able tents or
barracks to step into? They did not. True, tents were there, but they
were in wooden crates, and there was a long, vacant space between a mess
hall and a bath house on which those tents were to stand. Fate was with
the men that night, for the moon was shining brightly, so after a supper
of crackers and cheese they soon had twelve Sibley tents pitched on the
allotted space. Tired from their trip and work litters made excellent
bunks and the men slept the sleep of the weary, their first night under
real army conditions.

Army life, as experienced in those first six weeks at Camp Doniphan, can
scarcely be called a picnic. _If_ there had been floors in the tents,
and _if_ you could have turned a switch instead of having to light a
candle in order to have light, and _if_ there had been an adequate
supply of good water, and _if_ "DUST," in vast quantities, had not been
a "regular issue"--well, such was life at Doniphan for the first few
weeks.

However, by Thanksgiving, many improvements had been made. Good water
was piped from a lake some distance from the camp and no longer was moss
and like substances found in the water that came through the pipes. Nor
was it necessary to watch all the dust of Kansas blow by from the north
in the morning, with a return trip in the afternoon. The tents were
floored and sidings put on, and electric lights were installed; Sibley
stoves were issued, together with an ample supply of wood--all of which
made the life at Camp Doniphan a little more attractive. A large boiler
and tank was installed in the bath house, giving the men plenty of hot
water for bathing and washing clothes. Military training continued, of
course, consisting of drilling on the field and lectures in the mess
hall by medical officers on subjects essential to the work of sanitary
troops. This included practice in the use of bandages and splints and
litter drill.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays brought many visitors to
camp--mothers, brothers, sisters and friends, all anxious to see for
themselves the Army life that the men had been writing about. If any of
the mothers had been worrying about the "beans and hard-tack" which is
supposed to be an unvarying part of a soldier's menu, they returned home
with that worry eliminated, for on both Thanksgiving and Christmas,
"John," the red-headed chef of the company, brought forth dinners that
would make the "Plantation Grill" or the "Pompeien Room" sit up and