In this great war, these poorer classes, peasants still, are the _poilus_ who keep the trench mud from driving them mad by that pint of the red French wine, and they sit about me now in a little old wine shop whose many-colored bottles, oft refilled, are as numerous in shapes and styles as the decades they have served. The walls are spotted and stained, and the ceilings smoked, but the delicate moldings in the stone tell of a day when this was the thriving hostelry of the village. Now the poorly dressed, worn-out veterans of the Great War bend over the scarred tables and confer or wrangle as to how their work, so hard begun, will end. DINSMORE. _February 18, 1918._ DEAR FAMILY: I am told that the American captain at this school is looking for me to offer me a second lieutenancy in the U. S. Army. I must decide immediately, and I am tempted to toss a coin. * * * * * _Well, this is the result_: I signed for the release from the army Français. I was refused a _permission_ to Paris and took it anyway to find out from the American authorities what would become of me. My trip to Paris was unsuccessful. I returned to camp late at night, and when I awoke in the morning I was told that the _permission_ had been granted after all and that I had been ordered to the Front at eleven o’clock that day in Escadrille S 102, Sector Postal 160, located near Toul. I stopped over at Paris a day and a half and landed here day before yesterday. So now, God be praised, I am at the Front. It has taken eight months to come to it, but I guess it will be worth it. YOUR SON. _Near Toul, France, February 26, 1918._ DEAR FATHER: Plessis Belleville was a great strain. I had to fight the curse of idleness and it is a losing fight, as with a man who is muscle bound who tires himself out. Reading, studying French, drawing and walking helped, but they were a failure through lack of inspiration. No Americans had been sent to the Front and there was a rumor that we were to be held there till the United States took us over. Then came the offer of our commissions as second lieutenants, and so inactive had our minds become that it upset us to decide. I asked for my release from the French Army although it is not what I wished to do; yet it seemed best. It means that I could hardly expect to go to the Front in French service and might have to wait months for action in United States service. I was in despair.