er get onto this theyll be issuin
soleles shoes and shirtles sleves.

Its gettin awful cold. No wonder this is a healthy place. All the germs
is froze. I guess there idea of the hardenin proces is to freeze a fello
stiff. The Captin said the other day we was gettin in tents of trainin.
Thats all right but Id kind of like to see those steam heated barraks.
Youve red about those fellos that go swimmin in the ice in winter. I
guess thed like our shouer baths. They say Cleanliness is next to
Godliness, Mable. I say its next to impossible.

I started this letter almost a weak ago. I just found it in my bakin
can. They call it a bakin can but its too small to bake nothin. I keep
my soap in it. I got some news for you. The regiment is to be
dismantled. The Captin called me over this mornin and asked me where Id
like to be transferred. I said home if it was the same to him. So there
goin to send me to the artillery. This is a very dangerous and useful
limb of the servus, Mable. I dont kno my address. Just write me care of
the General.

I got the red muffler that your mother sent me. Give her my love just
the same

yours relentlessly,
_Bill_.

[Illustration: "I JUST FOUND IT IN MY BAKIN CAN"]

_Dere Mable_:

I havnt rote for some time I had such sore feet lately. When they broke
up our regiment and sent me over to the artillery I thought I was goin
to quit usin my feet. That was just another roomor.

Thanks for the box of stuff you sent me. I guess the brakeman must have
used it for a chair all the way. It was pretty well baled but that dont
matter. And thanks for the fudge too. That was fudge wasnt it, Mable?
And the sox. They dont fit but I can use them for somethin. A good
soldier never throws nothin away. An thank your mother for the half pair
of gloves she sent me. I put them away. Maybe sometime shell get a
chance to nit the other half. Or if I ever get all my fingers shot off
theyll come in very handy.

The artillerys a little different from the infantry. They make us work
harder. At least theres more work on the skedule. I know now what they
mean when they say that the "artillerys active on the western front."

They got a drill over here called the standin gun drill. The names
misleadin. I guess it was invented by a troop of Jap akrobats. They
make you get up and sit on the gun. Before you can get settled
comfortable they make you get down again. It looks like they didnt know
just what th