becomes mighty trying to a
mans nerves sometimes. The main
trouble is language. and when there IL
dispute you have to run all over the
place to find somebody who can talk
to them. But imagine that when
return that I'll have many good
laugh about some of tho incidents
which have already happened. altho
I they aren't a darn bit comical now.
This | believe must be almost the
muddiest country IN the world tunless
maybe Holland, which I haven't had
the occasion to aee.) Tho French all
wear wooden shoes large enough To
ft right over the ordinary shoes and
they are good things When they en-
| ter a house they clip OF the wooden
shoes and have clean. dry feet while
we splash right in. All the roads OF
any consequence which we use. We
/ have had to rock before any hauling
could be done.
! The French style Of threshlng grain
is interesting-the OLD style with a
horse on q sort of rolling stairway.
Father has undoubtedly seen 1t used.
Also Saturday l raw two old men
beating the grain with old fai's.
| One of these Sundays I want to go
/ to church II time affords and witness
a service. They are very ardent
church going people. Almost every
crossroads has little cross with q
kneeling block. They of course all
pray for. peace to France. but are 30
antagouistic toward the Germans that
even the mention of the word Bosch
will cause Gre to leap into their eyes.
7 started talking little German the
other night to couple of them and
almost got slaughtered.
Well. will close for this time. but
will try to write just as often as pos.
sible.
Your loving son.
ERNEST.