Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-03-06
FLYING WITH SHAFFER
LETTERS FROM a DAUPHIN COUNTY TO MOTHER
A GREAT GAME

Yes, l still continue to hunt and
chop wood, rain or shine, but got
tired of trying to make the fire burn
to-day and went for a walk to IL
Epine" where l bought butter and
condensed milk and also this paper.
Their butter is something like their
weather here-it gives me a pain;
for the butter sure is strong, tast-
ing more like cheese than anything
| know. Eating cheese is one habit
l have acquired over here, whether
it's a bad one or not is a question.
In truth, it's bad smelling at times,
but since l neither go to dances or
to see girls, what does it matter?
One of these days I'll go up after
Boches after eating some of this par
ticularly evil-smelling stuff, get up
close to one of them, blowing my
breath on him and just naturally
ruin him. In fact, 1 doubt if these
French women would mind any
odors the way the male bird of this
species fumes himself up. You
should see, or I should say smell,
one of them getting ready to go to
town. Instead of plastering his hair
fiat with water he uses varied colors
of cologne. After that, one could
trail him anywhere without the aid
of a dog, if the scent didn't get too
much for him. One fellow lost his
handkerchief yesterday but had lit
tie trouble in finding it, and he did
MT use his eye either-the nose was
sufficient.
Whew. Rain and Snow!
| have not made any good reso-
lutions for the new year, except to
resolve to always write 1918 instead
of 1917, and up to date | have not
broken it.
You can see 1 am all out of news,
for nothing has befailen us but the
rain and snow, and then along comes
a diary as a Christmas present. Tis
true ! have oodles of time to write
but nothing of interest to write
about, for l have not seen a Boche
plane close enough to be sure he
was German, so l can't very well
describe what a fearful sight it prob
ably would be. | am not sure
know where the Zines" are even, al
though l have gaZed down many
times on them. About all I could
make out was a lot of wriggly bitches
which didn't seem to lead in any
direction, and worse vet, l don't
know which was French and which
was German, A nice state of af-
fairs indeed, for a warrior bold, Ell?
But then we have so many things
to watch and think about, what with
watching what the leader is doing,
for this flying at the front seems to
be game of follow the leader
toJours," listening to ones motor,
watching the compass to get the
general direction, and also the map
TO see where one is. Reading that
map was a slow process for me, as
l only picked out one landmark
about every two trips. These Nieu-
ports cover ground so fast that fly
ing by map in one of them is not as
easy as in Camtron-and then, just
about the time ] was getting a line
on town and comparing road
and railroad to the one on my map.
chunk of shrapnel would go off
under or beside me. Right away
little Walter would lose all interest
In the scenery below him, and ap-
ply himself most assiduously to
lodging those little black puffs
which appeared so rapidly, OF
course, they were not dangerous for
the cloud or puff don't appear until
after they burst, but they give one
an idea where the next one might
burst, and one acts accordingly.
Guessing in the Clouds
It's great game of guesswork.
and although the boy behind that
gun is some guesser, I'm pretty fair
and besides, l get the last
guess. Anyway, 1 have the lay of
the land pretty we'll now, since our
patrol lies between two large for
ests, and anytime l wish to start
for home, all l have to do is head
into the sun, or if there is no sun,
fly due south by compass, and l