The small-town idea prevails even in the city of thirty thousand lonesome men. The “Post Exchange” and the “Post Office” are the two centres of interest. First we wander to one, and then we wander to the other, then with time on our hands we join the stream of men going up one side of the road “just walkin’” and when we reach the point where most of the crowd turns back, we turn back, too, and continue our “walkin’,” with no particular place to go, until the streets begin to get deserted and it is time for the town to close up. Then we disappear, too, and for an hour occupy ourselves in the barracks until taps are sounded and lights are out, when we go to bed; the place I’m headed for now, so soon as I put the top on my fountain pen. Wednesday: [Illustration: Sick Call] That’s the call that brings out all the shirkers. They line up in the morning and present all sorts of ailments from sore throat to heart disease. The line is especially long on mornings when they know we are in for two hours of “settin’-ups” or when some especially hard detail such as camp orderly or kitchen police has been handed out. A day in the hospital will relieve one of all these duties. This morning I was on the long line. But I hasten to explain that _I_ was sick (that’s what they all say, of course,) with chills and a scrapy feeling in my throat; and since we are forbidden to take any medicine of our own, I shame-facedly line up with the rest of them. There were about twenty all told and the doctor made short work of us. “What’s the matter with you?” very cross. “I-I-I-here—it hurts,” said one, pointing to his back and looking quite scared. The M. D. poked his finger into the spot designated. “Man you’re not sick,” said the doctor in a very startling manner, “you’re almost dead, only you won’t lie down. You’ve dislocated a couple of vertibraes, ruptured a half-dozen ligaments and like as not you have a chronic case of pneumonia. The only thing that I can recommend for you is two hours of strenuous exercise. You may pull through and you may not.” Then, with a malicious grin, he turned to the next man and the first invalid shuffled off, mumbling something about horse doctors without any horse sense. Two out of twenty of us got by. The rest went to work. I was one of the two. I had a slight temperature and an inflamed throat. Nothing serious, but report to the hospital. I did. And the best thing about the hospital was the fact that there were two sheets on the bed and I had an abbreviated flannel nightshirt to sleep in. Three big pills, the size of bullets and just as deadly, and then I turned in, went to sleep and slept right through mess time. Four o’clock I was feeling very much better and ravenously hungry and at five o’clock I was discharged as cured. I don’t know what I was cured of, but I’m feeling much spryer just now after three helpings of beef stew and apple marmalade and I’m ready to turn in and sleep some more. Thursday: