Part 4

So I told Sargent Leslie I wasn't feeling good and would he fix it for me to take my leave some other time and he says I was the only soldier he ever seen that was to sick to go on their leave so then I told him my wife and kid was comeing out here to see me today and he says all right.

So I didn't go Al and the funny part of it is that somebody must of tipped Sebastian off that I wasn't going and what does he do but get his leave called off to and he has been here all yesterday and today and that proves he is laying for me and just wanted to go because I was going and it looks like the only way I can ever get away from here is sneak out without letting nobody know I am going and even then he would probably send word to his gang in Chi to keep their eye on me till he come.

I have caught him looking at me 2 or 3 times and I had a notion to ask him if he seen anything green but what is the use Al of starting something with a man like he and if I was to loose my temper and bust him Capt. Nash might hear about it and shut us both up in the guard house together and one or the other of us wouldn't never come out alive and which ever one it was it would give the camp a black eye.

Well Al about all I done today was look for Florrie and little Al and I didn't give them up till 5 o'clock tonight because I thought maybe they had missed the A.M. trains and would come later and every time I seen a woman and kid toddleing up the road I would think sure it was them this time and I was dissapointed about 30 thousand times because they was at least that many women and kids here today and if they was all somebody's wife Camp Grant must be infected with Mormons.

All the women had baskets and boxs full of pie and jell and fried cakes and what all but they wasn't no package of goodys with my name and address on them Al and they wasn't no little schaefer yelling theres daddy when they seen me and running up to get huged.

Well Al the man that was to call up Florrie come back this P.M. and come in the barracks just before I started this letter and I asked him I said "Well Bishop did you call up my wife like I told you?" His name is Bishop. "Hell" he says "I forgot all about it." And honest Al his size is all that saved him the little srimph and if he was anywheres near a man I would of Bishoped him right in the eye. But I managed to keep my hands off of him and all as I said was for him to get out of my way before it was to late and then he begun to whine and says how sorry he was and he says "I got some excuse because I reached home just in time to be presented with a baby girl."

How is that for an excuse Al and the only wonder is that he didn't forget if it was a boy or a girl before he got back here but of course a man like he wouldn't have nothing but a girl. But isn't it just my luck Al for me to trust somebody to do something and then for them to go and have a baby on me? And I hope every time he gos home she is yelling all night with the collect.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 10.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I wrote to Florrie Sun. night and told her what had came off and about this fat head forgetting to call her up and I just got a letter back from her and she says her and little Al both of them cried themself to sleep Saturday night because I didn't show up and she had let little Al set up till 9 o'clock so as he could see his daddy in a uniform and when I didn't come then or Sun. A.M. neither they thought I didn't care for them no more so they went to the ball game Sun. P.M., and McGraw started another left hander and you probably read what happened to him and I suppose everybody is saying what a whale Faber is and who wouldn't be a whale if they get 5 runs for you in one inning but even if you are a whale that don't excuse you from trying to steal a base that one of your own men all ready got there ahead of you and hasn't left yet.

But Florrie and little Al are comeing out here next Sunday Al and this time they won't be no mix up because I won't depend on no half wit that the minute they become a father they go all to peaces.

But what I wanted to tell you about was Sebastian. Well Al Shorty Lahey was trying to make me believe this bird was a bad egg and that they called him Nick the Blade because he always went a round with a knife and whittled you if you looked X eyed at him but the next time Shorty wants to kid somebody he better try it on some yapp that hasn't been in the big league and I let him think he was stringing me just to see how far he would go with it but if he thought he had me fooled the shoes was on his feet not mine.

Well Al Sebastian's name is just plain Nick without no Blade on it and the only blade he ever pulled was a blade of grass or something because he use to help take care of the grounds at Washington Pk. before he was drafted and he has been one of my admirers for a long while and that is why he kept looking at me and he says he use to always try and get to the games when it was my turn to pitch and he has been wanting to talk to me ever since we been here but today was the first time he got up the nerve and he never had no intentions of going on leave last Sat. and to prove it he showed me a letter he got from his wife last Friday and she don't spell very good but she spoke in the letter about comeing here to see him this next Sunday and nothing about him comeing there to see her and she is going to bring their 2 kids along and he says he never seen a man with a prettier wind up then I got and all together he is O.K. and when Shorty trys to make you beleive somebody is a murder he ought to pick out a man that looks like the part.

I haven't said nothing to Shorty and I won't but what I will do is play a joke on him right back only I will make it a good one and not no fizzle like some of his.

And oh yes Al they have sent Castle over to the quarter masters dept. and he won't have a chance to kill nobody there except when they come after a pair of shoes.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 12.

