Cleveland County herald., 1918-12-26

fore I had been there long.
 There was great big cupboard that looked more like a small house, built against the wall of the hospital barracks in one corner of the room, and not far from the stove. Kate was the only patient able to be on his feet, so 1 thought he would have to be my chief cook and bottle washer for while; and, besides, there was some thing about him that made him look pretty valuable. I had not recognized his whistling yet, so Slim looked to be the right name for him.
 "Slim, what's that big cupboard for?"
 How'd I know? Nuthin' in it."
 "Slim, that would make a fine box for coal or wood, wouldn't it?"
 "Um. Whar de coal an wood?"
 ''I'm going out and take obserVa- tions, Slim. Take the wheel while Pm gone, and keep your eye peeled for U-boats." So I sneaked out the door and began looking around.
 If you look at the sketch I have made, it will not take you long to see that next to us was q vacated Russian barracks. And it did not take me much longer to see it, too. Back to the hospital and Slim.
 "Slim, what barracks are next to us?"
 Russian bugrucks. only dey ain't dere now. Been sick"
 And you mean to tell me you don't know where to get wood"
 "Sick men been in dem burrucks."
 "Sick men here, aren't there? Let's go."
 That did the trick. The black boy would watch from the hospital win dows until he saw the coast was clear, then we would slip into the barracks next door, and he would watch again. When there was no sentry near enough to hear us, crash and out would come dividing board from the hunks. When we had an armful apiece, and had broken them up to the right lengths, all we needed was lit tie more watching, and then back to the hospital and the big cupboard. Later on, our men told me they used to watch the smoke that poured from the hospital chimney all the time and wonder where on earth we got the wood.
 We got the same kind of food in the hospital that was served in the other barracks, and I would not have had any more than I used to, except that sometimes some of the tweDty-siX pa tients could not eat their share, and then, of course, it was mine. One day, though, we all had extra rations.
 Two Russian doctors came to visit us each day, and once they were fool ish enough, or kind enough, to ask if we had received our ralions-We had received them earlier than usual and they were finished at the time. Of course, 1 said no, so they ordered the Russian in the kitchen to deliver twenty-eight ratiOns to us, which was not quite three loaves of bread. We were that much ahead that day, but it would not work when l tried the trick again.
 One day a German doctor came to the hospital barracks. He would not touch anything while he was there not even open the door. All of the patients had little cards attached to their beds-chartS of their condition. When the German wanted to see these charts the Russian doctors had to hold them for him.
 1 was having a great time at the hospital, wrecking the barracks next door each day for wood, along with Kate, and getting a little more food warm. I thought myself quite a pet. Compared to what 1 had been up against, it seemed like real comfort But the more food l got, the more I wanted. And it was food that brought me down, after all.
 Across from us was a barracks in which there were English officers, and somehow it seemed to me that they must have had drag. Every once in a while I saw what looked like vege- tables and bags of something that was a dead ringer for brown four. So I told Slim, or Kate, as I was calling him by then, and with him on guard, I sneaked out.
 After two or three false starts, got over our barbed wire and their barbed wire, and in through window.
 There I saw carrots! And graham flour!
 I took all could carry, to divide up with Kate, and then started eating, so as not to waste anything. It was certainly some feast-the only thing besides mud bread and barley coffee and shadow" soup that I had to eat in Germany. Then l started back to the hospital. got over their barbed wire all right, and Kate gave me the go-ahead for our entanglements, but just as was going over them sentry nabbed me. At first 1 thought Kate had turned traitor, because we had had little argument short time be- fore.
 But later onI figured that he would not have done trick like that, and ha l., h l.