The Newport plain talk. (Newport, Tenn.) 1909-1939, 1918-06-19
BURNETT SMITH
Is In France And Is Delighted
With The Country. He Is
Doing Some Heavy Work.

Dear Mother:
We are at last off the ship.
was detailed there for couple
Of days to help unload. l can
say quite truthfully that it was
the hardest work l have ever
done. We are now at a camp
temporarily, a government
camp somewhere in France, of
which l can tell you nothing.
France, that is what l have
seen of it is beautiful. This is
very old city. Some old
castles date back to B. c., in
fact one of them dates to the
time of the Caesors. Only
wish | could get to see some of
them. The houses look like
miniature castles, most of them
built Of white stone. Some of
them are beautiful.
| have seen some of the coun-
try too, everything is green.
The farms or rather gardens
are queer looking patches of
ground, with hedges instead of
fences. Queer hedges too,
looks like its made Of small
trees. Have not been out
much as we were supposed to
stay on the ship except on a
street down by the wharf
which / hope is not typical of
all French streets. But Pm
afraid it is to a certain extent.
Most everything seems to be
sold in wine shops, some of
which are very nice however
and always tended by a wom-
an, in fact all the stores are run
by women and girls. Most Of
these shops are very clean and
tidy. Beer and wine are about
the only things that are cheap.
Cakes or waters are about
$l.20 a pound. There is no
candy or sugar. Fruits are not
so high. l bought a great big
sack of Strawberries, great big
juicy ones for a franc, "a franc
is about 20 cent? The money
is small, that is their value is
small, a dollars worth of small
change looks like a fortune.
The paper money looks like
cigarette coupons and runs
down in value to about ten
seyts. 1t took us about FIVE
isailutes to get otto the money
proposition when we saw we
had to.
l would give a good deal to
see a bath tub, any kind of a
tub. Haven't had my clothes
off in more than two weeks.
During all that had work we
had unloading the ship we only
had seawater to wash in. Did
you ever try to wash anything
in sea water? Well it won't
wash. l am in a terrible fix,
got mixed up with a lot of coal
dust, and haven't been able to
get the black out of my mus
tache yet, which leaves things
in a most embarrassing posi-
ton. You will excuse writing,
not conducive to good writing,
kinder like my French. But |
can make myself understood
in that terrible language and
can say one as fast as any
Frenchman.
Am just tickled to death
with France. The difference
between this place and the
good old U. S. A. is simply the
old and the new. Here they
have dinkey little carts and
freight cars and engines. You
coud pack a couple of their en-
gems on the tender of one OF
our six hundreds. One thing
looks natural tho-Fords,
they seem to be omnipresent,
the only place we have not seen
them was in the middle of the
Atlantic ocean.
Were the folks here glad to
see us? we'll | guess. There is
always a smile, for an Ameri-
can soldier, sometimes in Bon
jour.
Of course l cannot tell you
where we are and there are no
Bill Jones methods of saying
things l want to say. You re-
member the little lullaby Lula
used to sing about a kinky,
wooley, head.
Well hope springs eternal
and that sometime we will
come back. There is no doubt
about who is going to win this
little war-and we are going
to shorten the time consider.
ably. ;,
Say, this is Sunday, | didn't
know it until this afternoon,
was coming out on a truck load
O f havensacks. We passed
lots of people, men and women
and girls, all out for stroll
and believe me everything was
ideal for a Sunday afternoon