Again a full, full week has slipped past, and I haven't even begun to tell you of the week before that. Such a life as I have gotten myself into! If I had any time to ponder at all I might get dizzy, but luckily there is nothing for me to do except use my wits and go on. Since I last wrote you I have been from ballet dancer on the mess hall stage to mother-confessor and staid counsellor of homesick boys. I have been cook and dishwasher, both on a wholesale scale, and I have been hostess at an officers' ball. I must tell you about the ballet dancing because it was such fun. I didn't want Valentine's day to go by without some little celebration, so I got the sergeants of the various companies together to see if we couldn't get up an impromptu stunt show. Everybody joined in enthusiastically, and in the afternoon we had an uproarious rehearsal in the Supply Co. Mess Hall which is also the Pouillenay theatre. A few violins and two drums were scraped together, and in half an hour we had a little orchestra playing such contagious ragtime that every one was jigging and beating time and cutting all sorts of capers. These boys went simply wild over the first music they had heard in months. The orchestra with the aid of a toothless old piano did wonders. There is lots of talent buried in khaki! The snare drum rolled finely, and another snare drum with the membrane loosened played the part of a rather pudgy, indecisive bass drum. It didn't matter! One boy made an ingenious whistle out of his mess kit, and trilled and whistled, generally playing the part of piccolo, giving life to the orchestra. The rehearsal, if it didn't put the finishing touches on our performance, at least was jolly good fun and filled us with invincible self-confidence for the evening. I had arranged a Valentine tableau for the end, and Mme. Gloriod at home had pinned hundreds of paper flowers on my gray steamer rug in the form of a huge heart. I had even written a sentimental poem which I was to read aloud, and on the whole it was to be a very pretty valentine, when suddenly, about six o'clock came the news that a Y.M.C.A. moving picture show had come to town and would have the mess hall that evening. Our show was off. I was disappointed, especially since the movie machine broke down in the middle of the performance and couldn't be fixed. However, we decided to give our show on the following Monday. And we did. And a ripping good show it was! It went off with snap and the audience was gratifyingly appreciative. Imagine the long, narrow mess hall with its dirt floor, board tables and benches, crowded and packed with soldiers. The light was dim and the air thick with tobacco smoke. At one end is the rough board stage with army blankets pinned up for curtains. Below the stage was the orchestra, all alert for its first performance, and back of the curtains were we, the actors, packed in pretty tight, amid all the excitement and bustle and fun of the moment before the curtain rises.