Part 9

Well I wrote to that poor kid down in Texas and told her I didn't want to bother her to make me a helmet or a sweater but I all ready got a helmet. I didn't have the heart to tell her about Florrie or tell her to quit writeing to me but I give her a kind of a hint that I was to busy to spend much time writeing letters and I hope she don't try and keep up a correspondence because it can't do neither of us no good and the best way would be for us to both forget it and of course that wouldn't be no trouble for me but I am afraid a girl don't forget so easy.

Well Al this ain't what you might call a happy letter but I don't know no good news to write only they have gave up our choir practice as a bad job and we don't have to worry no more about letting the fires go out.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Dec. 2.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I just got back from Chi and of all the tough luck a man ever had I had it.

You remember me telling you about the last time I come back from my leave and I got in late and Capt. Nash says I couldn't have no more leave for a month. Well the month was up Friday and I had it fixed so as I could go to Chi Saturday A.M. with the gang that was going to the football game between our club and Camp Custer and the only ones that was allowed to go was the ones that had boughten tickets to the game so I bought a ticket though I didn't have no intentions of waisting my time out to no Willy boy football game.

Well we got to Chi about noon and we had to march all over town and everybody stood on the sidewalks and cheered us to the ecco and I couldn't get away from the bunch till the parade was over though I don't enjoy marching and have everybody stare at you but when it was over I beat it for home. Well I hadn't said nothing to Florrie about comeing because I wanted to surprise her and I thought of course little Al and the Swede would be home and I and little Al could walk in on Florrie over to the beauty parlor and surprise her, but when I got to the flat and rung the bell they wasn't no answer and I rung and rung and finely I seen they wasn't nobody home so I went to the beauty parlor and 1 of the girls there told be that Florrie was takeing the P.M. off and wouldn't be back till Monday A.M.

So I went back to the flat and looked for the janitor to let me in and when you don't want janitors they are always snooping around at your coat tails but when you do want them they are hideing in the ash bbl. or something. So it took me about a hour to find this bird and another hour to get him to open the door up for me and of course they wasn't nobody home so the janitor says maybe I could find out where they went from the neighbors so I rung the woman across the hall's bell and she come to the door. So I said "I'm Corp. Keefe and I wanted to know if you knew where is my wife and kid." So she says "They went out." Well Al I suppose I didn't know they had went out and I felt like saying to her "Oh I thought they might maybe of crawled in between the wall paper to take a nap or I thought maybe they might of left the stopper out of the bath tub and got drained off or something." But I just asked her did she know where they went and she said she didn't.

Well I seen she didn't know nothing about them or probably nothing else so I went back in the flat and waited and waited and it come along 5 o'clock and I called up a saloon over on Indiana and asked them to fetch me over a doz. bottles of beer and I had 2 of them and then went out to a restaurant and had supper and come back and nobody home yet. Well to make a short story out of it I finished the beer up and finely went to bed and I didn't know nothing more till 9 A.M. this morning when the Swede come snooping into the room and seen me and let out a screem and beat it and I got up and dressed and went in the kitchen and she said Florrie had took little Al somewheres to stay all night with some friends and give the Swede permission to go to a ski jumpers dance out to Berwyn and Florrie would be home about 11.

Well Florrie come strutting in with the kid about 12 looking like she hadn't done nothing out of the way and when she seen me she squeeled and come romping over for a kiss. Well Al she didn't get it. I kissed little Al all right but I didn't see where she had a right to expect favors. Well she seen how things stood and begin trying to explain something about spending the P.M. down town shopping and then going to a show with some friends of hers on the north side and they left little Al in charge of the nurse at the friends and they both stayed there all night and why didn't I tell her I would be home so as she could have changed her plans and etc. So I said "Yes you are a fine wife and mother running around town with a bunch of bums and leave your kid all alone in charge of a nurse that you don't know nothing about her and for all as you know she might of cut his ears off like a Belgium." Well I was sore and I give her a good balling out and of course it wound up like usual with her busting out crying and then they wasn't nothing for me to do only say I didn't mean what I had been saying and we had dinner and maybe everything would of been O.K. only we hadn't no sooner gotten up from the table when in come 1/2 of the south side and their wifes to call. Well they wasn't none of them I ever seen before or ever want to see them again and they was all friends of Florrie's and 2 of the ladys was customers of hers so she didn't dare tell them to get the h-ll out of there and a Mrs. Crane and a Mrs. Somebody else picked on me and got me in a pocket on the Davenport and they didn't even have sence enough to call me Corporal but it was Mr. Keefe this and Mr. Keefe that and when did I think the war would end and wasn't the Germans awful and how many men did we have in France and when was I going and so on. And Mrs. Crane said her and all her friends was so jealous of Mrs. Keefe because her husband was a soldier so I said I had heard they was room in some of the camps for a few more husbands and Mrs. Crane said her husband had tried his hardest to get into something but he had bad teeth so I said why didn't he try and get into some good dentist office. But they wasn't no way I could get them mad enough to go home till 5 o'clock then I and Florrie and the kid had just a hour together before I had to beat it for the train.

