My friend Montana fooled everybody. He didn't die. He seems to be
hanging on. Lately he recovered consciousness. Told me he had no
feeling on his left side, except sometimes his hand itched, you
know, like prickly needles. But Montana will never be any good
again. That fine big cowboy! He's been one grand soldier. It sickens
me sometimes to think of the difference between what thrilled me
about this war game and what we get. Maybe, though--There goes my
call. I must close. Love to all.

Jim.

New York City, _October_--.

Dearest Lenore,--It seems about time that I had a letter from you.
I'm sure letters are on the way, but they do not come quickly. The
boys complain of the mail service. Isn't it strange that there is
not a soul to write me except you? Jeff, my farm-hand, will write me
whenever I write him, which I haven't done yet.

I'm on duty here in New York at an armory bazaar. It's certainly the
irony of fate. Why did the officer pick on me, I'd like to know? But
I've never complained of an order so far, and I'm standing it.
Several of us--and they chose the husky boys--have been sent over
here, for absolutely no purpose that I can see except to exhibit
ourselves in uniform. It's a woman's bazaar, to raise money for
war-relief work and so on. The hall is almost as large as that field
back of your house, and every night it is packed with people, mostly
young. My comrades are having fun out of it, but I feel like a fish
out of water.

Just the same, Lenore, I'm learning more every day. If I was not so
disgusted I'd think this was a wonderful opportunity. As it is, I
regard it only as an experience over which I have no control and
that interests me in spite of myself. New York is an awful
place--endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with hurrying
throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and dust. I am always
choked for air. And these streets reek. Where do the people come
from and where are they going? They look wild, as if they had to go
somewhere, but did not know where that was. I've no time or
inclination to see New York, though under happier circumstances I
think I'd like to.

People in the East seem strange to me. Still, as I never mingled
with many people in the West, I cannot say truly whether Eastern
people are different from Western people. B