The Mankato free press., 1919-04-25
take in more than four hours Of the

take in more than four hours of the
classes. We are only compelled to
take three. We are livii:g in Gormi-
tories or barracks at the present
time, but We expect to get rooms
with French families in the near fu-
ture. 1t is very disagreeable to be way
out on the outskirts of town and
have to take a trolley car every
morning and noon. We live three in
a room. single beds. We have elec-
trio lights and running water have
two very fine roommates. One is
from the University OF Minnesota but
his home is in Pennington, and the
other is from Pennsylvania university.
They are exceptionally fine fellows.
We are still living on French cook.
ing and French supplies. We eat
in large dining rooms served by
French maids in bloomers. For din
ner We generally have soup, bread,
meat, horse steak or some other
tough problem, potatoes and vege-
tables, wine and oranges. A man
can drink a whole quart or a gallon
of their red wine and he will not get
very drunk from it, but it is so out :
rageously sour, it can almost com
pare with vinegar. The French peo-
pie are missing one half of their meal
if their vim pouge is left out. We
have figs for dessert almost every
night. l thought France was hard
pressed for food until / came here,
h.,f xy;n h,c ~,
is plenty of everything down in this
town. There are tons and tons of
meat on display in shops here, old
Barney the old family Jackass, the
oldpolw oxen veal calf, the porker
and poultry are all butchered up.
There are bushels of eggs on sale
for four francs dozen and potatoes
cabbage, cauliflower. turnips, carrots
radishes, green peas and beans. There
are carloads of oranges in every
street and the same about figs and
raisons. There is even an abundance
Of chocolate l happened to go by a
store which handled the Underwood
typewriters today, so | went in for
curiosity's sake to price them. A prac-
tically new machine was priced at 90O
!" "c1l VIC
we just placed our hands on our
pocket books so that they would not
be picked and beat it out of there
We may be able to move into French
homes as We had planned in a few
weeks. We need real French life to
get any real benefit out of this
French training. If / have to talk
French ! can use it fairly well but
if there are a mob of Americans
around l use the American tongue
of course. The rooms will cost from
80 to 80 francs month. We are al
lowed to spend 109 francs for room
"a month by Uncle Sam. Our meal
ought to come to 10 francs day.
We are allowed 10 francs and 80 CEN
times a day. You would laugh to see
around here, some are no larger than
a good sized dog. / saw one little
fellow pulling small wagon about
two feet high and when he had pas
sed you could only see his long ears
wiggling over the top of the wagon.
A great number of people use this
little beast to haul their carts to and
from the market places. When he
starts to pump his ears back and
forth and opens his mouth you can
certainly hear and understand his
French hee- -haw a mile away. am
sending three pictures in roll
through French mail. I"hope you will
get them all right. They are views
of different places in Toulouse. The
church is IL" eglise de st. Sernin'' a
wonderful piece of old Roman archi-
lecture The view is taken from the
rear I have not had time to study
i. much. only caught a glance of the
inside. There were many marvellous
holy paintings in the church and
there were people kneeling before
them praying or worshipping. When
they were through with one they
took their chair, passed to the next
painting knelt before it and repeat
ed the dose l saw another church to-
day but have not seen enough to go
into detail because it has so much.
However l can say / nicknamed it
the church of thousand candles.
There are so many things to see and
study. With love to you all, Clar-
ence.