FRIEND AL: Well old pal I am writeing this in the Y.M.C.A. where a man has got some chance to hear yourself think as they say but if you try and write over in the barracks if they don't joggle your arm or tip your seat over for a joke they are all the time jabbering back and forth in foreign languages till you get so balled up that instead of writeing a letter a man is libel to make out his will in Eskimo or something.

Speaking about foreign languages Al the next time I see you I will be talking French like a regular Frenchman and you will have to ask me to translate what I am talking about. Of course I am just jokeing about that because I wouldn't spring a lot of stuff on you that you wouldn't understand and I might just as well go up to a statue and ask them how their father stood his operation or something. But what I am getting at is that I am going to join the French lesson class here and its something that you don't have to belong to it unless you want to but I figure a man is a sucker if they don't take advantage of a chance like this because in the first place it don't cost you nothing and in the second place the men that knows how to talk French will have all the best of it when we get over there because suppose you was in Paris and felt like you wanted a glass of pilsner and if you said it in French they would fetch it to you but if you just said pilsner they wouldn't know if you was asking for something to drink or a nasal dooch or what not.

But besides that Al after we get to France the French officers will want to tip us off on this and that about the Germans and of course they won't talk to the privates but they will only talk to the officers and if I am a officer by that time which it looks like a cinch I will be one by that time at the outside why suppose I was standing by 1 of our genls. and a French genl. wanted to tell him what was what and etc. but couldn't talk nothing but French and our genl. couldn't make head or tales of it then I could act like an interpeter between the both of them and the first thing you know all the high monkey monks when they want to talk back and forth will be pageing Capt. Keefe or Major Keefe or whatever officer I am by that time.

Some of the boys laughed at me tonight when I told them about going to attend the lessons but I will be the one that does the laughing when we get across that old pond and Shorty Lahey the smart alex that I told you about says to me "We won't do all our training with the French army but we will do some of it with the English army so while you are at it you better learn to talk English to." So I said "You better learn to talk English yourself" and he shut his mouth.

Well Al Florrie and little Al will be here to see me Sunday and I can't hardly wait for them to get here and I suppose Florrie will bring along some daintys of some kind that she cooked up herself or maybe got the swede girl to do it but of course I am not worring about whether she brings anything or don't bring anything as long as she brings herself and the kid only most of the wifes that comes out here Sundays brings something along to show they been thinking of you though if I was most of these birds wifes the only time I would think about them would be when I said my prayers at night and then I would thank God they had joined the army.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 14.

FRIEND AL: Well Al its Sunday night and I been entertaining company. Florrie and little Al got out here just after noon and I was in the barracks reading about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh bum Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish their jaw for them.

Well of course Florrie didn't beleive him and the next man she asked was Nick Sebastian and he come and got me and you ought to seen Florrie stair when she got a look at me in my uniform and little Al didn't know me at first and when Florrie says to him who is it he says it was the capt. Well Al it is to soon to be calling me a capt. but if they are running this game on the square it won't be long and they will be calling me more then that.

Well Florrie handed me a box and she says I was to not open it till she was gone and then I showed them over the camp and the way the boys staired at Florrie I couldn't help from being proud of her but of course if some of them had of got to fresh I would of fixed them so they wouldn't do no stairing for a couple of wks. Sebastian's wife and 2 kids was here to visit him and we run into them and we all went a round together and I made the remark that it would be nice for Mrs. Sebastian and her kids and Florrie and little Al to all go back to Chi on the same train together and it was O.K. with Mrs. Sebastian but when I and Florrie was alone together for a few minutes she started to ball me out for makeing the suggestion and I asked her what was the matter with it and she says she wasn't going to set in the same seat on the train with a woman that looked like she had left home before she got up and little Al would probably catch something from the 2 Sebastian kids so I said that Mrs. Sebastian done real work for a liveing and you couldn't expect her to look like Sarah Bernhart but Florrie is the kind that if she takes a dislike towards somebody its good night to them and it don't do no good to tell her that a person can't help their looks and that is all the more reason you should try and not hurt their feelings. So Mrs. Sebastian had a round trip ticket on the C.B. and Q. and so did Florrie but she pretended like hers was on the I.C. and thats the way her and little Al went back so they wouldn't have to set with the Sebastians and take a chance of little Al catching something though from what I seen of the Sebastian kids they looked as strong as a horse and they wasn't no danger of catching nothing from them unless maybe it was the banana habit.

I suppose I would of been a grass widower long ago if I was ugly and how will it be if I get shot up in the war and Florrie would sew me for a bill of divorce on the grounds that I didn't have no nose to smell the cooking.