Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1918-05-30
Tom Lindsay Is
Now ''0ver There"
Tells How Marine Corps Are
Taking to War Work on
French Soil

date of March %, and which only ar.
rived here from France within the
past few days says: 81 wrote few
lines on the transport to the folks at
home, but the way the mails are rum
ming this may arrive first. You
will, however, have gotten the card
l mailed in Washington, D. c.. that
was sent forward to Langdon as soon
as we had safely crossed over.
This is sure the funniest old country,
everything old fashioned, and 80 diff
ferent and behind the times with you
folks over there. OF course all that
l have seen are the farming people and
the working class. Their dress is quite
odd. The funniest of all is their big
wooden shoes, which the women and
Many of the men wear. They go
clanking along the pavements making
noise Ike shod horse. Most of
them have straw in the bottom of them
for socks. Of course there are some
won en- have regular shoes and lots of
PRETTY babies running and crawling
along. They all seem to take US for
young American millionaires, and l
guess we pretty nearly compared to
the condition of some of them overhere
The women dom t seem to have heard
of the washing machine or even an or
binary wash tub. They all take their
clothes to pnblc wash house and
scrub them. There are pools of water
surrounded by smooth fiat stones and
l saw twenty or thirty women ga.
the1ed around these down on their
knees scrubbing their clothes with g
brush. Then they lay them out on the
grass and on the bushes to dry. The
women seem to be doing erythinl
here. You see them driving into towr
with their awkward big one horse carts
filled with milk cans and they appea,
to be happy and contented. The people
of the town turned out enmasse wher
we came ashore from the transport.
1t is the children over here tina
4 make you laugh. One little girl, jus
big enough to stand or her feet hat
learned just two words of English ant
as we marched by you could hear hel
saying "Good Boys, ""Good Boys,
just as loud as she could. They al
seem to know how to ask for tobacc,
and when one little frog" about foul
years old didn't get any he started
to swear in English and he seemed tt
know the cuss words too. The little
girls, and some of the big ones, too,
offered US roses and magnolias fol
cigarettes or tobacco. | don't know
whether they were bummlog it fol
themselves or for their daus. Tobac
co su.e enough is scarce here We al
brought big supply with US and left
orders for more, which will follow
later. l am smoking Bull Durham
cigarettes myself and have a cartoon
whit me and more coming. l have
also got two car toon's of Camels-
that ought to last me some time, al
though this is quite "gimmee'
gang that I'm with.
This French money is quite hard
problem with US changed u. S.
money into French this morning and
now l don't know how much l have
got. 1t takes five of their smallest
coins, centime, to make one of our
pennies and their paper money looks
like soap wrappers. Their largest
coin is franc, worth twenty-five
cents now, but its value huctuates or
changes lot.
The NewYork H I'D prints paper
in Paris through which we get the
United States news as we'll as the
latest war dope and there's lots of
interesting things here that l would
like to tell you about, but must not
and will save 'em till 1 get back
home. This is great trip we fellows
are getting for the little we'eve
done so far for Unlce Sam. What if
they do get few of US? The big
result will worth it and more too.
You can depend upon it that a good
many Huns will go over for everyone
of US fighting cocks that get hit. We
have no idea what we are going to
do or when we are going to do it,,
and couldn't tell you if l did
l will be getting about $50. 90 q
month clear money over here. We
get So month extra for foreign
service; So. for my sharp shooter
qualification in addition to the regula.
tion $50 90 month. The Y. NJ. C. A.
and its conveniences are found wher-
ever we go and We are getting to ap
preciate them more all the tine. They