Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1919-02-27
Boncourt, France.
Jan. 3, 1919.


Dear Alice
Received letter from you dated
Dec. End. The one with the pic
lures in it. l got four letters that
day with pictures in them. Every
body must have had the same idea
at the same time.
Well | believe / told you about all
the news last week in letter in ans
wer to one Dec. II, also about the
Xmas package. | could write |
suspect all night on things that we
have seen, gone through, and exper-
ienced. Most all take me wrong and
call me pessimest and yet | don't
believe there is another, all things
being equal, that has not enjoyed
it more than | have. / mention this
some of my letters might have seem
ed ssdownhearted" as the "Tommies"
say. | don't mean to infer either
that all has been enjoyable in the
literal sense of the word, yet it all
has been wonderful, worth while, a
good cause, and / am glad | was a
nong those who came | only re-
greet that fortune placed me in an
outfit that did not get the oppor-
tunity to be right in the front line.
/ might have been pushing up
daisies" now had it been otherwise.
1t is strange how little pebbles
change ones whole life. | remem-
Der letter from you soon after we
went to war which kept me from
joining the Pittsburg Engineers.
They have been over here. nearly
eighteen months. ! have seen two
of my old pals of Morgantown who
are with them. However they have
never been as close the front as we
have. You know | have just begun
to see how it is that sometimes, and
most all the time, 'its little things
that count" But why such a di-
version? Well | was just thinking
and | wrote it down. We have lots
Of time just to sit and think, these
long winter evenings. You see we
are in a much farther northern lat
ftude than | was ever accustomed
10. The sun just seems to rise and
set in the same place and never get
more than an angle of 30". 1t is
light by 7:30 A. M but dark by 4
r. M. Climate is mean. As /
heard one man say, at dosen't have
the nerve to snow" Not one bit
yet, in fact it has never frozen the
ground. Its very rainy and those
cold wet rains, TIE kind that goes
clear to the bone However / have
plenty of good wa n clothes, reg
ular home to live IN and | can only
call my self lucky. when L look a.
bout and see how others are rough
ing it.
Our home, / believe l sent you a
post card of our home, we do have
a fine home, since we fixed it up. It's
an old station. 1t has four rooms.
One we use for an office and living
room the other downstairs for a
dining room, or in army language
Mess Hail." Then we have two
bedrooms, we have electric lights.
put them in myself, connecting with
the French system. Stoves in every
room and as we are railroaders coal
comes our way on the side We built
beds, using chicken wire for springs
and our bedsacks full of straw forms
the bases of quite a comfortable
'snoozing place We have three
blankets issued to us apiece. How
ever we found some that had been
discarded by troops, we had about a
dozen of them washed and now we
have coolies.
Now the ones who inhabit this
home are five sergeants and one End
lieutenant, fine bunch. Everyone
is scholar and gentlemen.
We have not always lived SO well.
1t is just the last month or so that
we decided to live as much like home
as possible and leave off army ways
OF doing things. We are all war
time soldiers, but care little for SOL
dlering as steady thing, we get up
on time but go to bed when we get
good and ready. The one thing we
live In fear of is being moved on to
some other job and have to start all
over again or probably be in some
camp whre our present living condi-
tons would be impossible We have
lived in pup tents" slept in the mud,
gotten full of coolies, lived on hard
tack and corned William" even in
our five months in France. And be-
heve me the citizen soldier of the
u. S. A. does not care to ranaat II