July 5. [1918]
Dear Miss D.
If I remember right your birthday
comes this month. I send this in
the same mail with one for Dick
but
I fear they will be late. I had luck
with Muriel's arriving on just the
26th.
Although supposedly not busy I have
been very much on the go lately.
Between my regular job of housekeeping,
looking after the material, and we
have had to list & repack over 25 cases,
and running errands, & trying to learn
about the insides of the Ford, and
celebrating the
4th, time has passed
very quickly. I would hate to say how
many parties I have been on in the
last week, they are over now but I feel
as if I had done nothing but lunch &
dine out. In the first place Mrs. Daly
has just been cited for the Croix de Guerre.
she is on her permission now, but
the medecin chef invited us to dinner
in her honor. She deserves to receive it
because she has worked hard; I believe
it is fairly hard for women to get
it so we feel very pleased & proud.
There is a little farm restaurant on
our grounds where we go very often.
We Eat among the ducks & chickens
& are served by a crazy maid, but
we get strawberries & cream & custard
for desert so we like it Extremely. I
love to get away because at home I
am always responsible for the maid
who is very careless & liable to throw
food down people's backs. It is up to
me always to scold her & I hate it.
After the war if we are bankrupt I see that my fate will be to run a
boarding house -- don't you think I
would look well in that capacity?
I just got a cable about Leverett.
I am sorry for the family's sake that
he is coming but I am sure he
would have regretted missing the
Experience over here. After the war there
is going to be a difference between
those who were in
France & those not.
I realize perfectly that those at home
work just as hard if not harder, & that
they have all the dirty uninteresting
things to do, but after the war there
is going to be a fellow feeling & Esprit
de corps amongst those who have been
to the front which Every man will
be glad to be a part of. You have
no conception how different things
are here from what you really think.
it one continual grind. We have our
hard weeks when we neither Eat nor
sleep regularly but then again we
have stretches of tranquility & peace.
In a sense you waste a lot of time
but you have to be organized for the
worst which means that a great
part of the time your personnel is
far too large. We have moments of
thinking our unit much too
cumbersome & then we look back to
the time when we were far too few.
It is all very interesting & I am sorry
you are not here to get a taste of
it.
Lunch is half way through so I
must stop.