You say Tad will go “in a few months.” I’m glad I’m not Tad. There are many reasons for this, of course, but I mean I am especially glad I’m not to go in a few months. I’m glad I’m a Sergeant in the 69th, a volunteer regiment, the bravest and best regiment in the army. I’m glad I have a golden service chevron on my left arm--that means six months service in France, and is better than two bars on my shoulder, which would mean only three months stay at Plattsburg. If I get an honorable wound that will unfit me for soldiering but not for civilian work, that civilian work will not be hack-writing. It may be straight reporting, or editing, or writing (_Evening World_ at $80 a week, for instance) a weekly essay-column, or dramatic criticism (this last appeals to me strongly). Also I’ll do less lecturing and more oratory--bombastic, thundering, literary, Henry Woodfin Grady oratory! It is exciting, and lecturing isn’t, especially. Meanwhile I find myself approving your plan of getting literary work, although doing it makes me feel like a coloured man approving his wife’s plan of taking in washing. You relieve my mind greatly by your willingness to keep your name off the book. I thought I would acknowledge to you the pleasure I got from “A Wind Rose in the Night.” It is a holy and dear poem. Please see that Kenton learns to serve Mass, won’t you? Sorry to keep teasing you about this, but you never write anything about it. Your poem “To a Sick Child” is beautiful, and “cookies” is the making of it. I love you. JOYCE. * * * * * May 18, 1918. Dear Aline: