Children -- France -- Correspondence; Children -- United States -- Correspondence
sed, I am going to give him the best lickin of his life, and dad rolld
up his sleeves and sed, Not till you lick me first! And Max kind of
lookd at dad just like in the dream and I guess he was scart, so he
sed, If you will promise to see he is punisht I will leve it to you,
and dad sed, I promise, and Max left and dad he come up and was mad as
ole get out, and he took my pistol and canon away and I had ruther he
had give me a lickin because after too days you can set down and are
al-rite again. We have just herd the Yanks have landid somewhere in
France. Say, if you want to see a bunch of rele fiters you just go
take a look at them, and you mite tell your brother Jules to take a
look at them two as he might get some idees from them. I cant tell you
what all those words mean, gee whiz is just gee whiz and a feler is a
guy who is about 12 or 18, and a bum is a feler or something that is
no good, and a pollywog is a animal that is going to be a frog, and
pooh-pooh is pooh-pooh, and bughouse means you have rats in the upper
story, and you had better find out about the getysberg adress and the
boy scouts and mebbe and the dickens yourself but I wood go easy on
them if I was you. What you want to go askin me all those things fer
ennyway? I aint askin you what the vacancies, or all of a hit, or
pending, of enny of those things are, am I? I got your photo and I
like the way your hare curls and your eyes two and everythin, and I am
glad you are not laffin. Girls that giggle are the limit. I have only
one photo of myself and I look as if I wood dye grinning becaus the
man that took it was jumpin up and down and sayin, Look hear! Look
hear! Say wood you relly like to have it? I dont think you wood, I
dont see what good I am ennyway. I am two young to inlist and I dont
think you relly like me. I guess mebbe I had better go to sea or
something.
Your affeckshunate godfather,
James P. Jackson Jr.
P.S. I went butterflying to-day and had good luck.
18 rue d'Autancourt, Paris.
August 2, 1917.
Dear godfather:
You know what it is the "cafard?" In the dictionary it say it is a
"roach" and that is the little beast black like your pollywogs, I
think. But in the Poilu talk it means not that. When there is no more
fun in life, and I am not good for anything anyhow, like you say,
that is what they call to have the "cafard." And it is very bad in the
army. It is to have a bad morale and we must wind ourselves up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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