The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-12-24
FROM THE BOYS IN SERVICE
Recent Letters Descriptive of the Life of the Boys
in Army and Navy

would faint dead away, | am sure.
My three lieutenants and myself are
IN this one little house, have one room
upstairs and one down. Have a fire
and eat in the down stairs room where
sleep also, with one of the lieuten-
ants. No beds, but we have learned
long ago that our bedding roll is suf
| flcient TO sustain life That has a little
mattress and helps wonderfully. The
good old lady who owns the place lives
all alone, husband having died two
years ago; never had any children. She
sings away to herself; a very pleasant
little twinkle in her eyes. At first she
was pretty shy of us, but now seems to
enjoy having us here. Her brother
came in from town five miles away
yesterday to take look at the Amer
lean soldiers. He wanted TO see what
one looked like Says the people in the
town have all stopped work to enjoy us
while we are here. Only one town has
shown any GOODNESS and that was be-
cause they had heard we were terri
bic bunch.
She brought MS a dish of apples this
morning, don { know what they were
but they were good.-about the first
ones since leaving home. Money
doesn t mean much for there is nothing
to sell. If man kills pig he cannot
afford to sell it because be cannot buv
anything to replace it. We bought
three chickens this morning for 81 a
piece. Someone bought n goose the
other day for $l0-ffty francs. But.
ter cannot be found; common little
candles are 40 cents n piece. How is
that9 No oil, so it's candle or 90 to bed
That is what war does to neutral
country that is cut Off from the world.
They raise their wheat but the Ger.
mans took it and paid them n price;
the money is no good because there is
nothing to buy to replace it. SO it
goes.
But is is great relief to be away
from those sections full of trenches and
barbcd wire blown up villages. etc.
That was a bowling waste If there ever
was one. II was interesting as we were
marching away from il dav hv dav.
The first days march was all through
total destruction, but the second dav
the homes began to look like houses
and that night we slept in q town with
every roof on. What the allies eouldn Z
do with long range gun they did with
aeroplanes.
! often think of what these people
will think when they return the first
time since 1914 and see things. The
French are very home abiding race
anyway. haven t much and don t do
much but the same old drudgerv dav
after day,-nothing as a New England.
.er lives. Look at the people in Yer
mont who have ears, good smart teams
and decent clothes. Our women never
milk cows. feed pigs, hoe and other
work III the fields. 1t is an everyday
affair here. Never running water in n
house, almost always 90 to a com.
mon well for the whole village and
every town has its public wash
house, big stone reservoir with broad
stone sides to scrub on, water usually
running But what gets me worst of
all are the manure piles right in front
of the house. The house and barn are
all one and hard TO tell which door goes
to the living part sometimes. They do
always love little lace curtains at the
little square windows. which look
pretty. They seem to be strong for a
few flowers
Oh! we are actually getting a quart
of milk each morning and each night.
Great Elessings-but it is a godsend.