The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1918-07-05
LETTERS FROM OUR
LADS over THERE"

The information that 14S Field Ar
tillery is stationed at Bordeaux,
France is contained in a letter from
Corporal Ed Sebasky, as a new order
allows the American soldiers in France
to divulge their whereabouts, SO long
as they are not in the advance lines.
The interesting letter follows:
my dear Mother: l received two
letters from you last week and one
this week, also the papers and other
things o. X. 1t sure came in handy.
Am sending you some order blanks for
tobacco. 1t can be sent to one of US
at time, and we can divide 1t up be-
tween US. Tell them to send me Fat
imas. as l have a good supply of
other tobacco on hand. but my old fav-
orites are scarce article here.
"Well. today is Memorial Day and
We have this afternoon off so will
give you little news; so here goes.
You know Harry Keller-well, he's
my pal. We've been doing bit of
bumming around here in France to-
gether. Last Sunday we hired cou-
Pile of bikes and went out in the coun-
try about fifteen kilometers and ran
into little village. We stopped and
were looking at all old church, when
cute Mademoiselle steps up to us and
shoots this at US: Bon jour, Mon
sieur.' Well. we get right back at
her with Bon jour. Mademoiselle.
After little time in which we had
juggled our pigeon French quite free
ly, she says: 'Parlez-vous diner,
avec moi. We tell her we would be
pleased to take on a feed. Well she
marches us down about the crookedest
street l ever saw. l guess they must
have made them that way so the neigh
bors could not see you coming home
when you had jag on. Well, we came
to the house before we knew it. and
she marches us right straight in be-
fore we came to ourselves. The whole
family is in there before we know it.
Mon ami, Americain,' Mademoiselle
announced, and we can see that she
has blowed us up, as we are the first
Americans in there. Madame stepped
right over and kissed the both of US
on each cheek. Right in front of us
were lined up in single file. four pick
aninnies. As near as we could figure
out without asking any questions, they
were waiting to be kissed by the great
Americans. So Harry and l tackled
the job.
! guess its the custom here, but its
quite embarrassing to a couple of
Yanks. Well we were suffering from
she'll shock when we got through. but
the next minute we thought one of our
big guns had blown up. Monsieur
steps over and smacks us a couple on
each cheek. Having a man kiss us
was new one on US, and Harry sug-
gests that we spend few francs and
buy book on French customs. After
all this excitement, Marie Louise plays
the piano for US while Madame is get
ting dinner ready. Sayl Talk about
a feed-we never had one like it since
we left home; and Sayl talk about
the wine-for that is what they have
to drink with their meals-it must
have been forty years old; for it had
U. S. regulation kick. These French
people have them all beat for socia-
bility. As it was getting along in the
evening, we decided to beat it back to
our billets. 1t was not so embarass-
ing to kiss them good bye, even Marie
Louise would not let US cheat her out
of her share. | guess they thought
the Yanks were not such bad fellows,
after all. as they told US to be sure and
come back the next Sunday.
"Our Top Sergeant being good
scout as he had excused US from re-
treat. we went over and surang the
good news to him. He took it all in,
but when we went to smack him on
the cheek, he said that sure must have
been some wine, and from now on it
would be the country life for him.
swell. we are all anxious to get to
the front, but guess they are going
to keep us in reserve for awhile. We
have been training now for nearly a
year and since we have been over
here we have been working early and
late. and talk about being in shape
we feel like a bunch of colts. We
| are rar;np to on and when we do get a