hope, the
doctors said, and he was getting worse all the time. But some New
York surgeon advised operation, anyway. So they opened that
healed-over place in his head, where the pick-handle hit--and what
do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle, stuck two
inches under his skull, in his brain! They took it out. Every day
they expected Montana to die. But he didn't. But he _will_ die. I
went over to see him. He's unconscious part of the time--crazy the
rest. No part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why
couldn't that soak he got have been on the Kaiser's head?

I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his eye teeth cut in this getting
ready to go to war. It makes me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be
chased into a climate that doesn't agree with me--not to sweep roads
and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but say! I've
got to cut out that kind of talk.

I feel almost as far away from you all as if I were in China. But
I'm nearer France! I hope you're well and standing pat, Lenore.
Remember, you're dad's white hope. I was the black sheep, you know.
Tell him I don't regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers
didn't and he needn't. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell
them not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before--I'll write you
often now, so cheer up.

Your loving brother,

Jim.

Camp--, _October_--.

My Dearest Lenore,--If my writing is not very legible it is because
my hand shakes when I begin this sweet and sacred privilege of
writing to my promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is
the second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time! You
must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener and for not
giving you definite address.

I did not want to be in the Western regiment, for reasons hard to
understand. I enlisted in New York and am trying hard to get into
the Rainbow Division, with some hope of success. There is nothing to
me in being a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one
will see action first of all American units. I don't want to be an
officer, either.

How will it be possible for me to write you as I want to--letters
that will be free of the plague of myself--letters that you can
treasure if I never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget
the