I had found the people of the household, at first hand, to be reasonable creatures and I couldn’t grumble at the hardness of the work. I was particularly astonished at the five meals of substantial food a day! I thought, too, of the men captured with me and how much worse they must be faring. Three hundred of them, I knew, had gone to Lille to work behind the German line. I had stood at the camp gate to bid them goodbye as they marched away, for I knew them almost to a man. Poor fellows, still without help from England, they hobbled away in their rags and “clogs,” and tattered uniforms (in the middle of January) with their three slices of bread _for a two days’ journey_, in one hand. But could I believe my ears! They were singing!--for Tommy always sings when breaking camp--“Here We Are, Here We Are, Here We Are Again,” it was, and they sang it right lustily. I thought less painfully of the comrades which I had left in my last camp--my room-mates, Fred, Charley and Jack. I wondered if Jack was still “cleaning up” at pontoon, if Fred was getting his parcels again, and if Charley was still making those famous “burgoo” puddings. At last my thoughts drifted inevitably across the sea and home, and I dreamt of home afterward. Indeed, the next morning I could not tell where my thoughts had left off and my dream had begun. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [1] Italian: Bread. [2] German: Bread. [3] Italian: Good comrade. CHAPTER V _My First Hardship_ There were two girls on the place, Miga, the farmer’s daughter, and Erna, the milkmaid. The latter, a big, muscular, typically German peasant girl, took it upon herself to be my special guardian and tutor in the art of agriculture, and came to play no less a part in my life than that of my Woman of Destiny and Chief Tormentor. Of course, I had told the _Unteroffizier_[4] that I could farm--for farming was certainly better than mining or munitions making--but, as a matter of fact, beyond the items that horses ate hay and cows gave milk, and a general hazy idea that there was a lot of digging attached to it, I knew nothing about it. So my tutor had plenty to do--and she did it quite thoroughly. Aside from her formidable physique, she had a tone of command which could but strike awe in a new and unsophisticated _Gefangener_. My greenness she found most uproariously funny, and she gave me every opportunity to exhibit it. I was put on all of those delightful tasks which are especially reserved for green-horns, such as chasing the pigs, leading the cows to the village bull, putting the halter on an uncatchable colt in the pasture, or lifting a board which was nailed down.