War Service Letters 



455 



. . . "It was mighty good to hear from you, and I'm delighted to 

 know that Tap is coming. I think the Y. M. C. A. needs men just of his 

 type. From my own impressions of those I've met, it strikes me that 

 the clerical element is stronger than the jocund. They're good fellows 

 — splendid — but not amusing as they ought to be. Down here the great 

 majority of the boys have never seen the front. They're working terri- 

 bly hard at manual labor most of them, and in isolated camps where 

 they haven't any diversions at all. I can't imagine anything better for 

 them than one of Tap's 'lectures.' For his sake, however, I hope he 

 won't be tucked down quite as far from the war. I feel positively 

 ashamed to be so comfortable and to get so much sheer fun out of the 

 work as I do every once in a while. (I can't get over the sheer cheek 

 of my being here at all in my present exalted position!) . . . 



"The news from the front is making everyone very happy, though 

 there is a very wholesome lack of that confidence that the war is going 

 to be finished quickly and easily that is so apparent, after every little 

 advance, in our papers at home. There is not the slightest wavering in 

 the determination to fight to a satisfactory conclusion. The news of the 

 American victory at St. Mihiel yesterday has made every one wild with 

 joy. I have had the rather embarrassing experience of having my old 

 doctor publicly shake me by the hand and congratulate me on belonging 

 to such a valiant and noble country ! When I think, however, that we 

 are going into the battles fully prepared and equipped, and remember 

 how the French and English went in almost bare-handed, and how they 

 have fought the Boche back for four years, I can't feel as thoroughly 

 proud as I'd like. But we surely are popular with the French. One of 

 the American officers told me that when he and a fellow officer entered 

 a hotel dining-room at a resort in southern France a few days ago all 

 the French people applauded them. Strangely enough, they didn't like 

 it!" . . . 



... "The roads here are very fine, and the country, though monoton- 

 ous, is very pretty now. The great plane trees that arch above so many 

 of the roads are beginning to turn and shed their leaves. Like the syca- 

 mores, the leaves turn slowly, grow brown on the tree and are shed 

 almost one at a time. They do not seem so much to fade as to grow 

 thinner and more translucent, for the whole effect is a brightening of 

 the foliage to the tender greens of early spring. With the carpets of 

 brown leaves along the edges of the white roads and the sunshine flick- 

 ering down through the green arches, the color effects are enchant'.ig. 

 So too are the fields of purply-pink heather blooming now under the 

 pines, and a prickly bush with yellow flowers that looks like what I've 

 always thought gorse looked like. And all the brakes are turning a 

 rich, bright brown. Yesterday we came home, as we often do, at what 

 the French prettily call Theure mauve.' The air grew crisp and frosty 

 as soon as the sun dropped low, and as we rounded one low hill we saw, 



