The border vidette., 1918-06-22

The following is from an in-
 tereSting letter written by J. R.
 Halstead. Sergeant of the 10th
 Engineers, in France, to his
 mother, Mrs. J. D. Halstead, of
 Phoenix:
 Somewhere in France, May
 12th, 1918.
 My dearest Mother:-
 Of all the letters that I have
 written home this is the one that I desire most of all to have you
 receive, as this is Mothers
 Day." and I am thinking of
 my dear mother and home. You
 are with me in my thoughts
 mother and I would give most anything to see you. Being so far away and everything so un- certain, makes one realize just how dear mother is. Even tho I can't be with you this day but am far away, you are with me in my thoughts.
 l have not written to anyone for about fifteen days, as have been gone from the office all that time You see I am the supply Sergeant of a very large district, and it is different here than in the States, as there I was only Sergeant of the 3rd Rn. 2Oth Engineers, but here I am the supply Sergeant of all the troops in our district.
 All of France is laid off in districts and one Headquarters control each district. Our dis trict is quite a large one and we have troops coming into the dis trict all the time. We will soon have them going out, but SUD- pose they will keep coming in all the time. There are troops of all kinds in the district but we have to look after them just the same. 1 made a complete round of ali the troops in the district this trip and then had to go away back to the coast after some auto parts. You see freight shipments are so very slow here that we go by auto mobile for anything we need in a hurry.
 The troops are all working day and night so if any thing breaks down it is up to me to get new part and if we don't | happen to have it in stock in the l supply office I have to go after it. |
 1 have been to all the big Quartermaste ter, Engineer, Or | dinance and Signal Corps ware l houses in France and am posted | on the condition of their stocks | so I most always know just | where to go after what I want. | Many times I will be called by | the night orderly and have him | hand me message from some | outfit saying that they need | some small part of some ma chine or if from our troops that | are saving, saying that their | saw mill has broke down and | they need such and such parts | and I have to get up, call the ! driver, leave note with the l orderly to give to the Major say ing where I am going, and away | I go. I sometimes make two 1 hundred miles before the office | knows that l have gone as it will be in the night. We have saw mills blown up, on partly | blown up by shell fire and a great many times I have to work | two or three days, day and night getting the necessary parts to get them started off again.
 It may seem funny to you all to think that we would be saw ing lumber close enough to the front to have mills destroyed by shell fire, but if you knew what a little amount of timber there is in France you would readily understand it. If the timber is left there it is soon completely destroyed by the heavy bonn so after it we go. A mill will be blown up and within a few hours another one will be setting alongside where the other one was going ahead the same as if nothing happened. We use portable mills of 10 M 1 foot capacity and they can be quickly moved to place or to new location. Use all circular saws and none of them over 60 inches as the timber is all small and there is no need of larger. We saw trees here into tim Der, trench props and RR ties that would only make tirewood in the