not even
get this letter off to you.

Lenore, your brother is a very sick boy. I lost some hours finding
him. They did not want to let me see him. But I implored--said that
I was engaged to his sister--and finally I got in. The nurse was
very sympathetic. But I didn't care for the doctors in charge. They
seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have their troubles. The
hospital was a long barracks, and it was full of cripples.

The nurse took me into a small, bare room, too damp and cold for a
sick man, and I said so. She just looked at me.

Jim looks like you more than any other of the Andersons. I
recognized that at the same moment I saw how very sick he was. They
had told me outside that he had a bad case of pneumonia. He was
awake, perfectly conscious, and he stared at me with eyes that set
my heart going.

"Hello, Jim!" I said, and offered my hand, as I sat down on the bed.
He was too weak to shake hands.

"Who're you?" he asked. He couldn't speak very well. When I told him
my name and that I was his sister's fiance his face changed so he
did not look like the same person. It was beautiful. Oh, it showed
how homesick he was! Then I talked a blue streak about you, about
the girls, about "Many Waters"--how I lost my wheat, and everything.
He was intensely interested, and when I got through he whispered
that he guessed Lenore had picked a "winner." What do you think of
that? He was curious about me, and asked me questions till the nurse
made him stop. I was never so glad about anything as I was about the
happiness it evidently gave him to meet me and hear from home. I
promised to come next day if we did not sail. Then he showed what I
must call despair. He must have been passionately eager to get to
France. The nurse dragged me out. Jim called weakly after me:
"Good-by, Kurt. Stick some Germans for me!" I'll never forget his
tone nor his look.... Lenore, he doesn't expect to get over to
France.

I questioned the nurse, and she shook her head doubtfully. She
looked sad. She said Jim had been the lion of his regiment. I
questioned a doctor, and he was annoyed. He put me off with a sharp
statement that Jim was not in danger. But I think he is. I hope and
pray he recovers.

_Thursday_.

We sailed yesterday. It was a wonderful experience, leaving Hoboken.