MilColl_WWI_82_Box2

hundred and fifty letters which my men have written to their Mamas [?James?] alice and Johns so that I can now restart a letter which I began to you Thursday last, - Thanksgiving Day. We celebrated it in the regular way - by stuffing, for the Government gave point to our thankfulness with much turkey.

I spent most of the day in the neighbouring town of X with Bill Ireland. It is larger than my own village of y, but the

mud there is not one bit deeper than it is here, and I think that we have a larger manure pile s[2 words crossed out] [5 words crossed out] [6 words crossed out] [3 words crossed out] After an exciting morning exploring a shop not meant for gentlemen, where Bill wanted to buy some French embroidery we returned to y with the customary observation of much travel that there is really no place like home.

At my bilet when I returned the good people told me that Theodore Roosevelt and his daughter

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had just passed through the village in an automobile which paused long enough for them to speak to the soldiers and beam upon them. As a matter of fact, it was the governor of Rhode Island and (I think) his wife, the moral of which incident is that, in addition to thinking all americans rich, the French consider Theodore Roosevelt the ne plus ultra of Americanism; [begin crossed out] and thought[end crossed out] and they thought nothing could be more natural than for him

2 to tour all over France over France on Thanksgiving Day to speak to the soldiers, which latter surmise is indeed a shrewd guess at just what that energetic man would like to do. The incident also brings out the characteristic aly close communication of the French who say and do everything publicaly; the rumour gained credence and became town news about three times as fast as it could ever have done in America, that proper country of our own.

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By no indirect curiosity of my own, but by each natural move as one becomes aware of sunshine and flowers, I have learned the habits of the village. Frank is the word to describe them, frankness, with no touch of self consciousness. It is astonishing what subjects one can mention in conversation with a full, even, voice, or do in public with no breach of dignity. Propriety like charity is an expansive word.

The prevailing notion here that all americans are rich