Well Al I won't get no more leave off till Xmas and maybe not then but what is the use any way when your wife gives you a welcome like that and all together it was a fine trip and I won't never try and take nobody by surprise after this but at that why couldn't she of stayed home where a woman belongs.

My train was jamed comeing back tonight and I don't know where they got it but everybody was oiled up and celebrating about beating Camp Custer in the football game and I'll say Camp Custer must be a home for cripples or something if that's the kind of a football club they turn out any way I bet they ain't no room to dance in the guard house tonight.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Dec. 4.

FRIEND AL: I guess I was so full of my swell visit home when I wrote you the last time that I forgot about telling you about that little girlie down in Texas. Well Al they isn't much to tell only that I got another letter from her though I as good as told her I wished she wouldn't write me no more but she wrote any way and she says she can't forget me and theys no use asking her to and she wouldn't tell me where it was we seen each other and they was no use me asking her. It looks from her letter like she was getting in deeper every day and I don't know what will be the end of it all and if she done anything to herself on my acct. I would feel like a murder though of course a man can't help how they look or what a girl thinks about them but still and all you can't help from feeling like you was to blame.

I guess the best way to do is just not answer her letter and hope for the best and hope she won't do nothing rash.

Well Al I started out to write you a long letter but I am to wore out and I guess anybody would be after what we went through today. It was the coldest day I ever seen so they picked it out for us to go on a 19 mile hike and if you could see the roads around here you would know what that means and they can talk all they want to about how the men suffers in France but I would rather go out in the middle of Nobody's Land and start a mumblety peg game then take another of these dam hikes with the weather a million below zero and the road full of rutts as big as the grand canion.

If it hadn't been for setting a example to my command I believe I would of pretended like I was sick and when you are sick they make somebody else carry your junk and leave you ride in a wagon thats O.K. for a private that don't care what the rest of them think of him but a corporal has got to keep going and try to keep his men going and when you got a bunch of sap heads like mine it keeps a man on the jump to tend to them. Red Sampson was so bad that I had to keep after him all the while and finely I pulled a good one on him I said "Sampson everybody in the whole regt. is out of step but you." So the rest of them give him the laugh but he can't take a joke no matter how good it is so he says "I haven't heard that one since they fought with spears." So I said "You get in step and show a little life or I'll spear you."

Well its all over now any way and I don't suppose they will send us out again till theys a big blizzard or something and then they will march us to Canada or somewheres for a little work out.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Dec. 7.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I got some big news for you. The govt. have changed their plans all around and decided after this to send the best men from the national army to fill up the national guards and that means theys a big bunch of us leaveing soon for Camp Logan down in Texas and the officers say we musent spill nothing about it that is when we are going because if the pro German spys ever found out that our bunch was going down there they would spread the rails and turn switches on us and probably put torpedos on the track or something. So all as I can say is that you won't hear from me here no more and I can't tell you what units we will be in because we haven't got no official notice yet and all as I know is what some of the boys heard that we would be in Col. House's regt. I thought when I 1st. heard the news that it meant we would be starting for France pretty quick and of course I didn't stop to think that they have closed up navigations for the winter.

Well Al I am glad we are going somewheres for the winter where it isn't so dam cold and of course I don't like to be so far away from home but maybe Florrie can get away and come down there and join me for a while and I am going to have a few hours off any way to say good bye to little Al and she and I wish I could see you and Bertha before I go especially you but theys no chance so good bye and good luck to you and I will write when I can.

I just happened to think Al that Camp Logan is in Texas and thats where that little girl lives but you can bet I won't leave her know where I am because in the 1st. place she would probably be just crazy enough to want to see me or something and besides I wrote her a farewell note yesterday and asked her wouldn't she send me her picture because I thought that would make her feel a little happier to think I wanted her picture even if we don't keep on writeing letters and I don't care if she sends it or not any way if she sent it up here I will probably be gone before that time.

Well Al I will be kind of sorry to leave Camp Grant where all and all we have had a pretty good time and I guess Gen. Martin and them will be sorry to see our bunch duck out and they will have a fine bunch left when we go but I am glad we won't freeze to death this winter and besides that they tell me the national guards is shy of officers and maybe I may not stay a corporal long after I get there but will get something bigger though a corporal can't be sneezed at.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP LOGAN, Dec. 14.

FRIEND AL: Well old pal here we are in sunny Texas and its been pretty cold so far but nothing like it was up at Camp Grant and of course it don't never get as cold here as up there on acct. of this being further south.