an they deserve, but it's bad for our discipline
and our work. Don't you suppose we could turn about and help the
sergeants more? If you should lead in it, it would make a difference in
the whole platoon, for I notice that everyone wants to know your
opinion." David's face showed that he approved, so Knudsen agreed, and we
three talking to our squad and Squad Nine, have started a little Good
Government Association. I think today it did good.

Last night was a long one for me. I am still unable to get myself a
woollen cap, and though I used the felt hat for both the cold and the
rain, it rolled away at every excuse. To keep out the rain, I had laid my
poncho on the windward side of the tent, buttoning it along the
ridgepole; but it slapped a good deal of the time. The entrance-flaps,
which some of the fellows always button, I had open for the air, and they
thrashed all night. Beside me Bann slept like a child; but I was pretty
damp when I went to bed, the rain and the wind came through, and every
little thing waked me. Twice a peg pulled out, but the tent stood, and I
was able to put it in again. So the night was long. Yet I got some sleep,
and we were surely better off than our opposite neighbors, whose tent
blew down soon after midnight, so that they had to crawl out and set it
up in the dark and the driving rain.

There are camp tales of all kinds of hardships. Some stayed round the
fires all night to keep warm; some, their tents collapsing, took refuge
on a nearby piazza; some talk of washing their faces this morning in hoar
frost. But I _saw_ none of this.

The yowlings which usually greet the bugler on any unwelcome occasion
were absent this morning, for most of us were ready to rise, or already
risen. There was at first only a drizzle, in which I ate breakfast; it
surely was better than last night, with the steady rain running from my
hat into my stew as I bent over it, and cooling as well as diluting it,
besides searching out vulnerable parts of my person, which a poncho does
not truly protect. Yesterday I set my things down on a wet board; today I
stood at the high running-board of an auto-truck, a very desirable
position. Yet I thought my hands have seldom been colder than when I
stood in line this morning, unable to give them the protection of gloves
or pockets.

In the same drizzle we broke camp, packed our squad-bags and
blanket-rolls, and made our packs. It rained as we started, and the whole
outlook wa