Pending his permission of four days, he teach little Jean the chants of the regiment.  Some are not for the little infants, Maman says, so he whistle them.  But Jean love the military chants much more than the ones of latin he learn to sing in the church, and I hope he mix them not.  Dear godfather, tomorrow is Easter and I am making an egg for you.  It is a surprise so I tell you not what is in it.

Your affeckshunate godchild,
Andree Leblanc.

[14] Tables black (tableaux noirs) black boards. [15] Empeche myself (m’empecher) I cannot help. [16] Like it must (comme il faut) nicely.

May 5, 1917. 
Greenville Falls, N.Y.

Deer godchild,

Gee whiz but Kaiser Bill is in fer it!  Gee whiz, you ot to see how Uncle Sam is fixin up fer him!  Jo Kelly and Walter Daly and lot of the felers are going in fer aviashun and Bill Wilson’s scout-master and organizin a crack bunch of boy scouts and we have a home Deefence and dad has got a uniform and a wooden gun and he sez it is a pretty good bunch of felers, but he cood do more with them if he was captin insted of mister Larkin, who is a good feler but a bum eaptin.  I aint sayin much but I got a few idees and I woodnt let it sprize you if I was to invent something one of these days, but I cant tell you what it is becaus the censer wood cut it out.  I got your egg and I thank you fer it, but say it got me in dutch al-right, it was this way, the postman brot the packidge just as I was going to school and I didn’t have time to open it so I took it along and we was havin some speshul exercises fer a kernel Dudley who was to talk on, Do your bit to help win the war, and Bug Hadley was recitin the getysberg adress and I opened the packidge and their was your egg all smasht up.  I guess them cardboard eggs aint very strong, or mebbe the censer didn’t handel it gently, ennyhow it was smasht and the curl inside it was there alrite only it was kind of mixt up with the cream candy and I was unmixin them when Lily Graham who set beehind me whisperd to Erny Dinkelheim, who is Max Dinkelheims youngist son, Jimmy Jacksons girl in France has sent him a curl! and Erny started to laff and say, O you Curly—­Curly Jackson! and I sed, You shut up! and he sed, O pooh-pooh—­pooh-pooh—­and I sed, Dont you pooh-pooh me! and he sed, Who will I pooh-pooh then? and I sed, Pooh-pooh the Kaiser, and he sed, The Kaiser wont let me pooh-pooh him and you leave him alone!  And I sed, The Kaiser is bughouse, and Erny he made a grab at me and landed me one on the chin, and I paisted him one on the eye and Bug Hadley he stopt sayin the getysberg adress, and miss Davis she was jumpin up and down hollerin O boys, O boys, stop them, stop them! and kernel Dudley he hopt off the stand and pulld us apart, and miss Davis was fer puttin us on the platferm with our arms on each others shoulders, but the kernel sed, No, it is that other boys falt, send him home.  So they sent Erny home and he was mad as time.  Then