dentally
drop it--excellent for scouring, but not good for other cleaning purposes
until its new covering is dissolved away. Send me also some paper napkins
folded; the supply at the mess-shacks sometimes gives out.

A bit of character. Lucy was looking this morning rather helplessly at
his silk pajamas, and wondering where he could get them washed, when
there entered the tent a handsome and stalwart regular. "Washing?" he
inquired respectfully. "Oh," asked Lucy hopefully, "are you an agent for
some laundress?" "No," said the man, "I wash them myself. I guarantee to
return everything tomorrow, properly done." The boy was not merely
surprised, but almost shocked. "_You_ do the work?" he asked. Then his
native kindness came to his aid, and he was about to bundle all his
clothes into the fellow's hands, when Knudsen said, quietly but very
pointedly, "When I'm here at camp I wash my own clothes." David flushed
quite pink. "Then I think I'll do the same."

"It's good for him," said Knudsen to me afterward. "It's good for him to
be called Lucy. It's good for him to learn to shave himself with that
razor. I was going to tell him to buy himself a safety razor, but thought
I'd better not."

I'm glad I left David to find his own nurse. Knudsen manages him with
certainty. On the other hand the boy likes him immensely, even though the
taciturn Swede does but a small share of the talking when they are
together. He is a foundryman, had a hard struggle to establish his
growing business, and has in consequence a fierce outlook on the world,
as one who at any time may have to fight for his own. David, by
persistent but most tactful questioning, has brought out two salient
facts in his biography. Knudsen is first the son of an immigrant, talks
Swedish in his home, has none of the American background which to David
is a man's birthright. And second he is a college man, from Hobart. Over
these two facts the boy is sadly perplexed. Legally, Knudsen is as
American as the rest of us--but can he be? Socially he is also all right,
since he is a college man--but after all can you call Hobart a college?
Don't blame David. It's not his fault if he's narrow-minded.

I shall close and mail this letter now, and at the first convenient
opportunity shall begin the next. I foresee that my letters to you will
be practically a continuous performance. Love from

DICK.

FROM PRIV