World War I Letters

2nd Lieut Robert B House Officers Mail 183 Inf.A.E.[?4?] O.A.[?S?overwritten] [stamp - ARMY POSTAL SERVICE 4PM NOV 20 NO.9] 1917

Mrs J. A. House Thelma, North Carolina, N.S.A. 279

would smother in there very quickly. They take a jug of hot water to bed with them, and also sit with their feet on little braziers full of coals.

Wood is very scarce in France. Consequently the people use every twig available, They pick up faggots and bundle them up very neatly for kindling.

[Dec 5, 1917?]

Dear Mama, Snow came last night and covered up the manure piles so that this morning they look as pretty as grass plots. The cold has frozen their smell stiff and hardened the mud, and the fountain now [?parts?] crystal clear on a white village. What a lovely morning!

It is a morning of leisure for me too because my company worked yesterday, which was Sunday, at unloading freight. I have just [censored?] one

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hundred and fifty letters which my men have written to their Mamas [?James?] alice and Johns so that I can now restart a letter which I began to you Thursday last, - Thanksgiving Day. We celebrated it in the regular way - by stuffing, for the Government gave point to our thankfulness with much turkey.

I spent most of the day in the neighbouring town of X with Bill Ireland. It is larger than my own village of y, but the

mud there is not one bit deeper than it is here, and I think that we have a larger manure pile s[2 words crossed out] [5 words crossed out] [6 words crossed out] [3 words crossed out] After an exciting morning exploring a shop not meant for gentlemen, where Bill wanted to buy some French embroidery we returned to y with the customary observation of much travel that there is really no place like home.

At my bilet when I returned the good people told me that Theodore Roosevelt and his daughter

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had just passed through the village in an automobile which paused long enough for them to speak to the soldiers and [leave upon?] [?them?]. As a matter of fact, it was the governor of Rhode Island and (I think) his wife, the moral of which incident is that, in addition to thinking all americans rich, the French consider Theodore Roosevelt the ne plus ultra of Americanism; [begin crossed out] and thought[end crossed out] and they thought nothing could be more natural than for him

2 to tour all over France over France on Thanksgiving Day to speak to the soldiers, which latter surmise is indeed a shrewd guess at just what that energetic man would like to do. The incident also brings out the characteristic aly close communication of the French who say and do everything publicaly; the rumour gained credence and became town news about three times as fast as it could ever have done in America, that proper country of our own.

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received no discouragement when the soldiers got their pay last week after waiting for it two months. Their lust to spend very easily overcame the fact that there was little here to buy and the sagacity of the shop keepers likewise [remedied?] the fact that there was nothing expensive. Champagne glad to go for five francs in the morning refused to budge for twelve francs by midnight of pay-day. And one soldier who desired mutton chops but couldn't say so compromised with his ignorance

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of French by buying the whole sheep. By the following morning no drop of wine, no tobacco, no chocolate in the town remained unbought or, for the most part, unconsumed. The business sagacity of the villagers has also met this defict with a multitude of shops in [???] sitting - rooms. And still the soldiers buy, drink, and eat. They are not temperate in their enjoyment, neither are they bestial; and they certainly are generous. Many a little

3 urchin that had forgotten the taste of chocolate has revived it since pay-day. The french soldiers too have fraternized convivially with the boys, sometimes not at all wisely, as was the case with [?Normie's] spy. [?Normie?] Dow found a man asleep on a straw pile and captured him for a spy. The Colonel turned him loose, as [?Normie?] says because he spoke French, [?Normies?] [?Swedish?] [goul?] 290